Posts by hammerstak

1) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Does S@H still need all the computing power? (Message 1807593)
Posted 6 Aug 2016 by Profile hammerstak
Post:
Been a long time since I posted.....

I just started contributing to this project again after many years off (no desktop/laptop) - seems to me now looking at the science data that a) S@H is still splitting data back from six years ago, and b) the results S@H gets back are backlogged quite a bit for validation.

So my question is, for people more in the know than me.....does S@H still need all the computing power it is getting? Or are they officially in a "bottleneck" and computing power would be better used on another project until they can handle the amount of data they're getting back?

It seems an awful shame to me that we're getting Breakthrough Listen data, and there is little to no fanfare about it (and apparently, no funds from the Breakthrough Initiatives to help support S@H, but I could be wrong)....
2) Message boards : News : Setizen Jack Lass has passed away. (Message 1807224)
Posted 5 Aug 2016 by Profile hammerstak
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This was a bit of a punch to the gut mixed with nostalgia. I remember "fighting" with Jack way, way back in the day on the old forums.....don't remember what about or why. I think I was just a young whippersnapper and he wasn't having any of it.....

Wow....that was probably 14 or 15 years ago....just seeing his name again is a trip down memory lane.

Rest in peace, old nemesis :)
3) Message boards : SETI@home Science : The future of SETI@home (Message 990980)
Posted 22 Apr 2010 by Profile hammerstak
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THAT'S the kind of page I think we'd all love to see. Hopefully the NTPCKR is up and running soon, along with some interesting feedback such as what USED to exist back in 2006!
4) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Donations - I said it once...... (Message 990317)
Posted 19 Apr 2010 by Profile hammerstak
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.....and I'll say it again. This beloved project will sink (and seems to be sinking) fast if some major changes aren't made.

There have been no shortage of suggestions.....a privileged section of the website for monthly donors, opening up to corporate sponsorship, the S@H staff selling their bodies in downtown LA.....

ANYTHING! The current system is not working.....donation drives and e-mails generate small spurts of money, but not enough to sustain this project.....

SETI@home is THE original distributed computing project (if it isn't, it's the first hugely successful one) and to let it wither and die is unacceptable.

I'll be getting a credit card next week, and when it arrives the first thing I'm going to do is donate. But obviously it's a drop in a bucket with very few drops, especially this month.....

Discuss.
5) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Kepler discovers first five planets (Message 988528)
Posted 12 Apr 2010 by Profile hammerstak
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Actually I just read recently that there is a software update being done shortly that addresses the safe mode issue.....so it looks like they've done something about it. Hopefully it works.
6) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Kepler discarded science data (Message 949739)
Posted 25 Nov 2009 by Profile hammerstak
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I think if we knew there was a second planet like Earth, lets say 8 or 10 light years away, this would drive peoples imaginations once again to invent and build a space craft that might travel there one day. It would provide great hope for humanity!

John.


Bingo. That's exactly the type of excitement the space program needs. This is why I'm so excited about Kepler, and why I feel strongly about SETI. Two things that would help make people here realize that "we" are the whole planet, not Canadians, Japanese, Russian, etc. Nothing like a little perspective to make you realize we're all in this together.
7) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Kepler discarded science data (Message 949080)
Posted 22 Nov 2009 by Profile hammerstak
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Hey John - A couple of things.....

First of all, I was really excited about Kepler too and was hoping for thousands of earth like planets to be found by now :P. Unfortunately, after doing a bit more homework, I found out that we will probably not hear about earthlike planets for several years yet. Basically, an earthlike planet would have to have an orbital period in the neighborhood of ours. And seeing as the Kepler mission requires three confirmed transits to verify the existence of a planet, there is 0 percent chance that any earthlike planets will be announced in the near future. There just hasn't been enough data collection yet.

Also, with the discarded light graphs.....remember that what you're looking at is a graph with maybe a week's worth of data collection on it (run the math on the x-axis).....if there is a planet where you're looking, it has an orbital period of one day or so (by my calculation). I'm sure the Kepler team knows exactly what they're looking for, and wouldn't miss any planets for no good reason. But I do think it's cool that we have access to that data, and you never really know what you might find.....
8) Message boards : Cafe SETI : It's too cloudy for meteor hunting with my eyes tonight...... (Message 947788)
Posted 17 Nov 2009 by Profile hammerstak
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......if you're in the same boat, hunt with your ears!

http://wowzaweb.streamguys.com/~spaceweather/

Enjoy! Not much action right now but in a few hours there should be some!
9) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Did anyone evet thought maybe seti@home is with them???? (Message 939389)
Posted 12 Oct 2009 by Profile hammerstak
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F@H has more money because it has practical uses. SETI doesnt really have a practical use for scientists. Even if we found a "real" signal we wou8ldnt be able to really do anything with this other than to say, "hey an alien sent a signal out several hundred years ago and we just got it."


Something tells me that we'd be saying a little more than that :).

I would think the religious and scientific implications would keep us busy for a very long time. The problem with SETI is that you have nothing, or you have everything. There is no "kind of" answer when it comes to extraterrestrial intelligent life. There is, or isn't.

And so far, there isn't.
10) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Maybe you will know what is this (Message 932822)
Posted 12 Sep 2009 by Profile hammerstak
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I think that Jim-R has it right.Lightning strikes somewhere on the earth 100 times a day on average (or so I'm told) that's about every 15 Minutes.


I would be inclined to think that it's actually 100 times a second on average (for the entire earth). There's no way it could be one lighting strike every 15 minutes......


An old estimate of the frequency of lightning on Earth was 100 times a second. Now that there are satellites that can detect lightning, including in places where there is nobody to observe it, it is known to occur on average 44 ± 5 times a second, for a total of nearly 1.4 billion flashes per year.[90][91] 80% of these flashes are in-cloud and 20% are cloud-to-ground.

Source: Wikipedia (lightning)

11) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Maybe you will know what is this (Message 932819)
Posted 12 Sep 2009 by Profile hammerstak
Post:
I think that Jim-R has it right.Lightning strikes somewhere on the earth 100 times a day on average (or so I'm told) that's about every 15 Minutes.


I would be inclined to think that it's actually 100 times a second on average (for the entire earth). There's no way it could be one lighting strike every 15 minutes......
12) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Planetquest BOINC project (Message 874467)
Posted 11 Mar 2009 by Profile hammerstak
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Hmmmm...why am I blue? New board feature I don't understand?

Well that reply is the standard response I've gotten a few times over the past three years. Besides the Kepler stuff, obviously. Always "we're halfway done this", "we hope to do that". It wouldn't be so frustrating if it hadn't been about five or six years since the project first came into existence.

What bothers me the most is that these guys would be absolutely gobsmacked with the support they'd receive if only they put more effort into getting the word out and making some real headway on the project. The way they describe the project, I honestly believe they're going to have the most willing participants out of all distributed computing projects. Who wouldn't want to discover a planet?

Well, I wish them well, but I don't see how anyone is going to donate their money having watched this fiasco play out over years and years. I sincerely hope they have some sort of plan that is actually going to bear fruit, but I'm not holding my breath. I finished doing that about three years ago.
13) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Planetquest BOINC project (Message 856267)
Posted 22 Jan 2009 by Profile hammerstak
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<cough>

Has anyone donated money to this project? I'm just curious. And if you have, are you comfortable with the fact that it's taking so long, and has no definite timeline for becoming operational?

14) Message boards : Number crunching : Seti Halloween Donation Challenge (Message 821297)
Posted 21 Oct 2008 by Profile hammerstak
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I'm glad there's so much enthusiasm to help SETI@home. Unfortunately, I've made as many donations as I'm comfortable with to SETI@home, and I really hope that there is a solution on the horizon for the funding issues SETI@home is facing.

I'd never suggest that people stop donating to SETI@home, but we're really at a point where we're bleeding to death, and we're simply putting tablespoons of blood back into the body. The sooner something can be done about funding, the better.

And when a little more time has passed between donation drives, I will gladly put a day's work into the kitty.
15) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Give Us A Caption! VI-*CLOSED* (Message 806513)
Posted 9 Sep 2008 by Profile hammerstak
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OK! 48 hours is up, and we had some good ones:

SECOND RUNNER UP is Blurf with "(During the Water Balloon toss Renaldo hears someone say....) "New England Patriots QB Tom Brady just blew out his knee and is out for the season!"

FIRST RUNNER UP is Mr. Gray with "Jeff's never been quite the same since the "Alien" movies came out."

And our WINNER is.....<drum roll please>

ROBERT WAITE with "Renaldo realizes, with horror, that his seven year reign as the catch king in the festered bladder toss is about to end."
16) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Give Us A Caption! VI-*CLOSED* (Message 805721)
Posted 7 Sep 2008 by Profile hammerstak
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Don't know if this is against the rules BUT I'm not going to pick myself as the winner.....just had something pop up in my head so I thought I'd get us started.....

"John suddenly discovers he has a water balloon phobia during fun day at the office."
17) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Give Us A Caption! VI-*CLOSED* (Message 805720)
Posted 7 Sep 2008 by Profile hammerstak
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OK, here goes, round two:

18) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Give Us A Caption! VI-*CLOSED* (Message 805719)
Posted 7 Sep 2008 by Profile hammerstak
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Aw sorry guys....admittedly I haven't been playing since the start. Let me put up another one......not much fun doing one twice I'd imagine!
19) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Give Us A Caption! VI-*CLOSED* (Message 805680)
Posted 7 Sep 2008 by Profile hammerstak
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Woohoo! My first win. I am truly humbled and honored. I'd like to thank Janet Reno's homeliness for assisting me in this win!



20) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Give Us A Caption! VI-*CLOSED* (Message 805124)
Posted 5 Sep 2008 by Profile hammerstak
Post:
Janet Reno decides to disrupt the Republican Convention by running topless amongst the crowd.


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