So your saying that from the funds and donations they are getting we should not expect anything.

No- you shouldn't expect enterprise reliability when it's got less than 1/10th of the budget. Given the minimal funding, i'm surprised that there aren't more outages such as the one we've been having.
You have unrealistic expectations of what can be done with the limited funding available.

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Grant
Darwin NT

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You say DONATE ... I say give a good product and the donations will come.

And to state the bl**dy obvious- without the funds it can't be done.

So your saying that from the funds and donations they are getting we should not expect anything. Oh that's right we're only volunteers... we have no rights

I looked at The Bill of Rights, and I see "right to bear arms" and "freedom of speech" and "freedom of assembly" and I don't see "right to SETI work units" anywhere.

.... and while you have a right to make demands under "free speech" SETI isn't even obligated to let you make demands here. You can say what you wish, they don't have to provide the forum.

More important: you're talking about "SETI work units" as if your needs must be met without regard for any other factor.

We talk about Money because SETI has only a finite amount of cash to spend. If they suddenly got a couple of million to spend, then they'd probably find a way to double up on everything -- so that they'd have spares for outages, and full-blown testing facilities, etc.

Instead, they have a finite number of servers and a limited amount of power and space.

... and they're doing their best to deliver what they can with what they have.

Why can't you cut 'em a little slack, instead of kicking them while they're down?

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So your saying that from the funds and donations they are getting we should not expect anything.

No- you shouldn't expect enterprise reliability when it's got less than 1/10th of the budget. Given the minimal funding, i'm surprised that there aren't more outages such as the one we've been having.
You have unrealistic expectations of what can be done with the limited funding available.

I don't call 500,000+ a minimal budget

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So your saying that from the funds and donations they are getting we should not expect anything. Oh that's right we're only volunteers... we have no rights

No, you can expect something. You can expect that the majority of the time, the project works, but there will be downtime. You can expect there to be downtime. You can expect that the people involved with be doing everything in their power to fix said problems (you should have a little faith in them too).

To demand the metaphorical equivalent of blood just because there is a problem and your demands are not being met immediately or within a time frame of your expectations when it might not even be reasonable based upon what they're dealing with is just going too far.

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I hope there is intelligent life out there, because there's certainly a lack of it down here.
I suggest you re-read the list of rules that appear next to the box when you go to post. A quick reminder.
"No messages intended to annoy or antagonize other people, or to hijack a thread.
No messages that are deliberately hostile or insulting."

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Grant
Darwin NT

So your saying that from the funds and donations they are getting we should not expect anything.

No- you shouldn't expect enterprise reliability when it's got less than 1/10th of the budget. Given the minimal funding, i'm surprised that there aren't more outages such as the one we've been having.
You have unrealistic expectations of what can be done with the limited funding available.

I don't call 500,000+ a minimal budget

Last time I checked, $500,000 is the amount required per year to even run SETI@Home on their end. It isn't how much cash is available to them for spending.

Since their income is less than $500,000 required to run it, I'd say it's a minimal income at best.

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That's actually funny, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. I wonder if that's what all the complainers actually think is happening. Quite a cartoon-ish way of thinking.

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I don't call 500,000+ a minimal budget

Which shows you are completely unaware of the budgets required to provide the type of hardware & support necessary to run the type of mission critical infrastructure you're demanding.

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Grant
Darwin NT

This outage is hurting and causing many to drop Seti as a project and go on to other projects on a permanent basis.

I will stick with it but I am getting frustrated with the continuing and on going chain of system failures at Seti Servers at Berkeley.

i understand the limiting factors of funding and equipment age. I do not fault the guys there I know they are doing their best but it still disappointing and a real pain in the butt.

I feel the biggest factor for the frustrations and disappointment is the lack of information and inclusion in the restore process.

This is not meant to be a rant but just an expression of the frustrations and feeling I have and sense on my team's forum..

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Come and Visit Us at
BBR TeamStarFire


****My 9th year of Seti****A Founding Member of the Original Seti Team Starfire at Broadband Reports.com ****

Ozzfan, thx for at least finding some humor in that. That is what it was meant for. Just for humor, a laugh. Eric and Matt seemed to be doing everything in there power and it seems like when they fix one thing, another thing goes wrong. domino effect. At least some ppl see it as humor rather then insulting and hostile. I'm still trying to figure out the hostile part.. To his his own. Whateva. This will be my only post. G-luck Eric and Matt. Hopefully one day all will be well again.. Till then, enjoy everyone. It has been fun..

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Just a message of support for SETI and it's staff.

I've been with this project for 8 years this month and, like many of the core supporters, I'm here for the long haul.

Downtime/equipment failures are par for the course and simply bumps in the road.

When things are back up and running smoothly I'll still be here and will still be crunching.

Keep up the good work. I know you are doing your best.

Full ACK.
My last server contact was on May 16th and I'm out of work now for about 2 or 3 days. Could someone please give an update what's currently happening and what you're working on? I think everyone in here is curious about how things are going their ways...

Greetz from Germany
Loci

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I have no problem with getting work units or not. I never mentioned lack of
work. I stated or at least that's what I ment that the software has problems.
That is related to the staff.

My attitude toward being a volunteer comes from being jumped on because I
made an unpopular observation.

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Ozzfan, thx for at least finding some humor in that. That is what it was meant for. Just for humor, a laugh.

Maybe so, but if you were busting your ar$e trying to sort multiple problems out, then you get that sort of thing addressed to you (with no indication that it's meant to be humourous) after all the negative posts that have already been made in this thread- how would you take it?

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Grant
Darwin NT

The facts are these:

- This project is supposed to be about the science of finding ET through the processing of recorded radiotelescope data.

Agreed.

- The managers of this project have, repeatedly, discouraged anyone from doing more than their "fair share" of science, by making it difficult and/or un-popular to use optimized clients.

Disagreed. If they really didn't want people to use optimized clients, they would simply make no way to do so.

- Some of the managers of this project (or is it administrators? the line is blurry) have actively set out to throttle the output of people using optimized clients, such that in order to get work, we have to stop using said clients.

Disagreed. They changed their software and had no way to test it with the optimized clients (or didn't have the manpower to do so). This is what those who make optimize programs are for. The SAH team need to focus on what's most important for them and their software.

- They cry for donations from the people who volunteer their CPU power, then get servers and other hardware donated to them by large corporations.

I don't know about the term 'cry', but yes, they have made it open that the project was about to fold without proper funding.

- They misrepresent the need for "server" hardware over "desktop" hardware in some applications. (Let's face it. The DB server and web server(s) need to be "server" class hardware.. the splitters, UL/DL servers, assimiliators, etc could all survive happily on desktop type hardware, with noone being the wiser...)

It seems to me that you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of powerful hardware to feed over a million clients. Go tell that to your IT Admin that he doesn't need server class hardware to serve his probably 500,000 clients and see what kind of reaction you get.

I wouldn't pretend to tell someone what kind of power they need without knowing what's going on in their end.

It seems, recently, that the purpose of the SETI project is not, truly, at its core, to find ET, but to find income for people.

I don't know about that. I haven't seen anyone kicked out for not donating. Seems yet another wild claim to further one's agenda.

This is, at least, the impression I'm getting recently. I may be wrong, but I'm not going to stick around to find out, either. Soon as I've crunched all my downloaded SETI "results" I'll be detaching from the project. When the atmosphere clears over here, so that we can see what's really going on, perhaps I'll return.

Somehow I'm doubting it.

Sorry you feel that way. That's all I really can say. Your mind is already made up, as shown by the claim of 'facts' at the beginning of your post.

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This outage is hurting and causing many to drop Seti as a project and go on to other projects on a permanent basis.

Only because they obsess about small things that, while important in one aspect, should really be something small in the larger picture of their own lives.

I feel the biggest factor for the frustrations and disappointment is the lack of information and inclusion in the restore process.

This is not meant to be a rant but just an expression of the frustrations and feeling I have and sense on my team's forum..

I can understand the frustration in that regard, but I would rather have them working than constantly keeping us informed. I'll simply use faith to know that they're doing their jobs as best they can.

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Matt Lebofsky is on vacation these weeks, and Eric is working his a$$ off to get to the bottom of this situation.

Please give them some slack, and a thank you to Eric would be in place, he's working way more than it's expected of him. This situation is just as painful to him as it is for us, if not more. It is after all his work and what he seems to live and breathe for.

Thank you.

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

And please refrain from flamings, we all know frustrations grow and tempers flare, but venting is not very helpful. Thank you.

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

Matt Lebofsky is on vacation these weeks, and Eric is working his a$$ off to get to the bottom of this situation.

Please give them some slack, and a thank you to Eric would be in place, he's working way more than it's expected of him. This situation is just as painful to him as it is for us, if not more. It is after all his work and what he seems to live and breathe for.

Thank you.

I would agree with Holly. Thank you Eric!!!!! And to be a tad undiplomatic in a situation like this we are all volunteers and if the biological waste product collides with the fan we should not whinge so much!!

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I am sorry to see that some people think they own the project because they volunteer to crunch WUs. It shouldn't be about just crunching WUs and getting credit but about the science of it.
The project says that there will be outages, times when there will be no work, and as with every project, there are problems. Servers are machines and machines break down. Without money to be able to have redundancy, failures such as the one we've seen can happen. This is a scientific project, and as with everything in science, there are very few certainties.
And if you really do want to do something about it, then as other people said donate. Or if you really want to do something very important, then convince your governments to spend more on scientific endeavors and projects and less on weapons and stupid wars.

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