The special icons and so on go on until 31st December, but let's see if we can crack this before Christmas.

Source

That's my post, just after midnight of the first day.

18 hours later, Eric posted - and his word is more significant than mine:

The response has been amazing! We've already reached our goal for the fundraiser and a bit more, and we reached the limits to which the donors have agreed to match. Any further matching of donations is up to them. If you didn't get a chance to get your special disk drive or GPU icon, we'll keep that open for donations that come in until 8am Pacific Time (1600 UTC) on Monday.

in the context of Friday 8 December 2017, Monday means 11 December 2017.

Icons are effectively free for Eric to issue, so it's worth asking him (nicely, please), but please don't go on asking me to double-match the funding for ever - there are limits! :-)))

That reminds me - I still have to pester Eric yet again for the bank account number he wants the money wire-transferred to.

Thanks for clarifying Richard. Still think that the post of yours should be adhered to. Many are paid monthly & like me wanted to donate. My main income is paid on the last working day of the month :-(

Well, it's worth asking Eric - but please go by his answer, not mine. Eric didn't mention a deadline in his original news item on the front page, but he did mention a target appeal total of ~$44,000 for the two appliances together. We had been discussing the details and costings in considerable detail privately in advance, and there were good reasons for wanting to complete the whole process before the end of the year. My post reflected that timetable, barely six hours after the public appeal had appeared - but things proceeded far faster than any of us had expected, and we were all struggling to keep up.

But look at my next post after Eric said we'd reached the target (in less than 24 hours):

... let's pause and celebrate over Christmas. But I'd like to reconvene in the New Year, and consider what we can do together for the staffing side of things.

Maybe you could hold on to that Christmas bonus and be the first to earn a little purple Sysadmin icon to help Eric out?

Understood & it wasn't a Xmas bonus :-)

What I was trying to convey was that whenever "special donation" drives crop up, they're too short. In your case, I understand the matching limits had to have a cut off date, but the drive itself could have continued to Dec 31 for the icons. Any extra funding received over & above the required amount could have been held towards the sysadmin portion & the same applied to other specials.

It gives everyone a chance to not only provide for the project but get that "extra" kudos.

...but things proceeded far faster than any of us had expected, and we were all struggling to keep up...

Understatement of the (very new) year, my good man!

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Well, just did a refresh on the page that Eric updates with the monthly donation totals, and it appears that most of the donations for the drive have been counted. We broke $125,000 and I would like to say thanks to everyone who contributed, regardless of amount. I am confident that Eric is going to put the amount over and above the cost of the new boxes to the best possible use, to keep the project as stable as it can be, and hopefully some of it will be directed towards whatever has been causing the issues we've been having recently.

I believe that some of it is software related, but if there are some pieces of hardware that can be acquired which will provide some stability to the project, I would think they would be a smart acquisition. The software side is going to be a bit more tricky, but I know that is being discussed as well, its just how to fund it properly in the mid to longer term.

Regardless, again, Thank You all for your contributions to this drive, it was a resounding success. Well done!

*Edit* Was just putzing around on Boincstats, and I noticed on the Hosts Overview page of SETI's stats, on 12/10, there was a huge blip in the number of new hosts. It appears the average of the month surrounding that date was in the neighborhood of 2-500 a day, and on that day the total was 2844. Not sure if this fund drive had anything to do with it or not, but I did find it an interesting coincidence.

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*Edit* Was just putzing around on Boincstats, and I noticed on the Hosts Overview page of SETI's stats, on 12/10, there was a huge blip in the number of new hosts. It appears the average of the month surrounding that date was in the neighborhood of 2-500 a day, and on that day the total was 2844. Not sure if this fund drive had anything to do with it or not, but I did find it an interesting coincidence.

This reminds me...and I hope to not go too far down a different rabbit hole, but I thought I saw a post or received a notice on BOINC a few months back stating that more WUs were going to be in the hopper soon. The point of the notice was asking us to spare a few more CPU cycles. Did I just dream that, and if not, has there been a noticeable increase in WUs being crunched?

Thanks, Al, for the financial report - and I echo every one of your sentiments about the splendid efforts of you all.

Full disclosure: the sum which Al calculated does not yet include the matching funds which I pledged. Sending money from overseas isn't as simple as putting a check in the mail - not least because ours are called cheques, they go in the post, and they don't know what US dollars are.

Funds are pledged, safe, and available. I could go via Visa, but fees and daily limits make it inappropriate for larger sums. I'd like to make a wire transfer, but apparently that causes problems at the Berkeley end: everything arrives in one big messy heap, and Eric has to be on hand to claim what is his. Eric has more than enough cash on hand to place his orders, so there's no rush: I'll keep nudging him at relatively gentle intervals until we can agree when to do the deed.

Just throwing out ideas here. Bank to Bank wire transfer. Certified cashiers cheque. I sent in my first donation via check for the early part of the drive back in November. The Finance Department didn't get around to presenting it to my bank for clearing until January 4th. Bank of America was the bank the Regents of the University of California used for the deposit.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Just throwing out ideas here. Bank to Bank wire transfer. Certified cashiers cheque. I sent in my first donation via check for the early part of the drive back in November. The Finance Department didn't get around to presenting it to my bank for clearing until January 4th. Bank of America was the bank the Regents of the University of California used for the deposit.

That's so nineteenth century! Here in the UK they're called Banker's Drafts, and my bank has stopped issuing them. I've actually signed up with a corporate-grade money transfer service (people use it for things like buying houses overseas), so I'd have no trouble getting the money out of the country - the only sticking point is identifying the precise arrival point so it ends up in the right hands.

Brainstorming the problem myself led to this page, which may be of interest to other donors. Berkeley: Giving From Abroad. Normally, across the world, tax deductions are available for in-country donations only: but, to no surprise at all, Berkeley alumni have set up procedures for home-country collection (with tax relief) and onward transfer.

Yes Keith but at least you got your animated fund drive "gold star" Tisk :-)

Ed F

Brainstorming the problem myself led to this page, which may be of interest to other donors. Berkeley: Giving From Abroad. Normally, across the world, tax deductions are available for in-country donations only: but, to no surprise at all, Berkeley alumni have set up procedures for home-country collection (with tax relief) and onward transfer.

Outstanding, Richard! You figured it out and the new information will be useful to anybody else outside the U.S. who wished to donate.

I am NOT getting the Donor Inquiry Form to populate in my browser for some reason though. That looks to be the mechanism used for the UC representative to contact you too which is unfortunate.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I see we have lost our Special Fundraiser icons this afternoon because of the server work I presume.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

And our green stars

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Somebody must be reading your posts. Your green star is back. And now its gone again.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Was a falling meteor not a star... LOL

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I see that a few people still have their green stars. The most obvious one is Eric Korpela. I see Richard Haselgrove still has his star. Maybe you have to be in the inner circle or something.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

ROFL

Thanks to All. That answers my Star/ Icon issue. I am doing my best to help resolve this also.

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Pluto will always be a Planet to me.

I see that a few people still have their green stars.

I advised Dr. Korpela so it's a known issue and should be restored soon. It was indicated that this seemed to be the result of a BOINC update breaking the scripting.

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