Ofcoarse, one can do what you can, you can Donate Free CPU & GPU Cycles,
also Donate money*, as an American tax payer, you can even get a 'refund'
on that :). * Also parts, but this far more difficult, maybe a DISK-ARRAY! But do ask first!
Only way for me was through SETI Netherlands, but works OK.

Some use 'only the spare CPU cycles' while other are more fixed of production
and try eveything to speed up CPU or GPU, the LUNATICs have made quite an amount
of SS(S)2;3;3x and SSE4.1(&SSE4.2) optimized app.s.
Their latest effort was f.i. The Unified Installer V0.37, which is very good, with thanks to, in no particular order, Joe Segur, Raistmer, Jason and Richard Haselgrove, hope I haven't forgot someone...
Disk Array.

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Well I am in it for the credits, just look at my RAC, watch out mega crunchers! :) In seriousness though looking for ET? How anybody could pass up the opportunity to be THE ONE does baffle me slightly, not to mention the science that is accomplished and enhanced by our participation. Another reason to continue crunching and poke your nose in the forums are the folks around here, have a problem with Boinc or your computer? They'll have you up and running in no time, crunching and hanging around the forums is, in a word, super.

oh by the way the word "Donate" means in context to "give as a gift"

I expect nothing in return when I give a gift ... it is out of my heart because I care about that person, organization or project I am on...

If you want your credits it might raise your worth in your own eyes to see the numbers you produce .... but that is you .... I will continue to "donate" time and resources and hold nothing over anyone as a threat

IMHO someone that donates the time to do 1 task a year is worthy as as much praise as the guys putting out upteenbillion a day.

The competitive point thing can actually be a good thing. In the same way auto racing helps develop better parts for cars.

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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[

It is similar to the way people look for work they try for the best paying job. Seti seems to be the lower paying job so to speak.

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Well, we could always grant one Bagzillion credits per clock cycle, imagine how many zeros we'd all have on our stats screen. They would have to widen the sig window to be able to display them all! Greeaeaaoowww! (bad imitation of the Howard Dean Scream)

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Wait wait wait.....we can get a toaster with our credits? Can I pick something different? I could really use a new dish washer how many credits for something like that?

I crunch to crunch, sometimes I take computers off the 'production line' so to speak because I have other things going on that I find personally more important. I use my RAC and total credits as nothing more than a personal milestone record and statistics on how my rigs run. Do I compare from time to time with other peoples? Sure, is it a competition? Not really just against myself! If I crunched for credits and competition I would find something better to do with my time and money, something that returns investment into my machines, never understood the need to have an ego over your credits!

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Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

Wait wait wait.....we can get a toaster with our credits? Can I pick something different? I could really use a new dish washer how many credits for something like that?

I crunch to crunch, sometimes I take computers off the 'production line' so to speak because I have other things going on that I find personally more important. I use my RAC and total credits as nothing more than a personal milestone record and statistics on how my rigs run. Do I compare from time to time with other peoples? Sure, is it a competition? Not really just against myself! If I crunched for credits and competition I would find something better to do with my time and money, something that returns investment into my machines, never understood the need to have an ego over your credits!

Whatever floats yer boat.
I am in it for the science, but the creds do add to the fun!

As the kitties say....
"Seti be our binness."

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Wait wait wait.....we can get a toaster with our credits? Can I pick something different? I could really use a new dish washer how many credits for something like that?

Yes, but the toaster isn't included. NEZ was only 1% of the way towards the toaster. Maybe you could collect enough toasters to trade them in for a new dishwasher?

I crunch to crunch, sometimes I take computers off the 'production line' so to speak because I have other things going on that I find personally more important. I use my RAC and total credits as nothing more than a personal milestone record and statistics on how my rigs run. Do I compare from time to time with other peoples? Sure, is it a competition? Not really just against myself! If I crunched for credits and competition I would find something better to do with my time and money, something that returns investment into my machines, never understood the need to have an ego over your credits!

Whatever floats yer boat.
I am in it for the science, but the creds do add to the fun!

As the kitties say....
"Seti be our binness."

As the Pharaohs Seti I or Seti II would say "You guys stole my name"

I'd say "crunching" is a hobby. For me seeing the credits of various systems shows sort of a real world efficiency. It is also fun to see what a bunch of small inexpensive resources can do. In the SETI classic days I had scores of 400MHz Celeron systems doing my bidding. Which produced more work then a few people that had high end Xeon servers going. Currently one of the top 20 participants instead of having a few machines with GPUs does it old school with something like 120 systems.

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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[

Yes, but the toaster isn't included. NEZ was only 1% of the way towards the toaster. Maybe you could collect enough toasters to trade them in for a new dishwasher?

That's always a possibility. As far as what Mark said, that's exactly what I mean. I do it for the science not the competition. Hell if I wanted to be competitive I would play rugby......or.....poker. Humm poker.

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Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

Rising above non-sequiturs (sp?), it seems to me after quickly scanning this thread that an interesting question arises. Are seti credits today inflated or deflated versus those of yesteryear, say three years ago. A good answer to this question would address the merit of the work (units) completed three years ago compared to that being completed today, relative to the credit issued. I certainly can't answer my own question, but can any of you?

PhonAcq has just rephrased the question: what do the credits really mean?

In terms of clock time commitment, credits today are vastly deflated compared to 10 years ago. What took a week 10 years ago takes me an hour or two today.

In terms of science done, it is a bit trickier. I assume the numerous upgrades to the executables over the years have included some increase in scientific efficiency (however you measure that). If that is the case, then credits are again deflated (if we try to equate credits earned with science performed).

I think the theory is that credit per FLOP has remained more or less constant, but with the time cost and monetary cost of FLOPs plummeting every year, what does that mean?

Sorry, just more questions, no answers.

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I'm no project scientist, but per 'size' of work unit I would imagine we get granted less credit, but as Bill pointed out the same unit then took much longer to complete. I remember when some of these hour long unit would have taken one of my old machines a week to complete. Over all I would imagine that's why they are in the process of making the credit system dynamic so that it automatically adjusts the credit given so they don't have the hand adjust the code each year. Humm so now the question begs, instead of changing the credit why not just make the work units larger so they still take about the same amount of time and standardize points given regardless of time taken? Of course you could only do that to a certain point, however it would make knowing what you are getting better, and would still reward people who are competitive etc. Never understood why they over complicated something that should be so easy.

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Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

Humm so now the question begs, instead of changing the credit why not just make the work units larger so they still take about the same amount of time and standardize points given regardless of time taken?

1) In fact smth similar was done few times already (when Enhanced was introduced, when chirp precision was increased).
2) As was stated many times, this project not about stats and credits.
Adjusting work unit "size" (length of execution) will add difficulties for scientific results comparison/interpretation. It will be apparent if one recall that single result means almost nothing, next phase is required to see if high yeld of some kind of signals is persistent from some sky location. If you will change params of signals to look between different time point how will you average them later....

Humm so now the question begs, instead of changing the credit why not just make the work units larger so they still take about the same amount of time and standardize points given regardless of time taken?

in addition to the issues Raistmer raises, increasing the size of workunits will increase the time it takes older, slower, non-dedicated machines to process, which will increase the wait time for the newer/faster/dedicated crunchers to actually get their credits. There are already people barking about how long it takes their 1-hour WUs to validate, imagine how loud they will be then.

Basing credit at least in part on flop count seems to me the least unfair to the older, non-dedicated machines, which still make up the majority of crunchers attached to this project.

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Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired

Humm so now the question begs, instead of changing the credit why not just make the work units larger so they still take about the same amount of time and standardize points given regardless of time taken?

in addition to the issues Raistmer raises, increasing the size of workunits will increase the time it takes older, slower, non-dedicated machines to process, which will increase the wait time for the newer/faster/dedicated crunchers to actually get their credits. There are already people barking about how long it takes their 1-hour WUs to validate, imagine how loud they will be then.

Basing credit at least in part on flop count seems to me the least unfair to the older, non-dedicated machines, which still make up the majority of crunchers attached to this project.

I have to agree that flop count is probally the best way to give credit. And there are many old machines crunching. My old P4 is still churning them out, But if it wasnt for lunatics That machine would be offline now.

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[/quote]

Old James

Humm so now the question begs, instead of changing the credit why not just make the work units larger so they still take about the same amount of time and standardize points given regardless of time taken?

in addition to the issues Raistmer raises, increasing the size of workunits will increase the time it takes older, slower, non-dedicated machines to process, which will increase the wait time for the newer/faster/dedicated crunchers to actually get their credits. There are already people barking about how long it takes their 1-hour WUs to validate, imagine how loud they will be then.

Basing credit at least in part on flop count seems to me the least unfair to the older, non-dedicated machines, which still make up the majority of crunchers attached to this project.

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You mentioned "...the older, non-dedicated machines, which still make up the majority of crunchers attached to this project."

I am running one of those machines.

It runs in the background while we somemtimes use it to surf the net, my wife does her emails, plays POGO, etc. It takes anywhere from 3 to 5 days, working its little heart out to process an AP unit, even when left alone. Obviously, I'm not doing for the credits.

Aside from writng my Master's Thesis on it, this machine has dedicated its life to SETI@Home.

But lately, after so long running 365/24/7 it is beccoming unstable. Shuts itself off several times per day. Most recently, it ran an Astropulse v5.05 unit for 3 days and that unit was dismissed for an error while computing. Quite frustrating.

So I figure this old box may be about to give up the ghost, which will probably put an end to my participation in BOINC. At least until I can afford another to replace it. Since we have two other computers we use for mostthings, I doubt the CEO/CFO will countenance purchasing another. Especialy since she says this one runs fine, which it does when not pushed to its limits.

I can't imagine doing an AP unit in an hour or reporting a million credits per day. I don't even have half a million credits in my total after all these years.

So even if the work units are not made larger, I'm afraid my time crunching (if that term can be applied to this dinosaur) SETI are nearing an end.

But lately, after so long running 365/24/7 it is beccoming unstable. Shuts itself off several times per day. Most recently, it ran an Astropulse v5.05 unit for 3 days and that unit was dismissed for an error while computing. Quite frustrating.

Have you taken the cover off of the old beast to clean out any dust bunnies or check to see if any cooling fans have failed?

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

But lately, after so long running 365/24/7 it is beccoming unstable. Shuts itself off several times per day. Most recently, it ran an Astropulse v5.05 unit for 3 days and that unit was dismissed for an error while computing. Quite frustrating.

Have you taken the cover off of the old beast to clean out any dust bunnies or check to see if any cooling fans have failed?

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Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, about once a month I undress it and remove the small amount of cat fur (Zelda sheds a lot) the cover. All 3 fans are running.

I invite any suggestions about how to revive/resuscitate this machine so we can continue to participate in S@H. But unless it can be done at minimal cost, rehab may make less sense than getting a new one.

Stevo

in addition to the issues Raistmer raises, increasing the size of workunits will increase the time it takes older, slower, non-dedicated machines to process, which will increase the wait time for the newer/faster/dedicated crunchers to actually get their credits. There are already people barking about how long it takes their 1-hour WUs to validate, imagine how loud they will be then.

Basing credit at least in part on flop count seems to me the least unfair to the older, non-dedicated machines, which still make up the majority of crunchers attached to this project.

And just like he said it's not about the credits.....as far as the older machines go time could be adjusted in the scheduled cut off dates, or by judging the machine speed versus cut off date. That's not an issue what so ever. However I didn't account for the signals being not only size, but time measured as far as the measurements and adjustments to the scientific data side of things. Personally I could care less how long the units take to validate. In theory it wouldn't take any longer, whats the difference between waiting on a larger unit that takes both machine longer to crunch versus lots of small one you are waiting on. This isn't a competition as much as most people seem to think it is, I wish to an extent that thinking would go away.

I'm fine with the setup we have now, never intended people to 'defend' the project or people in it due to my musings.

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Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

But lately, after so long running 365/24/7 it is beccoming unstable. Shuts itself off several times per day. Most recently, it ran an Astropulse v5.05 unit for 3 days and that unit was dismissed for an error while computing. Quite frustrating.

Have you taken the cover off of the old beast to clean out any dust bunnies or check to see if any cooling fans have failed?

===========================================
Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, about once a month I undress it and remove the small amount of cat fur (Zelda sheds a lot) the cover. All 3 fans are running.

I invite any suggestions about how to revive/resuscitate this machine so we can continue to participate in S@H. But unless it can be done at minimal cost, rehab may make less sense than getting a new one.

Stevo

Ideas off the top of my head:

-The heat sink goop has dried out & isn't properly conducting heat away from the CPU anymore.
-The power supply is on its way out.
-Disk, memory, or board failure underway.

Depending on what "minimal cost" means a nettop might be reasonable. Its reduced power consumption might also make it justifiable. You can find decent ones for $200-300 or possibly less.

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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[