Blirf, well stated.

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So what is the paid staff doing?

So what is the paid staff doing?

(sigh)
https://youtu.be/jY5cQTKlYSs

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

I think they do pretty darn well

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To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

So what is the paid staff doing?

They sit on the lawn waiting for ET to land and say "Hello" ;))

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https://youtu.be/jY5cQTKlYSs

Interesting who provided subs for that video?
SETI called "city","said" and number of over words... Looks like ET did subs themselves :P

So what is the paid staff doing?

I don't have the exact details. I am sure you can contact any of these people directly and maybe they'll step away from their duties to answer any specific inquiries you may have. It will be up to them in any spare time they may or may not have. I would make a personal request that you give them some time to address your inquiries.

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We know they are busy. I guess most of us is busy also. Still, if you deceide to do a project like this, you should at least keep a basic level of communication with the ppl that "work" for you. At least thats my opinion. I don't expect them to post on the forums every day (although it would be nice) but honestly, how long does it take to post a quick message on the homepage or the boards or send a tweet when somethings wrong? Not much longer then the reply to your PM.
And its not just that. Overall, I find it hard to get informations about the project. A few examples? I don't know if all the data is processed and checked for persistant signals without the ntpkr. I don't know if the work done at beta is just for testing or has scientific value also. I asked all this here on the forums, multiple times. And I got answers from the users here (thx for that folks!), but they don't know for sure either. I'm pretty sure that the officials read the boards, so it would really be nice, if they could drop a quick answer from time to time. In many cases a simple yes or no would be enough. Again: I don't expect long answers.

+1

If there's one area where this project could really, really use some improvement, it's not the servers, it's not the apps, it's not the silly credits, it's not the availability of APs, it's the communication. It was quite refreshing for a while this spring when Matt was keeping everybody posted (going above and beyond, really) about the database issues that they were running into and trying to address. A little daylight for us mushrooms! It shouldn't be such a rare and difficult task to periodically communicate with the community. (That's what we belong to, isn't it? Or is this actually just a cult?) It certainly doesn't have to be voluminous, but greater frequency would sure be nice.

I seem to remember at the beginning of the year there was talk of a commitment by the project administration to do a better job of communicating, sort of a New Year's resolution. Other than Matt's very welcome updates on the database issues, I can't say that I've actually seen any improvement.

All I can tell ya, friends, is this.........
Don't hold your breath waiting for better comms from the crew.
It just ain't their thingy.

Be happy that they are spending their time pursuing what really matters...the science.

I am on this project because that is what matters to me, not daily news bulletins.

And please don't take that wrong. I appreciate news from the battlefront as much as anybody. Matt's informative posts are especially enjoyable when he takes the time to make them.

But I am not about to sit here and complain if there is not a steady stream of such informative posts to read all the time.

Meow.

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

I'm with Mark.


I can't remember the exact figure, but I think SETI@Home has barely got one full-time-equivalent paid staff member, spread across half a dozen bodies. I would far rather they were doing work to get science done than spending part of that rare and valuable resource posting here. Matt's post were Matt doing it when he was taking a break, not Matt doing it as part of his job.

Just now they are working on getting the data stream from one of the other telescopes into something for us to work on. For years S@H has been dependent on one equatorial source of data, a source that can broadly, only look straight up in the sky, whereas the new source is pretty well horizon to horizon in it scope.

As a very personal aside, I would love to see a data stream from Jodrell Bank, but I doubt that will happen any day soon.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

https://youtu.be/jY5cQTKlYSs

Interesting who provided subs for that video?
SETI called "city","said" and number of over words... Looks like ET did subs themselves :P

I think that would be the automatic google subtitles. Some places it is really bad.
When he says: "The question of extraterrestrial life and intelligent life"
It comes out as: "the questioner affects our trust your life and intelligent life"

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I'm with Mark.


I can't remember the exact figure, but I think SETI@Home has barely got one full-time-equivalent paid staff member, spread across half a dozen bodies. I would far rather they were doing work to get science done than spending part of that rare and valuable resource posting here. Matt's post were Matt doing it when he was taking a break, not Matt doing it as part of his job.

Just now they are working on getting the data stream from one of the other telescopes into something for us to work on. For years S@H has been dependent on one equatorial source of data, a source that can broadly, only look straight up in the sky, whereas the new source is pretty well horizon to horizon in it scope.

As a very personal aside, I would love to see a data stream from Jodrell Bank, but I doubt that will happen any day soon.

Maybe even the SKA when it's operational ;-)

P.

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Maybe even the SKA when it's operational ;-)

Or the ATA, I haven't heard or read much lately about progress there.

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

Are we almost done with the 2012 data?

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Who knows.
Don't get hung up on the date of the data, its been traveling for a very long time before it got here, so another few years before week get it screened won't make that much of a difference.
One thing to know is that there were quite a few "tapes" that were all but un-usable with the old splitters and applications that, thanks to progress, have become useable, so we need to screen them.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

And the kitties shall be here to crunch 'em up.

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

Getting a few resends. One has been around the block a few times. Has _4 at the end.

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I can't remember the exact figure, but I think SETI@Home has barely got one full-time-equivalent paid staff member, spread across half a dozen bodies. I would far rather they were doing work to get science done than spending part of that rare and valuable resource posting here.

Please pardon the potential blasphemy, but from that, I had to ask what exact "science" is being done here?


I know we're trying to find similar persistent signals from space and to that end there is ntpckr. However, due to the lack of various resources, ntpckr is relegated to have about the same priority as project communications with the minions here in the fora.

Resources toward more data streams only allow us to add more data points to a database that is unmanageable (to ntpckr & staffing). More data only feeds into a vicious circle, which may have social science values, perhaps?

+1

I can't remember the exact figure, but I think SETI@Home has barely got one full-time-equivalent paid staff member, spread across half a dozen bodies. I would far rather they were doing work to get science done than spending part of that rare and valuable resource posting here.

Please pardon the potential blasphemy, but from that, I had to ask what exact "science" is being done here?


I know we're trying to find similar persistent signals from space and to that end there is ntpckr. However, due to the lack of various resources, ntpckr is relegated to have about the same priority as project communications with the minions here in the fora.

Resources toward more data streams only allow us to add more data points to a database that is unmanageable (to ntpckr & staffing). More data only feeds into a vicious circle, which may have social science values, perhaps?

There was a show I was watching that featured Geoffrey W. Marcy. I think it was the show the The Universe. Where he said that when he started his search for exoplanets in the 80's. That he was considered a joke & had basically given up. Planning to finish out his career being laughed at by his peers. After about 10 years of collecting data & finding nothing. The some Swiss scientists found the first exoplanet, which he helped confirm. Then using what the Swiss scientists had found. They were able to go over all of the data he had collected in the decade previously to find lots of planets. So science doesn't always work on a linear path towards its goals.

Arecibo is often in danger of being shut down due to lack of funding. So the SETI@home team started taking steps to secure data from other sources. The data we look at right now is only one part in a process.
When they added NTPCkr it showed the current db hardware wasn't up to that task to run it at the same time as everything else. They are also working towards sorting out some of the many issues with the various databases. The Technical News posts are where most of those things are discussed. Such as looking for new db software that is more manageable.

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