1) Message boards : Number crunching : your opinion-best spyware & antivirus. (Message 898650) Posted 23 May 2009 by StokeyBob Post: I think the best thing I ever did was to get a router. It cut down the kids on my lawn to almost nothing. I have used some of the free anti viruses mentioned and they worked fine, I've got Kaspersky Internet Security running now and it seems to play nice with BOINC. It also comes with multiple licenses.

2) Message boards : Number crunching : Benchmark variations (Message 877773) Posted 21 Mar 2009 by StokeyBob Post: Thanks OzzFan. Those are some nice looking numbers SuperJoker. P.S. SuperJoker, I looked at your task. Your doing four work units at a time in 900 seconds about while I'm doing two at a time in about 14,000 second, if I reading it right. Man have things changed fast.

3) Message boards : Number crunching : Benchmark variations (Message 877739) Posted 21 Mar 2009 by StokeyBob Post: I just restarted a machine to run out the work units, now that we look down. Like usually happens the benchmark started right after the machine started and while the anti-virus also wanted to update. I then re-ran them to see if all the other applications also running and starting effected the benchmark. 3/20/2009 10:03:35 PM||Running CPU benchmarks 3/20/2009 10:04:07 PM||Benchmark results: 3/20/2009 10:04:07 PM|| Number of CPUs: 2 3/20/2009 10:04:07 PM|| 1411 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU 3/20/2009 10:04:07 PM|| 2087 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU 3/20/2009 10:04:08 PM|SETI@home|Restarting task 02ja09ad.23093.62225.6.8.166_1 using setiathome_enhanced version 528 3/20/2009 10:04:08 PM|SETI@home|Restarting task 02ja09ad.23093.64679.6.8.28_0 using setiathome_enhanced version 528 3/20/2009 10:05:26 PM||Running CPU benchmarks 3/20/2009 10:05:27 PM||Suspending computation - running CPU benchmarks 3/20/2009 10:05:58 PM||Benchmark results: 3/20/2009 10:05:58 PM|| Number of CPUs: 2 3/20/2009 10:05:58 PM|| 1422 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU 3/20/2009 10:05:58 PM|| 3052 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU 3/20/2009 10:05:59 PM||Resuming computation I'm not sure if this variation can be repeated but I was wondering how this effects credit. Which is better credit wise?

4) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Seti: Is Anybody Out There? (Message 862630) Posted 6 Feb 2009 by StokeyBob Post: I thought I checked the date and the article was current. Oops!

5) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Seti: Is Anybody Out There? (Message 857558) Posted 25 Jan 2009 by StokeyBob Post: Someone shared this article on another forum or http://www.fark.com about a week ago. I can't remember. Seti: Is Anybody Out There? Leander Kahney Email 12.22.00 Seti@Home has clocked half-a-million years in computer time searching for ET on home PCs, but the real work isn't due to begin in earnest until January. The Seti@Home project harnesses the spare computing cycles of millions of PCs across the globe to search for telltale signs of intelligent life in radio signals beamed from outer space. Since its launch 18 months ago, 2.6 million people in 226 countries have downloaded Seti@Home's screensaver software, which scans radio data when their computers aren't otherwise in use. The screensaver looks for strong signals among the white noise of the universe's background radio transmissions. But the process of figuring out which signals, if any, have come from alien civilizations won't start operating at full swing until the end of January, when the project brings online all its back-end servers. "We only recently started the back-end analysis," said David Anderson, Seti@Home's director. "We've been doing bits and pieces here and there. It will be turned on full blast next month." In the meantime, the Seti@Home project has become the largest computing problem ever undertaken. It has clocked an astonishing 500,000 years in computing time, with another 1,000 years of processing time contributed every day. Collectively, the 2.6 million Seti@Home machines are twice as powerful as the most powerful supercomputer on the planet, and a lot cheaper. The U.S. Government's ASCI White, housed at a California nuclear weapons research lab, is rated at 12 Teraflops (trillion operations a second) and cost $110 million to build. All day, every day, Seti@Home operates at around 25 Teraflops but cost only $500,000, excluding the cost of the home PCs. "It's the biggest supercomputer on the planet by far," said the project's chief scientist, Dan Werthimer, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. To date, the Seti@Home screensavers have identified 500 million strong radio signals from data gathered by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the world's largest radio telescope, which was built into a huge, bowl-shaped sink hole at the top of a mountain. "In the screensaver, strong signals look like skyscrapers sticking up above the grass," said Werthimer. Using a variety of algorithms, the screensavers have whittled down the 500 million strong signals, or spikes, to about 125 million that look interesting. All of these 125 million signals display a Gaussian, or bell curve, profile. As the Aricebo telescope scans across the sky, the signal becomes progressively stronger and then weaker, just like a bell-shaped curve. A signal displaying a Gaussian profile is less likely to be noise from terrestrial cell phones, airplanes or satellites, and probably originated from a single point in space -- maybe a planet orbiting a nearby star. "That characteristic pattern gets us excited," said Werthimer. But to ensure the signal came from an alien civilization, it must be transmitted from the same part of the sky, at the same frequency, on two or more observations, which would indicate a persistent signal and not just a random burst of energy. This "back-end" analysis was only recently begun, but already it has identified hundreds of signals that have been broadcast twice, three times, even four times, over an 18-month period. A map on the project's site shows the results: Red dots are signals picked up more twice. Green dots are signals detected four or more times. But so far, every signal that merits closer inspection has proven a red herring. "Occasionally you find very strong signals and you look more closely but it turns out to be a satellite or interference," said Werthimer. Even though 500,000 years of computing time seems like a lot of time to throw at a problem, Werthimer said it's just the beginning. "I've been doing this for 25 years and I still think we're just scratching the surface," Werthimer said. "We've got a long way to go. We're searching such a small range of frequencies, it may take another 50 or 100 years." Seti@Home currently searches a narrow 2.5 Mhz band among the billions of potential radio bands. A thorough search for signs of intelligent life would include a much wider swath of the electromagnetic spectrum. A good candidate would be light. Advanced alien civilizations might communicate with lasers because of their high information bearing capacity. Another Seti program at Berkeley plans to start searching for patterns in light. But unlike radio, light has trouble penetrating the huge clouds of cosmic dust that are spread throughout the universe. There is also the problem of ever-increasing amounts of radio pollution. The Earth is already brighter than the Sun in terms of radio radiation -- all of it man-made. "It's getting harder to do Seti on this planet," said Werthimer. "We may have to go to the back side of the moon." The good news, Werthimer said, is that the ever-increasing power of computers means that more and more cycles can be applied at the search. Already Seti@Home has added the ability to find pulsed, and not just steady, signals, and will shortly include data from the Southern Hemisphere. Werthimer said Seti's search capabilities have increased by a factor of one million in the last 20 years, but it will take a one billion-fold increase before a comprehensive search of the universe can be done. "We are 20 or 30 years away from a thorough search," he said. "It's like combing a cosmic haystack. We've just started poking around the edges." "Even though I think the universe is teeming with life, I think it's going to be a while. But it will probably be in our lifetime." Seti@Home's director, Anderson, added: "Detecting an alien signal would probably be one of the most exciting events in human history, if not the most exciting. "It would change all of our lives forever. The probability of it happening is not exceptionally high but it's like the lottery. The payoff is so big, it's worth doing anyway." http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/12/40801?currentPage=all

6) Message boards : SETI@home Science : seti looking for signals in the wrong medium (Message 857555) Posted 25 Jan 2009 by StokeyBob Post: I've sort of wondered if we could search for the frequency that is emitted by lightning the way we do on earth. It may give use a better understanding of places that may be inhabitable like our own little spectrum of existence. http://www.nhweatherdata.com/lightning.html

7) Message boards : Number crunching : Happy Holidays! So long, everyone! (Message 836627) Posted 3 Dec 2008 by StokeyBob Post: I could use a little cutting back myself... Tough thing is it's getting winter and I need the heat... Well maybe not so much.

8) Message boards : Number crunching : CLOSED* SETI/BOINC Milestones (tm) XV *CLOSED (Message 804184) Posted 2 Sep 2008 by StokeyBob Post:

9) Message boards : Number crunching : Crunch3r's Site down? (Message 801271) Posted 23 Aug 2008 by StokeyBob Post: I would like to get in line and get an email on the instructions for making the optimized BOINC client work also. Would it not be easier to just post them here?

10) Questions and Answers : Windows : boinc icon (Message 737724) Posted 12 Apr 2008 by StokeyBob Post: I was seeing the red dot also. The boinc manager would come on with the red dot and then shut down and disappear from the system tray. I tried messing with the fire wall with no luck. I ended up removing boinc from my computer and reinstalling it. It was sort of freaky. After I reinstalled it my work was still there and the optimized client and application were still installed. I installed a new anti virus earlier today that may have weirded things out.

11) Message boards : Number crunching : Crunch3rs BOINC V6.1.0, 64 & 32 bit #2. (Message 736736) Posted 10 Apr 2008 by StokeyBob Post: It looks like pasting them all in works okay. The new 2.4v application is also in and I still have my work units. So far. Thanks Crunch3r and everyone else for the work you've done.

12) Message boards : Number crunching : Crunch3rs BOINC V6.1.0, 64 & 32 bit #2. (Message 736731) Posted 10 Apr 2008 by StokeyBob Post: I've downloaded Boinc_6.1.0.32_v5_r and unzipped it. I don't remember installing so many files for an optimized client. Are you copy and pasting all of them into your BOINC folder?

13) Message boards : Number crunching : "User Average" has been dropping since 3-23-2008 (Message 736340) Posted 9 Apr 2008 by StokeyBob Post: Thanks David. It looks like I have a lot of big work units waiting. When I used to look there would be three other people with the same work units sent about the same time. Now I see one other on a lot of them. Thank you too Jim-R. I'll check out the new optimized applications and see what is going on. Carson

14) Message boards : Number crunching : "User Average" has been dropping since 3-23-2008 (Message 735752) Posted 7 Apr 2008 by StokeyBob Post: Thanks for your responses. My machines are really choked up with dust. So am I looking at the things like my pending results. It has been a long time since I've messed with my machines. They have just been sort of chugging along on their own for a long time now.

15) Message boards : Number crunching : Refresh My Memory, Why can't we detect CPU to use optimized (Message 735217) Posted 6 Apr 2008 by StokeyBob Post: Long time, no see! Paul D. Buck I haven't been on the message boards for a long time. It is good to see you still around.

16) Message boards : Number crunching : "User Average" has been dropping since 3-23-2008 (Message 735216) Posted 6 Apr 2008 by StokeyBob Post: My "User Average" has been dropping according to the graph in my BOINC manager. Does anyone out there know why? My machines seem to be okay. I haven't been on the message boards for a while. Maybe I have missed something. I have a lot of pending work units that are setting waiting for others to run. Maybe that is it.

17) Message boards : Number crunching : UPLOAD/DOWNLOAD Seems working now... (Message 566945) Posted 14 May 2007 by StokeyBob Post: One of my computers somehow got 8 WU and is working on one. How can I transfer the WU that are waiting to run on this computer to my other 6 computers that are just sitting there for days doing nothing with "downloading" in the status column? Sincerely I don't think you can.

18) Message boards : Number crunching : Upload problems. (Message 519106) Posted 18 Feb 2007 by StokeyBob Post: Man did I snooze through this one. I just noticed my machines down.

19) Message boards : Cafe SETI : To keep up with Mars, earth now has it's own face (Message 478499) Posted 10 Dec 2006 by StokeyBob Post: Thanks Misfit, I'll try that. P.S. Thanks everyone for your kind words.

20) Message boards : Cafe SETI : To keep up with Mars, earth now has it's own face (Message 478247) Posted 10 Dec 2006 by StokeyBob Post: I got an email that I had become a mod yesterday. I'm not quite sure what that means. I have been busy with other things lately. It feels kind of good though.

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