I'd prefer to give $10 to help starving or less well off people in other parts of the world....I'll donate cpu cycles and pay electricity bills to support this project.

I think that is enough.

But anyone else is more than free to do whatever they like in regards to the project.

And yes I'm serious.

... and that's too bad, because the project has plenty of clock cycles.

I'm not saying everyone has to kick in some cash, just that money is harder to come by.

Again, cash donations are "work unit insurance."

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The 486's etc, cute as they are, just won't cut it.

Keep in mind that more than half of the worldwide computing capacity is in those little chips on smart credit cards.

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The 486's etc, cute as they are, just won't cut it.

Keep in mind that more than half of the worldwide computing capacity is in those little chips on smart credit cards.

I thought it was in the RFID chips in baked bean cans?

The 486's etc, cute as they are, just won't cut it.

Keep in mind that more than half of the worldwide computing capacity is in those little chips on smart credit cards.

I thought it was in the RFID chips in baked bean cans?

Baked Beans cans, can not donate, not enough computing power.

smart credit cards have to have smart users to donate... hopefully it will do "debit" rather than credit as that would add an additional expense.

Regards

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

IMHO S@H will not survive for more than 2 years, donations or no donations. The only way S@H will survive is if we find something. For that you need the mega-crunchers like those at the top of the "top hosts" lists. The 486's etc, cute as they are, just won't cut it.

Things are not always as they appear...

I have puzzled about this, since I saw this post... As your attitude is that you expect Seti to Fail and Die Away. The question becomes why did you bother to start crunching Seti? Why did you even bother to post?
You joined 10 Sept 2009 and have a RAC of over 7000. Surely there was something you saw that was "positive." What motivated you to start crunching Seti. As You have hidden your computer(s) there is something that you feel "MUST" be hidden when quite the opposite is the normally the case. It makes others wonder what you have to hide... I have been crunching for almost a Decade and your RAC looks to be catching mine in a bit over a month. Things must be doing well for you in South Africa...

Regards

---

Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

I'd prefer to give $10 to help starving or less well off people in other parts of the world....I'll donate cpu cycles and pay electricity bills to support this project.

I think that is enough.

But anyone else is more than free to do whatever they like in regards to the project.

And yes I'm serious.

TGG

More controversy... This indicates that TFFE has found something that feel they can use to create Hate and Discontent. At a point in time the Goal of TFFE users was to create hate and discontent amougst users and then sit back and laugh at what is happening. That is not acceptable behavior in these forums... We have to look at what it cost in the past and if they are ready to go there again.

I do have to say you are consistent over the years. You have always shown up to make the same statment about feeding starving people somewhere else in the world. You have NEVER Stated that you have actually managed to accomplish that. Only Death and Gloom!

So the question becomes, why are you still crunching here? What at Seti still holds your interest when most of your group are elsewhere (and your RAC indicates it is elsewhere)... TFFE could not control the Forums then so they moved to other places... It cost many Seti Users as a result of TFFE irresponsible actions.

Regards

---

Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

Okay. So I wanted to see how many of us (S@H users) have the "ability to donate". For the purposes of this, I'll exclude people outside of the USA, because from what I have heard and read, this demographic finds it "hard" to contribute monetarily. Here's a bit of rough math:

Take the amount of current S@H users, 1,034,228. (Of course) this figure equals 100%. 317,756 of these users live in the United States. Expressed as a percentage, this is 30.72%. Now order the citizens by RAC, exclude those below 50 (because they still could be inactive). The count now totals 43,367 (= to 4.19%). Going on financial data, 59.5% of Americans own a credit card. This means (roughly) that 25,803 of those still included have the (theoretical) ability to donate. Expressed as a percentage this is 2.49%. If every single one of them donated $25, that's a grand total of $645,075. More than enough for 2-3 years of funding.

There are things I probably haven't taken into account here, but it's as accurate as I can make it.

- Luke.

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- Luke.

Okay. So I wanted to see how many of us (S@H users) have the "ability to donate". For the purposes of this, I'll exclude people outside of the USA, because from what I have heard and read, this demographic finds it "hard" to contribute monetarily. Here's a bit of rough math:

Take the amount of current S@H users, 1,034,228. (Of course) this figure equals 100%. 317,756 of these users live in the United States. Expressed as a percentage, this is 30.72%. Now order the citizens by RAC, exclude those below 50 (because they still could be inactive). The count now totals 43,367 (= to 4.19%). Going on financial data, 59.5% of Americans own a credit card. This means (roughly) that 25,803 of those still included have the (theoretical) ability to donate. Expressed as a percentage this is 2.49%. If every single one of them donated $25, that's a grand total of $645,075. More than enough for 2-3 years of funding.

There are things I probably haven't taken into account here, but it's as accurate as I can make it.

- Luke.

You have forgotten that for people in the USA, if they have a checking account and a stamp they also can contribute. That should add a bit to the number who have the ability, if not the funds, to send money. As they are Americans they will get a letter from UC indicating that their donation is deductible as a charitable expense on their income tax return.

For people outside the USA the problem isn't so much that they can not contribute, but that by the time all the fees to change currencies and transport it to the USA are charged, there is no donation left.

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Okay. So I wanted to see how many of us (S@H users) have the "ability to donate". For the purposes of this, I'll exclude people outside of the USA, because from what I have heard and read, this demographic finds it "hard" to contribute monetarily. Here's a bit of rough math:

Take the amount of current S@H users, 1,034,228. (Of course) this figure equals 100%. 317,756 of these users live in the United States. Expressed as a percentage, this is 30.72%. Now order the citizens by RAC, exclude those below 50 (because they still could be inactive). The count now totals 43,367 (= to 4.19%). Going on financial data, 59.5% of Americans own a credit card. This means (roughly) that 25,803 of those still included have the (theoretical) ability to donate. Expressed as a percentage this is 2.49%. If every single one of them donated $25, that's a grand total of $645,075. More than enough for 2-3 years of funding.

There are things I probably haven't taken into account here, but it's as accurate as I can make it.

- Luke.

I don't have a credit card, but I do have a pretty green star. My ATM card works just fine, and everyone has one of those.

Sirius B found a good deal on prepaid cards in the U.K.

There are ways for those who really want to donate.

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Okay, Just donated again. #50451.

EDIT: Yikes, didn't expect the star to follow that quickly...

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- Luke.

Question for the powers that be ... our donations coordinator Uli
I believe UC Berkley should be able to accept a travelers check denominated in US funds as payment because these can be deposited in a US bank like a check. Can someone verify if this is the case and report back? It may be an inexpensive way to accept donations from a number of foreign countries.

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I'd prefer to give $10 to help starving or less well off people in other parts of the world....I'll donate cpu cycles and pay electricity bills to support this project.

I think that is enough.

But anyone else is more than free to do whatever they like in regards to the project.

And yes I'm serious.

TGG

More controversy... This indicates that TFFE has found something that feel they can use to create Hate and Discontent. At a point in time the Goal of TFFE users was to create hate and discontent amougst users and then sit back and laugh at what is happening. That is not acceptable behavior in these forums... We have to look at what it cost in the past and if they are ready to go there again.

I do have to say you are consistent over the years. You have always shown up to make the same statment about feeding starving people somewhere else in the world. You have NEVER Stated that you have actually managed to accomplish that. Only Death and Gloom!

So the question becomes, why are you still crunching here? What at Seti still holds your interest when most of your group are elsewhere (and your RAC indicates it is elsewhere)... TFFE could not control the Forums then so they moved to other places... It cost many Seti Users as a result of TFFE irresponsible actions.

Regards

I don't know why you felt the need to bring up TFFE, it is not the bogeyman you try and make it out to be and I really think you should retract your statement or if not back up what you are accusing it of.

@Pappa
More controversy indeed. I don't see what Paul's personal opinion of what he wants to do with his money, if given to whatever he feels is a good cause, has anything to do with what you are bringing up.

Gary Charpentier wrote:

I believe UC Berkley should be able to accept a travelers check denominated in US funds as payment because these can be deposited in a US bank like a check. Can someone verify if this is the case and report back? It may be an inexpensive way to accept donations from a number of foreign countries.

A Travelers Check costs money to buy, it comes in a package of 10 (so you have to buy 9 more) and it can only be exchanged in person. They can be stolen but no thief can do anything with them - but for burn them to keep warm - that's how safe they are. So they're of no use here.

"Upon obtaining custody of a purchased supply of traveler's cheques, the purchaser should immediately write his or her signature once upon each cheque, usually on the cheque's upper portion. The purchaser will also have received a receipt and some other documentation that should be kept in a safe place other than where he or she carries the cheques.

When wanting to cash a traveler's cheque while making a purchase, the purchaser should, in the presence of the payee, date and countersign the cheque in the indicated space, usually on the cheque's lower portion (if at a restaurant, it may be helpful to ask the waiter to watch and wait for this to be done)"

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It's a long time since I used travellers cheques - I use the same ATM card as I use for SETI donations when I'm travelling in the Euro zone, and again I can withdraw cash with no fee and no currency conversion charges - but I don't think they're as restrictive as Jord suggests.

Whether you can buy them singly or only in multiple packs is a decision for the vendor. If the first place you try isn't flexible enough, try somewhere else. Similarly, most (if not all) will charge commission, but the costs do vary and it's worth checking around.

You should sign them once as soon as you receive them, but you could, in practice, do the second signature at any time and in any place. If a travellers cheque with two signatures turned up on SETI's doorstep, I'm sure it would add to their bank balance (dollars preferred). It would, however, be just as insecure as sending dollar bills through the post, and you'd have no redress if they ended up in someone else's bank account. So not recommended, but possible if you want to be creative (or just have some left over travel money that you're prepared to write off).

I made for some hours a little donation.

I'm a 'happy' german european with a VISA "Kreditkarte".

I'm curious how much additional costs I payed.
Because if I don't pay in €, I must pay 1, 2, or 5 % additional to the monetary value to the nice bank.

If it's not easy for europeans to donate, why not one or more officially donation collectors per continent or country?
Yes, it will be not easy..
The collector need to say his bank account number to for him unknown people, which could do bad things with..
And then the collector pay with his "Kreditkarte" the money to SETI@home. After subtraction of the % for the kind bank.

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IMHO S@H will not survive for more than 2 years, donations or no donations. The only way S@H will survive is if we find something. For that you need the mega-crunchers like those at the top of the "top hosts" lists. The 486's etc, cute as they are, just won't cut it.

Sorry, but I do have to disagree with that statement. ;). You are seeing what I would call preconceived visual bias. Truthfully, In my opinion, the backbone of S@H is the small time crunchers with RAC's below say 5000.

Time for some more math.

BOINCstats reports the total S@H RAC as 76,561,676 (Wow!). Ordered by Avg. credit, the Top 20 make up 2,717,595 (just over 3.54%).
Meanwhile, all the Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, 3.0Ghz, 2.8Ghz + Pentium D 3.0Ghz make up a total RAC of 2,965,804. More than the Top 20 by ~240,000 RAC.

I wouldn't say the top crunchers are vital to the long term run of the project. But they are certainly helpful!

- Luke.

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- Luke.

Checking through my bank what it would cost me to send $25.- (€16,75) to Seti.

I'd have to buy a booklet "International Money Transfers": €2,50
Then on the amount I'd have to pay 0.1% transfer costs plus €9,- fee to send to the USA.
I'd have to add the 10% fee for the University.

So that's (2,50 + 16,75 + 0.2 + 9) + 1.68 = €29.95 ($44.69) to give $25.- to Seti. If at any time you think it's normal to send in almost double the amount of what you're donating, then wake me. :)

(Outside that due to us still paying off past debts, our weekly household income is only €60, I'd be crazy to spend half that on any donation at this time).

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I'm happy to exempt Jord from the present discussion - the amount he donates in time, effort and transatlantic phone calls is surely worth a gold star, not just a green one.

But I wish the rest of us would put as much effort into finding ways we can donate cost-effectively, as some people do into finding excuses why they can't.

IMHO S@H will not survive for more than 2 years, donations or no donations. The only way S@H will survive is if we find something. For that you need the mega-crunchers like those at the top of the "top hosts" lists. The 486's etc, cute as they are, just won't cut it.

Things are not always as they appear...

I have puzzled about this, since I saw this post... As your attitude is that you expect Seti to Fail and Die Away. The question becomes why did you bother to start crunching Seti? Why did you even bother to post?
You joined 10 Sept 2009 and have a RAC of over 7000. Surely there was something you saw that was "positive." What motivated you to start crunching Seti. As You have hidden your computer(s) there is something that you feel "MUST" be hidden when quite the opposite is the normally the case. It makes others wonder what you have to hide... I have been crunching for almost a Decade and your RAC looks to be catching mine in a bit over a month. Things must be doing well for you in South Africa...

Regards

I will try not to take offense at your comments…

Firstly, let me say that I am passionate about Seti, and would like nothing more to see it going from strength to strength. That does not however prevent me from taking a hard look at the current situation and trying to form an objective view about it. I stated what I believed to be an objective view (mine, and obviously I/it could be wrong), not to undermine Seti in any way, but rather to try and highlight the path that needs to be followed for it to succeed/survive. As a parallel example, I am passionate about the sport of cricket, and more particularly, the 5 day form of the game. Sadly, I cannot see it surviving for too much longer, despite the fact that it has been played for over 100 years. Times change.

From what I can tell from the various pages on this web site, S@H is dependent on grants and donations to survive. As I am sure is obvious to all, money is tight everywhere, and government and quasi-government funding of many projects have been cut, and will continue to be cut. I cannot see this situation improving in the medium term. This is particularly the case in the U.S. (I won’t go into detailed explanations here), the main source of funding for S@H. From the web site, it seems that S@H requires over $300, 000 a year just to operate. Roughly a third of this can be/has been covered by individual donations, the rest presumably comes through grants. I don’t see situation as sustainable, and as I stated previously, I don’t think it will be sustained for much longer.

The other concern is the source of data that S@H requires to operate. This comes from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which the last time I looked, was scheduled to be mothballed sometime in 2010. If this is still the case, then where will S@H get its data from? Presumably S@H could get its data from the “square kilometer array” which is currently planned (tentatively) to be built in either Australia or South Africa. From what I remember, the South African option will only be partly operational from 2020. That is a long time away.

So then, what needs to happen for S@H and Arecibo to survive? Just to be clear – I am of the view that Arecibo needs to survive in order for S@H to survive. Naturally, funding will ensure survival, but from “where”, and subtly and more importantly, “why”. Ideally, S@H must get corporate sponsorship, running over a number of years. Who would sponsor S@H and why? To me there is an obvious candidate – nVidia. nVidia is betting the proverbial farm on its new architecture (Fermi) scheduled to be released in the next few months. S@H users will be very familiar with nVidia and its GPU processing platform, Cuda. S@H is a fantastic marketing platform for Cuda and Fermi, but there are issues. S@H or its “partners” are developing CAL (ATI’s equivalent of Cuda) apps to run S@H. This will not be appealing to nVidia in any way. There is currently an intense war being waged in the computer processing market between Intel, AMD/ATI and nVidia. As S@H users are well aware (or should be), the future of computer processing lies not in the CPU, but in the GPU. If nVidia could be convinced to fund S@H, they would require exclusivity so as to market their platforms. A bigger problem lies in the ROI nVidia (or any other corporate sponsor) would like to see. Skipping the detail, the potential Arecibo closure and the answer to questions like “you have been looking for how long and have found how much?” will not be seen as positives. If I were in S@H, I would still push all the nVidia buttons, every day…

If getting significant corporate sponsorship now e.g. $500, 000 a year for 5 years (possible, but improbable in my opinion) does not happen, what are the options? I can see only one – find ET. If ET is found, sponsors will be falling over themselves to be associated with S@H. Despite what others seem to think, finding the first signs of ET will not be the end of S@H, but a new and very exciting chapter. Finding ET will require the ability to process and reprocess WU fast, before the funding dries up. It may require us to look for different type of signals, but we do not have the luxury of doing this slowly, but I agree, every little bit will help. I don’t have to reiterate that doing this fast will require mega-crunchers.

To answer your other questions:

I bothered to start crunching Seti because I believe that finding ET will be the greatest discovery ever made by man. I bother to post because I care deeply. I started on this project later than most, and therefore my technology, is better than some that have been doing this for decades. It is called progress, or more accurately, Moores law. My RAC will level out at around 8000 with my current setup, so you needn’t be concerned that I will overtake you anytime soon. My computers are hidden, because I am embarrassed by the technology I currently use (that will change in the coming months). Things in South Africa are far from well. From a Seti perspective, computer equipment costs 40% more than in the U.S. Even though the exchange rate is 7.5 to 1, I work as hard for my R1 as most in the U.S. work for $1. Electricity prices are going to increase 45% a year for the next 3 years (compound) and the bandwidth costs are exorbitant.