Someone made at least a $10,000 donation today.

Yes. That's a big jump.

Peter

Evening Everyone

[10 Jan 2007 21:44:48 UTC] the Current Totals since the fund drive started are $106629.92 19.8% of the Goal The interesting part is that at least one individual donated $10,000.00 Today 16 people have given $18939.00 including a 10,000 donation. Helping to get the word out to the roughly 190000 Seti Users is important...

I know that everyone would like to see more information, Tuesday I was fortunate enough to have Coffee with Eric in Seattle (Eric was attending a convention up here). As he is flying out of the Cold (up here) should be back to California this evening. Over the next couple of days you should hopefully be seeing some information about MultiBeam and plans for the migration to Seti Main.

Thank You

Pappa

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

Evening Everyone

[10 Jan 2007 21:44:48 UTC] the Current Totals since the fund drive started are $106629.92 19.8% of the Goal The interesting part is that at least one individual donated $10,000.00 Today 16 people have given $18939.00 including a 10,000 donation. Helping to get the word out to the roughly 190000 Seti Users is important...

I know that everyone would like to see more information, Tuesday I was fortunate enough to have Coffee with Eric in Seattle (Eric was attending a convention up here). As he is flying out of the Cold (up here) should be back to California this evening. Over the next couple of days you should hopefully be seeing some information about MultiBeam and plans for the migration to Seti Main.

Thank You

Pappa

Good you two had a good time talking shop. I would have loved to be there with you two, but it would have been a very expensive cup of coffee for me. ;-D

And thank you very much to all who have donated in this donation drive and specially today, WOW, thank you! :-D

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

An idea I gave Fuzzy Hollynoodle on the setiusa site....I thought I'd reiterate it here.

Being around a university and especially in that community there have to be grant writers galore. I would say find 1 or 2 and ask them if they would volunteer to help you write some grants. In this manner it shouldn't take away from your current workload and could result in some much-needed financial relief.

FYI before anyone says anything, if I lived in CA I'd already have volunteered.

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It is a good Idea and living in CA is not necessarily a reason to not voluteer...

Thank You

Pappa

An idea I gave Fuzzy Hollynoodle on the setiusa site....I thought I'd reiterate it here.

Being around a university and especially in that community there have to be grant writers galore. I would say find 1 or 2 and ask them if they would volunteer to help you write some grants. In this manner it shouldn't take away from your current workload and could result in some much-needed financial relief.

FYI before anyone says anything, if I lived in CA I'd already have volunteered.

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

Pappa,

My limited understanding of Grant Writing is there are different rules for some states. I have very limited knowledge of the NY rules and it would do you best to find a Grant Writing Specialist in your area.

Please contact me through SETIUSA.NET and we can talk further about how I may be of assistance.

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We will see if the private message gets to you

Regards

Al

Pappa,

My limited understanding of Grant Writing is there are different rules for some states. I have very limited knowledge of the NY rules and it would do you best to find a Grant Writing Specialist in your area.

Please contact me through SETIUSA.NET and we can talk further about how I may be of assistance.

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

The annoying part is, that the staff asks very loudly for donations all over the web-site but they do not even lose one word on the current problems. On Einstein@Home it takes only a few hours or at most until 8 a.m. next morning until they explain what's going on and how long the problems will last.

I did donate in the past but will not anymore until they realize that we are "customers" and deserve at least a minimum amount of information within a reasonable time frame.

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Pappa,

Sorry it didn't work...I left you a note in the guestbook on your wife's website

Pete (aka Blurf)

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Pete

I have published my email enough times it is no big deal al.setiboinc (at) gmail.com

any ideas, thoughts, bitches I will look at...

Pappa,

Sorry it didn't work...I left you a note in the guestbook on your wife's website

Pete (aka Blurf)

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

Martin

Sorry, I slept in this morning. As soon as I saw that the NFS had lost its mounts again I emailed Eric. He rebooted from home and then posted this Upload Problems thread...

If you want holler at someone asking "very loudly" for donations I presume you are talking about myself and Fuzzy... For the most part both fuzzy and I are the donations volunteer's. We are waiting on a bit of information before pushing very hard again... The server failures are explained in Eric's post or previously by Matt one the 25th of December.

Regards

Pappa

The annoying part is, that the staff asks very loudly for donations all over the web-site but they do not even lose one word on the current problems. On Einstein@Home it takes only a few hours or at most until 8 a.m. next morning until they explain what's going on and how long the problems will last.

I did donate in the past but will not anymore until they realize that we are "customers" and deserve at least a minimum amount of information within a reasonable time frame.

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

Evening Everyone

[18 Jan 2007 2:20:01 UTC] during the last few days the Total has grown to $108685.92 or 20.2% of the goal. Currently Eric and Matt are fighting to get a replacement server for kryten which is causing issues with uploads/downloads and result validation. What is need is a dual opteron with at least 8gig of RAM...

Your consideration for a donation would be appreciated...

Thank You

Pappa

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

IBM just donated several IntelliStation Z Pro (dual xeon) workstations to the place I work for, which is a non profit educational facility. Total cost for all comps was well over $100k. You may have luck with asking them, for their facial year just started.

has any one sent a message to that foudation that Bill Gates is workin on? they might give a few bills up... maybe not much but any would be good

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What is need is a dual opteron with at least 8gig of RAM...

Your consideration for a donation would be appreciated...

Ummmm how can you reasonably expect people to donate toward this when you have yet to price such a server out and share the cost with the community....?

I'd guess about $10,000 to $13,000 depending on configuration but I'd rather know specifics before considering making a donation.

Thank You.

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Logan5

While I know that Eric is busy with Finals... As soon as I can get accurate specifications will post (with links to resources). Not only does he work here, He is an active professor... So at times you have to ask how many full time jobs should one be required to have?

If I look at Sun's Site, your estimate is close. I do have to add that Eric is not opposed to a White Box Server that they can run Linux on...

If we look at "kryten"
[b]kryten:[b] Sun E3500 (6 x 400MHz Sparc, 6 GB RAM)
then things like a Fiber Channel Card to connect to the Drive Array's (I am leaving out confusing parts of what might be necessary). Or more simply a dual core Opteron with about 8 gig of RAM and some other parts... I know tht they would like to have over a Terabyte of Drive space... That would remove the broken NFS links that are causing Upload/Download Problems...

Pappa

The need is genuine...

Ummmm how can you reasonably expect people to donate toward this when you have yet to price such a server out and share the cost with the community....?

I'd guess about $10,000 to $13,000 depending on configuration but I'd rather know specifics before considering making a donation.

Thank You.

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

I'm sorry, I haven't read much here on the NC board lately, I have been busy elsewhere and in my private life.

Eric has explained a lot of things, but in threads on the Cafe board, where people have raised different questions, so please take a look at his postlist.

And thanks Blurf, again I haven't seen your message, else I would have sent you a pm on the Seti.USA board. Else I can be reached on fuzzy dot hollynoodles at gmail dot moc, so if anybody have suggestions, I'll be happy to forward them to Eric also.

And:

Matt needs a replacement for Kryten, please help him get a new server.

Thank you for your donation.

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

I have had this posted on some teamboards, but I'll repeat it here:

From here

Eric Korpela, Forum moderator, Project administrator, Project developer, Project scientist, explains:

Whoa.... Been reading the thread. I wasn't aware that Seti was in such dire straits. I guess I assumed that most of Seti was backed by Universities and grants.

First we need to make the distinction between SETI@home and SETI. SETI is not an organization, SETI is a field of study. There is no centralized organization running SETI efforts. You may have heard of the SETI Institute. They are not SETI. In fact, most of the people working there have never done any SETI related work.

SETI@home is one SETI project run by the UC Berkeley SETI group. In terms of scientific staff, the Berkeley SETI group is me and Dan Werthimer. Matt Lebofsky and Jeff Cobb form the remainder of the staff. David Anderson is running the BOINC program and advises SETI@home. We have a systems adminsitrator that that is leaving on tuesday because (even if we had ample money) the pay rates for systems administrators at the University don't come close to matching private industry. And we aren't allowed to pay more than the University will let us. (Actually is the state that prevents us from giving raises. Even though we aren't funded through taxes, the University considers us to be part of the overall budget)


That's it, really. 5 people. Less than 3 FTEs.

SETI@home is entirely funded by donations. Most of these donations come from people who also run SETI@home. Universities don't really "back" anybody. Faculty at Univerisities and expected to bring in their own funding. If Dan and I don't bring in money, we don't get paid, but we still keep our jobs (without pay). Matt and Jeff get a pink slip. In exchange for a cut of that funding, the universities provide offices and keep the lights on.

The NSF and NASA currently do not fund any SETI observing programs. At least none that I am aware of. Nor does any other government agency. We submit grant applications to the NSF Galactic Astronomy program, but we are unlikely to get funding. The sorry truth is that the $500,000 per year needed to keep SETI@home running is very large fraction the entire annual NSF Galactic Astronomy budget. The proposals are reviewed by other Astronomers, none of whom work on SETI. They naturally would prefer that the funding remain in the areas of astronomy in which they work. These are also predominantly astronomers who are Professors who get paid by the University for "teaching" in during the school year. (Even though the bulk of astronomy professors rarely teach). Therefore they frown upon paying "senior personnel" with the money they control. And because of earmarks that happened last year, the NSF Astronomy budget is getting squeezed.

Previously SETI@home was funded by corporate donations and matching funds a state program run by the UC Office of the President. SETI@home does not currently have any corporate donors that provide financial donations. Therefore we are entirely dependent on donation which predominantly come from people who run SETI@home.

Regarding to potential of finding wealthy sponsors. We, unfortunately, are forbidden from contacting most wealthy individuals directly unless we have a current relationship with them (i.e. they run SETI@home) or if they contact us. This policy is set by the U.C. Office of the President because the U.C. President prefers to direct such funding toward projects he wants funded. (i.e. a new business school, a new building for biological sciences, whatever else the president wants as his legacy). Funding SETI@home won't get the U.C. President a statue on Sproul plaza. Many wealthy donors to the University also want a lasting (concrete) legacy. Funding projects rather than buildings doesn't really cause letters to appear in granite cornerstones.

I was under the assumption that it was managed by people skilled in the area of management.

Dan and I have many, many years of experience in project management. The other half of my time, I'm an ultraviolet astronomer that manages the development of instruments for space missions. Being a skilled project manager doesn't help when you can't afford to pay people. You can't hire people until you have enough money to pay then. The University is pretty strict about that.

Why donate to a project when the core business or mission isn't being looked after. On the other hand, there is a need to introduce something new to entice more funding which in turn will provide the needs to return to the original mission.
Am I seeing this correctly so far in basic terms?

I think you are seeing it pretty well. Unfortunately with a staff of 3 FTEs we end up chasing fires a lot of the time rather than doing new things, and without money we can't hire more staff. Server outages are bad press, so keeping them running is high on the priority list (and is certainly part of the core mission). We will have some new things to announce this year, but how many and when is a question I can't yet answer.
--
Eric


_______________________________________________________________



I mailed Dr. Anderson and asked him for a statement to post here as a comment to this, and he was so kind to answer me.

Dr. David Anderson said:

To Eric's excellent post, I would only add:

1) SETI@home's scientific progress is limited by money,
and it has made slow progress in the last several years.
To each BOINC participant:
carefully examine the list of volunteer computing projects,
and decide which of them is doing the most good.
(This is a personal decision - it depends on your beliefs and values).
By promoting the idea of "cross-project" credit totals,
we have tried to eliminate the incentive to stick
with one project indefinitely.

And also, in response to some of the posts:

2) Buying items from the SETI@home store brings a small
amount of money to SETI@home, but it is much more cost-effective
to contribute directly.

-- David


________________________________________________________


Thank you David for taking the time for this. It's very much appreciated.




For your info, the questions about items bought in the Seti store was brought up on the BOINC Synergy forum, which I linked to him to see, so he addressed this also.

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

Copied from Cafe's "Donations to Help Keep Seti Alive" Thread:

Matt needs a replacement for Kryten, please help him get a new server.

Thank you for your donation.

This is NOT, (repeat, NOT), a promise; however, there is a SLIGHT possibility of me getting my hands on a Server System in about two weeks. I will know better after the 29Th if this will occur.

At the moment I have no hardware specifications on what the Server is nor what it has been used for. The only information I currently have is that there are one of three Server Systems that may become available to me. The company that had been using these machines has gone bankrupt. The Landlord of the place where the company was housed has had to first notify creditors of the assets of the now bankrupt company. (These machines being part of the assets...) So; until the 29Th, these machines are off limits to me.)

After the 29Th, (if the Creditors make no claim or give no response to the Landlord), I will be able to check out these Servers and find out what they are, what OS they have, etc... With this information, can Eric "band-aid"-Patch Kryten until I can get to these machines and find out what's on them? If so, (and if all goes as anticipated), then sometime after the 29Th I can then take a road trip from SoCAL to NorCAL look at these machines and see if one will make a good replacement for Kryten.

Eric can contact Knightmare to get my e-Mail address and phone number. I would be happy to talk to Eric about all of this. Hopefully we can make something work here. Oh, and a side note... This place also has a Rack Mounted APC UPS that if unclaimed could be snagged for Eric's Rack System at Berkeley for SETI@Home and SETI Beta's use...


Later,

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TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

I'm not known to these forums, but I have been around SETI@Home since 2002 in varying capacities of end-user participation.

As a Sys Admin for an international mining contractor in Northern Ontario, Canada, I'd be happy to see what I could cobble together to go towards a new SETI@Home / SETI Beta data server.

I'd be more than happy to discuss the required details with anyone with a few minutes of time... perhaps I can contribute at least a few parts towards a new box.

My email address is bound to my forum / BOINC account and I have VoIP at home so long distance calls to California are nothing for me... literally :)

Monetarily, I'll be more than happy to help out the project once tax time is dealt with here at home *grumbles*.

Again, I know I'm not known so I don't expect the red carpet to be rolled out. However, if we can be made aware of what level of parts are required for the new data server, I'll see what I can do as I always have plenty of VARs and other suppliers that are promising me extras that they have lying around for next to nothing.

Thanks

Adam

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Computer nut, Distributed Computing freak, Jeeper and Dodge Ram driver.

Life is worth living... and worth discovering.

I run VMWare ESXi Free - why don't you?