What I always believe in is 'every person who run BOINC (SETI @ Home in particular) are not arbitrary'. Now this case was more balanced when compared to yesterday's news. NEZ ... you are the only one person who know the details what you have done. If it begins with truth, then it must end with a truth too ... speak-up ...no political backbiting!

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N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

I sleep sometimes ;) but my computers run all the time -
if I have HDD space I can download torrents non-stop (I really upload non-stop more than 100 torrents now).

As a rule of thumb, 5% of the users in a given area use 95% of the bandwidth.

That can put your provider in the awkward spot of buying more, expensive bandwidth, or enforcing their Terms of Service.

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I saw Dr. C.E.T.I. post this link in the other thread.

The district was forced to replace an estimated 2,300 computer processors because of the 24-hour use of the computers. There also was a security concern because the software activity required holes in the firewall, which potentially allowed others into the district's system, she said.

Um... BS. Someone want to tell them that those holes in the firewall would also be there if they just want to look at the news, weather, email etc. online? ;-)

Same ports.

And what kind of CPUs did they use that 2,300 of them burned through from running 24/7? Must be the cheapest Cyrix versions ever known to man.

Not even going into the whole porn thing. Next he was found to be using them to hack into {fill in your 3 letter acronym of choice} their computers as well as being the single biggest leecher known to Azureus/Vuze. ;-)

P.S: I see Timmy made the news as well:

One user, who went by the name Captain Avatar, even surmised that NEZ was not using all of his own computers, "probably some university or corporate system."

You go, Tim. :)

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I saw Dr. C.E.T.I. post this link in the other thread.

The district was forced to replace an estimated 2,300 computer processors because of the 24-hour use of the computers. There also was a security concern because the software activity required holes in the firewall, which potentially allowed others into the district's system, she said.

Um... BS. Someone want to tell them that those holes in the firewall would also be there if they just want to look at the news, weather, email etc. online? ;-)

We're never going to know the truth.

Partially because the news media does such a horrid job of reporting on technology.

"Holes in the firewall" may not literally be holes in the firewall, and we don't know what security measures or audit tools are required or used by the Arizona Dept. of Education -- or what may have been bypassed.

But one of life's most difficult lessons is "never aggravate a cop."

It's a difficult lesson because not all cops carry badges and guns. Sometimes they're called "auditors" or "inspectors" or any of a dozen different other names.

... and if you suggest to one of these "cops" that they do something biologically improbable with a close relative of the opposite (or for that matter, same) gender, well....

Let's just say that's a serious career-limiting move.

Never been in that situation myself, but I came pretty close once.

As for Nez, we're never going to know.

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I think administration should issue clear warnings and guidelines for all SETI crunchers in this regard.

They already have that:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/info.php says:

Run SETI@home only on authorized computers

Run SETI@home only on computers that you own, or for which you have obtained the owner's permission. Some companies and schools have policies that prohibit using their computers for projects such as SETI@home.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Usage_rules says:

Run BOINC only on authorized computers

Run BOINC only on computers that you own, or for which you have obtained the owner's permission. Some companies and schools have policies that prohibit using their computers for BOINC-based projects.

If you deliberately choose to ignore those rules, the consequences when found out are for you only.

We all know that Borging Unauthorized Computers goes on when it comes to running BOINC, 99.999% never will get caught though. NEZ just happened to do it on a Grander Scale & got caught with his hand in the Cookie Jar apparently. I don't want to presume his innocence or guilt in the matter because as some have already said the New's Media screws things up when it comes to reporting the Actual Facts especially when it comes to something like BOINC that they know nothing about.

Ofcourse we will not know the real truth to the story but stop saying that running a project don't cost as much as they state.
If i see how much units he did it has cost the school "ALOT"
On all my jobs i asked permission to run projects and even though some agreed by mouth, never run a project before i got "written proof i could do so"
But my experience was the bigger ones never do give permission.
Feeling sorry for the guy "NO" he did wrong >.< period.

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I sleep sometimes ;) but my computers run all the time -
if I have HDD space I can download torrents non-stop (I really upload non-stop more than 100 torrents now).

As a rule of thumb, 5% of the users in a given area use 95% of the bandwidth.

That can put your provider in the awkward spot of buying more, expensive bandwidth, or enforcing their Terms of Service.

I aim for using 150% of my ISPs bandwidth :D

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Hi, always 'suspected' this, nothing new, only the scale and I am astonished, it did take this much time to find out!

But a lot of work has been done, so, IMHO it isn't a waste of time, money and resources.

Not smart, he/she didn't ask permission. Lost his job and probably gets sued.
Since it took such a long time, makes me wander why nobody has noticed a performance DEcrease and/or NET-Work issues?

[color=darkblue]Only a matter of time whenthe 'truth' is revealed.

I saw Dr. C.E.T.I. post this link in the other thread.

About blowing things out of proportion. They'll think of anything to make it as expensive as possible!?

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Not smart, he/she didn't ask permission.

That's not sure. If I look at the comments above, it appears to me like the new director just needed some reason to replace him by a family member. And found one after a while.

Since it took such a long time, makes me wander why nobody has noticed a performance DEcrease and/or NET-Work issues?

Have you ever noticed performance decrease on any of your computers? I didn't, and my hardware is quite ancient. AthlonXP 2000+ 512MB is the oldest one ATM, in seti claasic time I had even slower hardware and with less RAM. Nerver noticed anything, at least I cannot remember anything like that. And from my experience, the average users are not that sensitive for some tiny performance issues, they start to complain, when almost nothing works anymore, before that they just think it has to be like that "because the computer isn't new anymore".

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Hi, no not with 'ordinairy' tasks like Text-Editting, pasting/copying , making a Back-Up, scanning for virae, etc.
When converting for example mp4 to avi, or play video's, record or (re)sample music, playing games, you'll notice, that, this doesn't always work, as planned/desired.

It totally depends on system-hardware, if you do notice anything at all.
Most of our crunching hardware, doesn't 'blink' when BOINC uses 100% of the CPU's and we browse the web or use Word.

Try Google Earth, with BOINC @ 100%, it's a useful sign how your hardware responds to that and what is the culprit, if any.
Most of our PC's are pure overkill, in my case an 15% OC'ed QX9650, f.i. :)

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Didn't notice that even then. On my main machine (AthlonXP 2600+, 768MB RAM) I'm running Rosetta@Home (which uses much more RAM then Seti) while I play games. And I don't mean the ones that came with Windows ;-). One example would be X2 - The Threat, which pushes this machine quite to the limits, but there is no noticeable (and also no measurable with the incorporated benchmark) decreases in performance.

I can imagine a decrease in performance on systems with too little memory installed, so the pagefile has to be used more.

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Now if you can prove it wasn't you but them you can sue and if not you both go on your way

not always true. if you live in an at-will state (even an at-will company) you can be fired for ANY reason. even a lie. say the company says they fired you because you robbed a bank. you sue. judge says..ok, you didn't rob a bank..but you don't get anything for it or your job back. heck, they don't even have to give a reason. in an at-will state, you sue and the company will just say you were fired "at-will". in an at-will state they don't even have to set you up. all they have to do is say you did it. you'r screwed.

the only recourse one has in an at-will state is to have a work contract or be in a union. or show the company promised you something when you started working for them that took everything out of the umbrella of "at-will". and that is hard to do.

at-will truly sucks.

so in an at-will relationship, yes you can sue. you may clear your name, but you can't win money or get your job back.

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One wonders if the nepotism will get noticed in this story most gov't school jobs have rules against it. He clearly had the previous admins OK. And thos previous admins clearly didn't see any major increase in billing for electricity or otherwise when he did his thing. I can also se why he didnt sign the statement they had produced when they attempted to fire him. If what is being said by others(not the newspaper or school district) then he really is going to be a wealthy man.

As far as the Computers wearing out quicker. Thats bunk as well. They are more likely to upgrade their PC's due to OS requirements than the actual hardware failure. Most large entities have warranties on their PC's because they buy a fleet of low end PC's to use. My work is no different. we get low end(current time wise) computers that my employer buys in bulk at a very low price. Many of these PC's are returned as bad within a few months because of faulty system boards. We dont run SETI on our PC's because our business uses a lot of bandwidth and SETI would definitely slow down an already pokey network

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

One wonders if the nepotism will get noticed in this story most gov't school jobs have rules against it. He clearly had the previous admins OK. And thos previous admins clearly didn't see any major increase in billing for electricity or otherwise when he did his thing. I can also se why he didnt sign the statement they had produced when they attempted to fire him. If what is being said by others(not the newspaper or school district) then he really is going to be a wealthy man.

As far as the Computers wearing out quicker. Thats bunk as well.

Not Bunk. The fans absolutely will wear out faster. CPU runs hotter, PS runs hotter, that heat has to be dumped so the fans turn faster. Bearings on the fans wear out sooner.

Yes, on a properly designed and specified system the MTBF of the fans should have been overkill compared to the MTBF of the hard disk, but have you ever heard of a government contract that was properly designed?

They are more likely to upgrade their PC's due to OS requirements than the actual hardware failure. Most large entities have warranties on their PC's because they buy a fleet of low end PC's to use. My work is no different. we get low end(current time wise) computers that my employer buys in bulk at a very low price. Many of these PC's are returned as bad within a few months because of faulty system boards. We dont run SETI on our PC's because our business uses a lot of bandwidth and SETI would definitely slow down an already pokey network

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As far as the Computers wearing out quicker. Thats bunk as well.

Not Bunk. The fans absolutely will wear out faster. CPU runs hotter, PS runs hotter, that heat has to be dumped so the fans turn faster. Bearings on the fans wear out sooner.

If they use a sleeve bearing yes.
But any fan using ball bearings should run 24/7 without problems for many years. If it doesn't it was poorly designed or manufactured.

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Grant
Darwin NT

The fans wear out faster, I believe, because the dirt collects faster when run 24/7. And the dirt level is highly variable depending on where the computer is installed, the cleaning cycle, etc. So there is some truth to any claim that the computers fail more quickly when run 24/7.

But I'd love to see those bureaucrats/politicians put real numbers to the problem. I think NEZ is getting screwed for what is ostensibly, albeit a rather enthusiastic, a contribution to society.

I might not agree with the claimed attrition of hardware either.......

But one cannot deny that the power usage would have been appreciable over 9 years time.....probably many, many thousands of dollars, at least.

If anybody wants to dispute this.....
Put a Killawatt on your rig. Note the reading with Seti running on all cores at 100% usage. Now, without anything else running, shut down Boinc and watch the reading drop. The difference between full load and idle state will vary, of course, depending on the computer's architecture.

But take this difference and multiply it by 100's of computers, which would have otherwise been at no load for at least 12 hours per day, for 9 years.

Yeah, it cost the school district a boatload in power usage.

And the point is still valid even if some or most of those computers were not left on 24/7.

Speaking as one who knows about power bills.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

As far as the Computers wearing out quicker. Thats bunk as well.

Not Bunk. The fans absolutely will wear out faster. CPU runs hotter, PS runs hotter, that heat has to be dumped so the fans turn faster. Bearings on the fans wear out sooner.

If they use a sleeve bearing yes.
But any fan using ball bearings should run 24/7 without problems for many years. If it doesn't it was poorly designed or manufactured.

The life of a computer fan is the life of the grease seal.

When the seal fails, the bearing loses lubrication, and fails not long after.

Doesn't matter if it's a sleeve bearing or a ball bearing -- it's the seals that count.

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As far as the Computers wearing out quicker. Thats bunk as well.

Not Bunk. The fans absolutely will wear out faster. CPU runs hotter, PS runs hotter, that heat has to be dumped so the fans turn faster. Bearings on the fans wear out sooner.

If they use a sleeve bearing yes.
But any fan using ball bearings should run 24/7 without problems for many years. If it doesn't it was poorly designed or manufactured.

The life of a computer fan is the life of the grease seal.

When the seal fails, the bearing loses lubrication, and fails not long after.

Doesn't matter if it's a sleeve bearing or a ball bearing -- it's the seals that count.

A sleeve bearing has no seal.

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When the seal fails, the bearing loses lubrication, and fails not long after.

Doesn't matter if it's a sleeve bearing or a ball bearing -- it's the seals that count.

A sleeve bearing has no seal.

Then by definition, they failed as soon as they were manufactured :p

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