Posts by Mr. Kevvy

11) Message boards : Number crunching : AVG is flagging AP6_win_x86_SSE2_OpenCL_NV_r1761.exe (Message 1359803)
Posted 57 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Using Lunatics platform. The module catching this is Identity Protection. Unfortunately there are no details provided. (The field cut off on the right edge just says "File or folder" as the object type, not what is triggering the detection.)

I ensured it wasn't quarantined, yet I can no longer find this file at the location indicated, but instead in the oldApp_backup subfolder. For some reason the C:\ProgramData\BOINC\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu has become read-only.

I ran it through VirusTotal after re-extracting it from the original download archive, verified it has the same hash as the one in oldApp_backup, and it came up clean with 0/46. So it's probably a false positive.

12) Message boards : SETI@home Science : 3 earth like planets discovered. (Message 1358211)
Posted 61 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Awesome! Three more good candidates for the Green Bank project to look at... er... when it finally gets going more than a preliminary search. :^)

13) Message boards : Number crunching : Win 7 update bomb... (Message 1357014)
Posted 64 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Linux has been very successful... just not on the place it was expected to be: desktops. But you may have heard of this variant of it called "Android" among others. :^)

14) Message boards : Number crunching : Win 7 update bomb... (Message 1356571)
Posted 66 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Fastest / lowest-impact way of getting rid of the bad update on Vista/7/8/2008/2012 (not XP):

Open a command prompt (CMD in the program name if you can't find it; admin. privileges required obviously) Then type in or paste:

wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:2823324 /quiet /norestart

Press Enter and you're done. Could be turned into a tiny .BAT of course too.

15) Message boards : News : Server Relocation (Message 1356562)
Posted 66 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Also perhaps the fora name of Number Crunching should be changed to Number Crunching & Assistance.

The "Politics" forum would also benefit from being renamed to "Politics and Religion" as this is where the threads on the latter either start or get moved to. Most forums have them clumped like this as they are the inflammatory subjects that need constant watch from the moderators.

16) Message boards : News : Server Relocation (Message 1353236)
Posted 75 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

... 900+ kBps...

Fixed that for ya. :^)

Mine also going, oh, about a hundred times the speed. I'd say the move was worth it!

17) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Where is THIS Seti's science ? (Message 1351966)
Posted 81 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

I've been trying to start a fundraiser for whatever hardware would be required to get the Green Bank project going (there was some data collection and analysis but it wasn't distributed to us so was very small-scale and preliminary.) So far, I've never had to work so hard to give money away. :^) Things are in transition so I'll have to sit tight until they settle down.

What I'd really like to do, though: The GPUUG upload/download servers which also include NTPCKR are just about $19K away. I could definitely commit $5K to a matching fundraiser once they are closer to $15K. It would have to be a 2-for-1 ie for every $2 donated I would donate $1... just a poor working IT man. :^)

But before I ponied up that kind of change, I would need assurance that it would be put to use, ie that NTPCKR would run 24/7 and also be run on all the years of archival data, and of course that the results would be used! Once the project is settled into its new home, I'll see if that can happen. I'm not interested in just chucking results in a database to collect dust either, and although I love astronomy and all the science, that isn't the primary reason that I'm here. I think that the assurance would go a long way to keeping many of the volunteers on the project as well, never mind just my donation.

18) Message boards : Number crunching : All this work...nothing to show.... (Message 1351780)
Posted 81 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

This thread is along the same lines.

19) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Planck results (Message 1351566)
Posted 82 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Gravitational lensing has been observed. Indeed, it has become an important tool in the astronomer's kit-bag.

Ah... I knew there was one I was missing from gravitational redshift, time dilation, the equivalence principle and relativistic frame-dragging, all predicted by G.R. and confirmed by observation (some of which to a high degree of accuracy.)

20) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Planck results (Message 1350830)
Posted 84 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

You can start by watching the following:

Doesn't really lead anywhere. His main point is that Einstein's field equations are a one-body solution, but the universe isn't one-body, so therefore they don't work. He doesn't explain why they don't. You can determine the gravitational attraction of a single mass in G.R. because it is a factor of the curvature of spacetime, without needing a second unit mass to pull against as Newton's gravity does.

He's also forgetting the ample confirmation that Einstein's field equations do work. Attempting to disprove General Relativity mathematically is all well and good, but it has so far passed every test that has been thrown at it (ie gravitational redshift, time dilation, the equivalence principle, relativistic frame-dragging.) If he has a good point, he should publish and be subjected to peer review, also explaining why experiments that confirmed G. R. are wrong, or how his hypothesis could explain them better. This is how science is done, not by making YouTube videos.

He does have a point about black holes though: they don't *really* happen, and I'd better qualify a blanket statement like that... there's nothing wrong with the General Relativity behind them, rather, there's a component of General Relativity itself that scientists who discuss black holes always overlook for simplicity's sake: gravitational time dilation!

Here's the not-too-difficult equation for gravitational time dilation:

r0 is the Schwarzchild radius of the body, at which point the escape velocity becomes c, the speed of light, r is the radius of the body (the collapsing star in this case), t0 is the passage of time within the star and tf is time outside. The important component of the equation is the last one. As the star collapses, r approaches r0 so the fraction approaches 1, and thus t0 approaches zero, asymptotically. Why asymptotically? Because t0 is the passage of time within the star, which is approaching zero.

So, seen from the outside, a collapsing star would *appear* to form a black hole. As it collapsed, it would appear to do so more and more slowly, and get redder and dimmer until it was invisible, at progressively lower frequencies until it was completely undetectable by emission. It would be a tiny fraction away from being inside its own event horizon/Schwarzchild radius, but to actually get there would take an infinite amount of time. It would have all of the properties associated with a black hole by being a few billionths or so of a part away from actually being one, but it could never actually get there for an outside observer. The only way to even to try see it get there would be to jump into one! The observer (assuming they weren't instantly ripped to pieces by the tidal forces) would catch up to the timeframe of the collapsing star, which then could be seen to enter its own Schwarzchild radius. By doing this, an eternity would then pass outside and the universe would end! So it may not be possible at all. Do primordial true black holes exist? I'm not sure. But the math is pretty clear that point masses and infinite gravitational densities can't form, at least while we are watching!

Because of this effect, the astrophysicist George Greenstein proposed that black holes be called "frozen stars" instead.

So, it turns out both "sides" are correct. Black holes do exist as collapsed stars where the escape velocity is 99.9...% of c (and you can pile as many 9s after that as you like), the emission of photons is an undetectable few per year (also approaching zero as time passes) and all the other properties assigned to and confirmed through observation from black holes are there (gravitational lensing, jets, emissions of X-rays from matter pulled into it, etc.) as well as the (asymptotic) approach of infinite density and gravitational field strength, but they don't exist insofar as we can never have enough time to actually get to that last tiny fraction of completeness, never mind infinite density!

I hope this puts the "controversy" to rest but I doubt it will. ;^)

21) Message boards : Cafe SETI : LOL...here's a true whiskey lover. (Message 1349675)
Posted 87 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

At least he drank it in moderation...

22) Message boards : News : Server Relocation (Message 1349224)
Posted 89 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

If I remember correctly the original announcement about the possibility of making this move, it would allow for more bandwidth for downloads (I could be wrong).

I hope so... there ends up being even more traffic if there isn't enough bandwidth due to all the retries (ie uploads don't resume.) That would be a great improvement and well worth the outage.

23) Message boards : News : Server Relocation (Message 1349125)
Posted 89 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Let Einstein have a burst. Just put it on NNT after one work request.

I just set it to a resource share of zero. Then it only grabs work units when SAH doesn't have anything to do for either CPU or GPU. Sometimes E@H is a little too generous on the CPU side but the GPU side units will only download one at a time like this, and never if SAH has one ready.

24) Message boards : Number crunching : Limits and 19/20 March Outage (Message 1348701)
Posted 90 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Whatever was done last night, I had a load of downloads in queue at 17h00 PDT and although the upload server went offline, the downloads stayed going for hours and they all completed. So no complaints here. :^) That was an unexpected bonus.

25) Message boards : Cafe SETI : SHGb02+14a (Message 1348478)
Posted 91 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Google is your friend. :^)

26) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Where is THIS Seti's science ? (Message 1348151)
Posted 92 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

At least one member doesn't even believe that life in any form exists off of Earth.

Depending on your definition, I don't either (was I that one? I doubt it.) To "believe" it, is to be able to answer the question "Is there extraterrestrial life?" with a definite "Yes."

Although it seems likely there is something else out there given the number of worlds, the isotropy of the universe and the confirmed uniformity of physical and chemical laws throughout, it's not scientific to pretend to information we don't have. So my honest answer would be that it's very possible, and I'm happy to help with the search, but we just don't know yet.

Definite answers without evidence is the realm of religion, not science. And, being uncommitted to certainty avoids dogmatism and disappointment should we not find anything. I want to know, not believe.

27) Message boards : Number crunching : upgrading to 7.0.56 (Message 1347937)
Posted 92 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

Richard, what benefits would 7.0.56 give over 7.0.28?

There's a bug in 7.0.28 where it doesn't identify GPUs that are suitable for OpenCL AstroPulse. I have one box formerly on 7.0.28 that would consistently download an OpenCL unit, then report that there were no available compatible GPUs and abort it, then download it again, ad infinitum. 7.0.56 fixed this, so this is one reason to use it.

Also 7.0.56 seems to have fixed the bug in earlier RCs where it would abort CUDA units after a few seconds indicating that they were taking too long! So far, it seems good.

28) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Where is THIS Seti's science ? (Message 1347482)
Posted 93 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

eric's hydrogen project is about all the science getting done...but this is seti at home...not hydrogen clouds at home. the web page says the project is for looking for signals from et. that has been missing for a long long time.

I can live with this, and with Astropulse (and I make sure to do as many Astropulse work units as I can by enabling CUDA AP on all the machines that support it) as these two projects are paying the bills and keeping the SETI part of the project going. It's always been difficult for SETI to obtain funding, so if "traditional" radio astronomy can be run on the same infrastructure, it will enable the SETI. Even if the results are just going in the database *for now* at least they are being recorded.

Eventually one of us will win the lottery and then we get enough NTPCKR horsepower to run through the billion archived results as well as keeping up with the incoming. Either that or Paul Allen happens by. :^)

29) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : God of the Gaps? (Message 1346569)
Posted 96 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

You can lead an atheist to evidence, but you can't make him think...

Yeah. Crick, Einstein, Feynman, Gates, Sagan, Weinberg... unthinking boneheads all.

The reason you get banished isn't because "socialist don't understand free speech", but because you insult people... even in your signature. It's called ad hominem. I'm sure you already know that.

30) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : God of the Gaps? (Message 1346552)
Posted 96 days ago by

Mr. Kevvy

impossible, they are millions and millions out there in the universe !

We don't know that. Given the number of possible inhabited worlds, it's unlikely, but we may be the first. Someone has to be first, right?

It's more productive to search for evidence than speculate. Leads to fewer arguments too. ;^)

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