We used to have a sign:

We have done so much, with so little, for so long
that now we are expected, to do everything with nothing, forever ...

> It should be obvious considering the time and effort they put into this
> project despite the constant stream of complaints that they take it quite
> seriously. They have a bigger investment in the project than most people
> around here do.
>
> > well it would be nice to know that seti admins take the project as
> seriously
> > as alot of the people here.
> >
> > There is no timezone on the internet.
> >
> >
>
>

OK Chris here are a couple of things you may like to mull over, for a start go here http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0221529 and see how much Boinc received in funding from the NSF, let me save you the time $911,264 not bad for a 3 year award, which by the way runs out next October, so I think they have had time to at least get it working a bit better than they have. Please also take the time to note that the award was given on the back of the success of Seti @ home and I quote "By carrying out the SETI@home project the researchers have demonstrated their qualification to do this research, and are in a unique position to connect new projects with their user base of 3,500,000 people worldwide."

So the way I see it (and others) is why is the "Flagship" program that was to have gained them the grant in the first place "not working properly" and why can't users be given simple news when the project is up or down ?

Also please be aware that the project also has a donation from the Planetary Society to the tune of $250,000, information on that can be found here http://planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/SETI@home/appeal.html also go here and find out how the money is spent on salaries of "Staff & Students" etc. Oh don't forget the donations given by the public and some of our users.

Now please (no criticism intended), go away have a read, look back on what you have posted recently, they agree a little bit of research into things really helps, now go tell that to the Boinc team and close the thread as it really is time expired now.

I for one intend to stick it out as it was my decision and like everyone here (I hope) are human, we are all unique, we all have to respect each other opinion whether we agree or disagree, but the main point is we have a right to say how we feel.........

Thanks for reading this have a pleasant morning/day/night whatever time zone you may be in, and good luck in your search for ET ;-))

Willie,

Greetings from Scotland (O&OE lol)

> OK Chris here are a couple of things you may like to mull over, for a start go
> here http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0221529 and see
> how much Boinc received in funding from the NSF, let me save you the time
> $911,264 not bad for a 3 year award, which by the way runs out next October,
> so I think they have had time to at least get it working a bit better than
> they have.

If we assume that the whole $900,000 goes to personnel, and not to computers, bandwidth, tools, and etc. and assume that we're paying $40,000/year plus the usual (office space, power and air conditioning, health insurance: costs generally run about the same as salary) then the grant pays for 3 3/4 people -- and nothing else.

A comment was made that the money from NSF can't be spent on SETI, it is restricted to BOINC.

This article gives the cost of bandwidth on the Berkeley campus as $300/megabit/month, and says at that time they were using 25 megabits. If that's still true, that's $7,500/month or $90,000 year. I can't believe bandwidth has gone down. That leaves enough in the $250,000 Planetary Society grant to pay for a couple of researchers.

When you look at it that way, it isn't that much money folks.

Correct. 900K seems like a pretty good sum, but that's 300K a year. Educational research projects are expensive. Software development can be quite expensive. Heavy duty server hardware and software is expensive. Bandwidth is expensive. Support staff is expensive (even minimum wage staff since employees cost employers a lot more than the employee sees in wages even without benefits). This project has all of those. So it can be quite easy to tear through a $900k/3yr grant and funds from other sources. I think Ned breaks it down pretty well, it's just not a terribly large sum of money for what needs to be done. I would imagine David Anderson is running a reasonbly tight budget and is trying to manage it wisely so that funds will last until they are able to be renewed again. Even so, funding only gets you so far. Some things, once they happen, there is little that can be done to fix them, like having to transfer huge amounts of data around because the only machine you have with enough power to run things keeps failing. And that failing machine is still failing despite working many hours with the machine's support staff to fix it. Not really much that can be done to speed things up any so might as well wait.

The funny thing about this though FatB, is that the post of mine you replied to had nothing to do with money or resources or anything of the sort. I just stated that the Dev Team had a lot more invested than most of us here, because they have directly spent countless manhours working on this project recently, whereas most people here have just crunched data or done alpha/beta testing.

Anyway, I'm done now, thanks for the specifics on those numbers Ned. I think it helps put things in perspective a little bit.

Chris

> > OK Chris here are a couple of things you may like to mull over, for a
> start go
> > here http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0221529 and
> see
> > how much Boinc received in funding from the NSF, let me save you the
> time
> > $911,264 not bad for a 3 year award, which by the way runs out next
> October,
> > so I think they have had time to at least get it working a bit better
> than
> > they have.
>
> If we assume that the whole $900,000 goes to personnel, and not to computers,
> bandwidth, tools, and etc. and assume that we're paying $40,000/year plus the
> usual (office space, power and air conditioning, health insurance: costs
> generally run about the same as salary) then the grant pays for 3 3/4 people
> -- and nothing else.
>
> A comment was made that the money from NSF can't be spent on SETI, it is
> restricted to BOINC.
>
> This article gives
> the cost of bandwidth on the Berkeley campus as $300/megabit/month, and says
> at that time they were using 25 megabits. If that's still true, that's
> $7,500/month or $90,000 year. I can't believe bandwidth has gone down. That
> leaves enough in the $250,000 Planetary Society grant to pay for a couple of
> researchers.
>
> When you look at it that way, it isn't that much money folks.
>
>

> We used to have a sign:
>
> We have done so much, with so little, for so long
> that now we are expected, to do everything with nothing, forever ...
>
>
We the unwilling,
Led by the unknowing,
are doing the impossible,
for the ungrateful.
We have done so much,
with so little,
for so long,
that we are now qualified
to do anything
with nothing.

> What enfuriated me were your "goldmine" and the "fortune and glory" comments.
> I knew that you were not speaking about the current state of the project, but
> rather an outcome based upon a VERY unlikely set of events. While there would
> be a lot of publicity about such a thing, and quite possibly some healthy
> grants issued for more research, the "goldmine" and "fortune and glory"
> comments to me were just over the edge and set forth at least an impression
> that the end goal and motivation of the project for the people running it and
> UCB was essentially greed rather than investigative science.
>
> As for SETI staff, they should probably be paid more. Some of them are paid I
> am sure. However I am not entirely sure if everyone working on it gets paid.
> I'm also not entirely sure if students can get credit for working on it. If
> they can recieve credit, then they are in effect PAYING to work on it rather
> than be paid. But salaries of employees of public institutions are generally
> public information and are subject to certain rules to help ensure that public
> money is used properly (kind of goes back to your "goldmine," kind of helps
> ensure that money is put back into research rather than into pockets). In any
> case, to some extent I agree that they are paid to provide workunits, but I
> think that is more an end result of their job than the actual job. Nitpicky
> perhaps, but perhaps relevant. They are really paid to write and fix the
> software and try to fix/maintain the hardware. In other words, try to get
> everything to work and keep it that way. The end result of that IS that
> workunits are issued to users, but the function to me (especially while things
> are still touch and go) just keep working on things to improve stability.
>
> I am not a "no problems here" user. Yes, there are problems. I still haven't
> downloaded units since they started being distributed a while ago, although
> until recently the scheduler was at least responding. Right not it appears to
> be non-responsive again and won't even let me upload. But oh well. That's how
> it goes sometimes. There isn't much I can do. Complaining about it won't cause
> it to miraculously resurect itself. The SETI team more than likely knows it's
> down, but it doesn't hurt to mention (not badger) it sometimes just in case
> they don't. I understand that. Some don't. And that is what bothers me most:
> the unfair senseless complaints and lack of understanding and patience. I do
> not stick my head in the sand. I do not think that criticism should even
> necessarily be avoided. It should however be constructive rather than
> destructive. It should also focus on what the problems are, not just that they
> exist. And when possible, it should also suggest alternatives, preferences for
> alternatives, etc.
>
> They are underfunded, underpaid, underequipped, etc. That has made things
> difficult for the team and is continuing to do so. However to some very
> limited extent, it may have been "self-inflicted." However, they had to make
> some decisions here and there and at times made the hard choice, specifically,
> the release date. It's hard to say with absolute certainty that they did the
> right thing all the time, and it is hard to say with absolute certainty that
> they made made costly mistakes in the decisions they made. It's all very gray.
> But what is done is done, and that cannot be changed.
>
> You should notice that in my posts I have not claimed that SETI is perfect
> said that legitimate complaints (like I mentioned above) should not be made. I
> have always supported posting problems people encounter and have posted some
> myself. What I HAVE spoken out against though are posts that flat out badmouth
> the efforts of the team and the project, those that demand and
> expect the project work perfectly, and those which make horribly
> inaccurate claims about the software or project.
>
> And for you to tell me that if I "cannot take any criticism of this project I
> would suggest you take your crunching elsewhere" indicates that you
> misread/misinterpreted what I have posted and have not read other posts by me.
> My primary post in this thread spoke out against the complaints about people
> having to wait longer for things to be fixed because of Labor Day -- not
> complaints in general. I suggest you pay more attention to what I write next
> time -- I generally try choose my words carefully so that I say what I mean
> and mean what I say.
>
> Chris
Chris,

I have to say that most of what I wrote was not wholly directed at you. I am just sick of the two black and white views. If somebody criticises anything their shot down with a string of standard excuses (part reasons). If somebody praises they get the reverse. My go and crunch somewhere else comment was a turn around to the "no problem here" group whos mantra is that line. Equally "its broke, it'll get fixed" mantra is a poor excuse for reasoned debate.

I do believe we must accept the outcome of finding a Seti target however. I believe I pointed out that it was unlikely and I definetly pointed out that I believe people are not in it for the fortune and glory but it will inevtably be the outcome. If we, you everybody believe that this is so unlikely as to never happen then why are we crunching for Seti? That question answered I therefore dont see any problem in raising the issues of what may come to pass should it happen.

In the grey world of Seti (at the moment) there are no right or wrongs however I welcome the debates going on whilst also recognising the team is doing a difficult job under difficult circumstances.

Neil