Posts by Y. A. Winston Smith

1) Questions and Answers : Preferences : SETI Reports: Sometimes Honest, sometimes Alzheimers (Message 995378) Posted 10 May 2010 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Somehow I'd like it cut in stone The Truth - everyplace on the main system it still says I'm a participant since March 2010! That's +19 years and a lot of electrons over the quantum jumps and back. I didn't think it mattered to me until I suffered a systems crash that wiped out my SETI data on my machine. In some places the data's right - under a different name, YAWinston Smith started with SETI@Home back on 26 May 1999, shortly after the news went out. In some places it says I've completed 863,098 Cobblestones of new work units, + an apparently forgotten number of old-style work units, the most I could squeeze out of a 16 MHz '396, followed by a 486DX66 and my (please Murphy let it survive forever) T-41 IBM Thinkpad.) a P-2 bigcase, P4 smallchip then bigcase - that one ran alongside the 'P2-266 for a while, a P4-3 GHz Big Box that died apparently of jelousy when I built my current I7 Bigchip. In some places the workunits continue to mount - from 0 to 121047 on my I7, ignoring the valiant decades of labor by its predecessors. OK, where is the data stored in my Home Unit's programming (no, I do hardware fairly well, but I can't program my way out of a paper bag. Please send a "personal" if you know the code well enough. and please be the real thing, just not someone who "knows the last line"<g to them who get it, but, by name and sig, you all should!>
2) Questions and Answers : Preferences : Priority of Tasks? (Message 949963) Posted 26 Nov 2009 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: (this is not another Q. I got zapped for, but question in general) WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO when we have 493 hrs into an Astropulse task due 11/28 when it's 11/26 and you know there's no way to complete what's now 709+ hours of work. The task is running at High Priority, has been for 2 weeks. During the same time I've been credited with 100,000 New SETI units - mainly because I7/CUDA runs 64-bit XP (fast) whenever I'm not using it/sometimes when my workload is low. (note, a lot of that cred is for work complete BEFORE the monster arrived, I've still been delivering @2750 units/day if I read the chart right. What I need is a contact, SOME address at SETI to say "It's still coming, give me time because you overloaded me" - I think we could all use that. Long term - SETI should recognize multiple core machines (just what SETI data was made for - grinding and grinding through the same equation over and over, and subdivide data i.e. in half for a 2 core, by 4 for a four-core, by 8 for an I7 because of where the Von Neumann bottleneck sits (other divisions for other CPUs) and also divide a task and package differently for a 64/32 cpu rather than a 32-straight cpu while we all beg IntamD for a chip that runs 64 bits at minimum register size.* The I7 has 4 real cores and 4 virtual cores because bus speeds let it always have at least One Next Instruction from jobs 5-8 waiting in the wings, while a new instruction for jobs 1-4 are being prepped to go. Divide a job like the one I describe into 8 packages of 64-bit chunks (and adjust for each of the other new CPUs out there - 1 job per Atom, etc. Nothing against AMD, but I am not familliar enough with their new CPUs to make suggestions) while also checking whether someone is still "wasting" half of their CPU bits and running a 32-bit OS on a 64/32 or, I hope soon, a 64/64 bit machine (The newest Xeon may fit the bill at only double the Sticker Shock) But we still need someone to send a message to, who will pass along the news - someone who just reads, divides and posts such data - it could even be done by a BOINC generated form, delivered to the right server and never touch human hands! (Astropulse [date] These jobs will arrive overdue: (comma deliniated list follows) *(fyi, newcomers: some registers in even a 16-bit machine ran from 8 to even 256 bits, depending on special actions (like the 256-bit IEEE hyper-extended multiplier result). It's still a mixed bag - and more and more of the smallest registers in 64-bit chips are hitting 64 - the smallest may still be 24 - I think the last of those went to expand direct addressing of 4 TBy ram.
3) Questions and Answers : GPU applications : NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250, but "No CUDA-capable NVIDIA GPUs found" (Message 943385) Posted 28 Oct 2009 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Random Braindroppings: I take it you didn't 'build' your system mobo-up - First check with the manufacturer to see what's going on. Remember these words "I demand to escalate this problem"; "May I speak to your manager please"; "Is this the tech department? Are you a technician? Look do you answer calls or are you a Double-E (Electrical/electronics Engineer),"; Could I speak to someone from (Your home language's country here). I apologize for being taught 'merican style, where the belief is 'if you don't speak 'merican, don't bother me", and sprecht Deutch about as well as our late President Kennedy, who declared himself either a pastry or a weisenbier best served with a slice of lemon. And if you've learned English English, you do NOT speak colloquial 'merican English, but both can get by with Canadian English. But Indian English, and that spoken in other parts of the former Empire have nothing to do anymore with English or 'merican English. (at the risk of using the familliar AND making a fool of myself) Du sprecht 'merican gern" (or does the final misspelled word for "well" actually mean "good" or apply only to objects? All 200-series non-laptop systems handle CUDA, in fact, most 8 and 9-system cards do as well. Laptop systems should. If all else fails, use an "installation call" to Microsoft - I don't know how many you get with 7 (I'm about to find out when I put it up on my 'old' P4 3GHz) If your card was made by a reputable manufacturer, you may get some assistance there (if system won't tell, open case and read real manufacturer's name off video card) If all else fails, return the system, siting EU rights, if need be. If it's a PC it should work. If you're running a MAC, you can run CUDA now, but shame on you for spending @EU850.00 extra for a neat case with a system you cannot expand beyond a pile of blocks cluttering the desk. Ditto a PC laptop unless you need to keep it with you all the time. Though it costs MORE in the end, READ up and BUILD your system from the mobo up, preferably with an aluminum case and a PCPower&Cooling power supply and a system that will meet your needs for at least 3 Moore's Law cycles, five if you can afford it, remembering you can upgrade most a piece at a time. (Feel free to personalmail me for more suggestions)
4) Message boards : Cafe SETI : SETI joins Big Brother! (Message 937783) Posted 5 Oct 2009 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Hi, Winston Smith here (for those who have forgotten me down the Memory Hole, it would be good to read Orwell's 1984 just to let you know that BOINC and SETI have teamed up with SKIPE(tm) to make sure every word we say to each other when looking for help is available to those with the CASH to buy them, along with a whole lot of other mashed up conversations from SKIPE - (they sell ALL information they get on you, at least according to the Skipe privacy statement. These days, to reach a BOINC expert with a question like "why are the servers down", you have to inform Skipe that YOU of (full disclosure) and EXPERT of (full disclosure) all info matched up with other info lists we've bought for your advertising and other* purposes, spoke and said:"(conversation)" Why guys? wasn't Info Available to Noxious Keyloggers and commercial web spiders bad enough? WillI have to TOR just to find out what's up and hope that one TOR "donor" isn't owned by Doubleclick (from Google, the company that has a strange definition of the "evil" they don't do. I cannot supply whatever cash Skipe donated for requiring folks to use its services. Maybe folks in the Cafe include a coder who can come up with a simple 256Meg key Public Key Code we can use to talk back and forth with the Experts, all using a daily changed PK so maybe only Google and the NSA will be able to keep up with us. Of course, conversion time and time wasted for even those of us lucky to be running an I7 (or AMD equivalent we accept all cycles) and a CUDA card will lose a lot of time we could have been allowing SETI or another BOINC group to do work the NSF should be funding (hey, since the NSA is getting the World's Fastest Supercomputer according to several reliable sources, why don't we make them donate 15 minutes a day, or every unused telephone tapping cycle helping humanity for a change?) Now James Bamford, former NSA employee turned journalist, says a hell of a lot of that power is used copying and trading hot&steamy calls rather than Threats to The Homeland (in his latest book - all three are worth a read, and not Conspiracy Freak Shows - he's just an expert on knowing how to exactly phrase a Freedom of Information Act request for files that should be public from his old office). So think of what a crackdown on that [selfcensored] would do for all kinds of research, including S@H. Smith, the W at WTP hmm, think what a candidate* could do with that kind of data ... or a "well-financed terrorist front organization" - What would you do if you could find out everything that can be derived from your use of the 'web and from good guy non-commercial sites who let Google/Doubleclick or Skipe in for the limited amount of info they get back. (if a non-com site is using cookie- or webbug tracers (build a Paranoid's Copy of Firefox with add-ons tagged '1984' to find out whose investigating you) tell them to build their own data generator, or carefully read their contract with the Dark Side)
5) Message boards : Cafe SETI : 10th anniversary T-shirts (How to order) (Message 902159) Posted 31 May 2009 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: OK, how do I order one - this SHOULD be the first thing folks find on the front HOME page anyway -wtp
6) Message boards : Cafe SETI : I don't know what cross-credit claims are....... (Message 902156) Posted 31 May 2009 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: But this non-team, non-player never signed with: BOINCstats Free-DC The Knights Who Say 'Ni!' Team Starfire World BOINC Stats 'N Stones BOINC Combined Statistics BOINC all Project Stats BOINC Statistics for the WORLD! Now I'm a member of SETI@Home for more than 10 years (May 26 '99 according to my certificate) and without a supergaming or $10K superSETI machine (anyone who has gotten an NVidia supercomputer (SIX CUDA cards and a supercharged I7 or 2 running a coupla 'fridges to keep from melting will probably beat my 10-year record of just over 300K Cobblestones and 8,469 Classics is probably turning out more SETI work a day than I will in my life. So why a team needs me is beyond me. I just keep my machines on 24/7, probably a greener move than tossing disk drives and chips every 6 months or so (excuse me if half the listings are just BOINC general listings. Now I encourage folks to sign up with SETI, some even do - but not for competition. And if a unit of mine turns out to be the Holy Grail of Intelligent Life, well, I stopped any idea of claiming "I" found it when I stopped referring to my RPG character in the first person. So PLEASE don't claim "points" I don't claim either. This isn't a heavy RPG - it's an attempt to make use of our unused computer cycles for stuff the government should be funding because the last wasted money killing Iraqis and OUR OWN! on the theory that somehow they had a hand in the attack by a handful of terrorists who cost me a friend (and a lot of other folks friends) 9 years ago, ruining the country's world respect, economic power, etc.etc.etc. -wtp
7) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Anonomize now, sorry folks (Message 830886) Posted 15 Nov 2008 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Hey fellow donors of time when they're not using their machines (a gibaaflop's a terrible thing to waste) - until I got Goggled and my Bio Page, I thought available only to SETIites, became the info for a rather poor flame war (I attacked a writer on my alma mater's paper for taking bad numbers for the likelihood of a female student-academic-staffer facing some form of sexual discrimination - from maladicta to the old Glass Ceiling through inapropriate advances ... to out and out rape - Sexual Assault victims, my heart goes out to you. The only thing I can do for you (unless it's call the cops if i see/hear something wrong) is No Matter How Dirty You Feel, go to the cops, file the papers and have a hospital do a rape kit - it's your ONLY chance in court, and you are protecting others too. Hard words, but the only way to stop a real menace that's out there in low numbers, everywhere) massaged by a woman w/a website whose daughter was allegedly raped 3-4 years ago by a student at Indiana U.(I say 'alleged' cuz' there was no criminal trial, or a single word from victim, only Mom) that included added numbers for "women who (several years later when surveyed) said they were not raped, just reported consensual sex in college.) The author divided by the alleged n for the survey, multiplied by the number of female students on campus (excluding about 45% of faculty and staff) and wrote: "That's the number of rapes that occurred at (my school) this year." Enough to terrify the entire campus. The worst thing a Google came up with was "well, you should go back to spending your time looking for little green men). Now, as a SETI@Home participant, I am a Limited Public Figure in the SETI community (which means I really cannot sue anyone who replies to me calling me a monster HERE for what I say, even if it is libelous, unless outrageously so. And thrusting myself into the public, writing a message on a blog does the same for me there, too. BUT it does not for the general world. I would LIKE to see these pages, and all blogs and news groups for that matter, taken off the public net and placed where ONLY those in the right 'Community' getting a chance to see them. Speech would become freer if we knew Facebook is a general open forum, but SETI is not, though I am, when I can explain to the idiots in the house, a proud donor of my limited computer services (started on an early '386, skipped the Pentia 'till I pressed a P2 and separate laptop into service, followed by this 3GHz P4 I use @4 hrs a day, at most and SETI uses the rest. (Sorry, but this message is explicitly (C)Copyright 2008 by the person identifiable a WTP by the staffs of BOINC and SETI@Home. Both organizations are free to post spread it around our BOINC/SETI community, but it may not be collected or released or made available to the General Public, These specific rights and all other rights not enumerated are retained by the author, who also claims and retains identical rights for the entire post, including signature and "avatar". This right is also assumed for all writings, submissions, records, etc. created by the person known as WTP to the SETI@Home and BOINC authorities, retroactively from 1989 onward
8) Message boards : Politics : Are we all political? Noticed big drop on MY system betw. Oct1 and Nov 5 (Message 830875) Posted 15 Nov 2008 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Whew, four more weeks to rest up before another round begins ... I looked at my usage data, and my current Big Machine/ twin monitored, and laptop, (both set run when idle) were BOTH down for the month leading up to the big Day as I kept my screens open to every polling site in the book. (hey, I'm a former newspaperman, and was trained formally in Political Behavior, before learning how it really worked when I had the strange pleasure of riding "The Bus" with Messe'rs James (the Ragin Cajun) Carville and Paul (the Apologist for James) Begala. (that was two years before they ran a Presidential campaign, and I cleaned up placing newsroom bets on an unknown named Clinton when they signed on: damned great odds for the primary, and double-or-nuttin' for the Election if he made it - only bet on things when you KNOW the outcome based on the data) unless you can afford a loss. Anyway, if anybody else wants to take a poll of SETI voters, that's cool, I'm not gonna do it, sig. sez all. I am just wondering how many folks kept their eyes glued to Media City as things came down to the wire - did we lose as many "chocolate dollars" an old-time phrase for billable hours of compute time?
9) Questions and Answers : Preferences : A coupla strange ones.......Important and taxing (Message 590930) Posted 23 Jun 2007 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Important things first: The number of computers I have running on a given day is usually 1 or 2, going as high as 5 - since I run the machines 24-7, most time they do not have an operator in front of 'em or a heavy lifting task, they are devoted to S@H - Do I have to establish my own "group" in order to have separate operating policies for each (when I go away, the laptop goes with me, and unless power is very good, little S@H work gets done. meanwhile the current #1 Machine needs to be fed as quickly as possible or all it does is raise the A/C bills. I'd love to see a better BOINC-to-fit policy per machine. "Taxing" things second: Has anyone gotten a legitimate evaluation of how much a new BOINC "work unit" is worth in terms of tax deduction - donation in kind to a 501(c)3 NfP. The "old" system was easy - the fallback was CPU hrs at rate of power consumption * cost of a KWH, if one didn't wish to claim the actual value of a "gram or two" of computer time. What is the value of a thousand Floating Point Operations or storage of a few megabytes, the relative value of a few milliseconds of ASDL vs a few minutes at 56KBaud? I am looking for this fairly trivial value, not because I don't want to pay taxes, or wish, like large corporations and the wealthy, to pay next to nothing. I do it because our current (US) spending policies are so misguided - paying out billions a week so we can slaughter our own kids and assorted Iraqis, while handing blank checks to those funny "family owned" secretive corporations like Bechtel and Haliburton which need report nuthin' publicly to anyone, while our space program marches backwards (imagine, sending humans on giant SRBs rathr than the original advanced shuttle design, with crewed booster and orbiter sections, both returning by wing, no throw-away parts, ready to be checked, refueled and relaunched to HIGH earth orbit, something like geosynch, with maybe a stop-off in LEO to transfer to a vehicle wasting nothing on aerodynamics.) Note: I do believe in supporting our troops to the fullest - sending them into harm's way ONLY when there's a really threatening nation and diplomacy has failed. And taking great care of them when they return, whether it is due to somewhat-repairable injury or for the education bonus they were promised for enlisting. The idea that more must die or the initial deaths of now more than 3,550 Americans alone will have been "in vain" is absurd. As John Kerry said, he would consider the most honourable hero's death to be the last person killed in a pointless war. Let's bring them home today and help them get back on their feet, especially 'Guardsmen who signed up to help our nation in times of peril - whether due to the emergence of a genuine, non-political, immediate threat that requires fighting or reconstruction - like the levees around the lower Mississippi. Let's remember the guy who sent planes smashing into NY and the Pentagon, black sheep of the House of Saud, remains uncaught, though he need be tried as a simple mass-murderer, something the Saudi government could probably arrange for in a day. And al-Quaida Iraq has as much to do with him as any other outfit that pirates a brand name (see William Goldman on the value of being 'The Dread Pirate Roberts', rather than some newbe scruffy no-name upstart.) <btw> WHY is the US one of the only, if not the only country left to have extra-territorial military bases around the world. I'm not talking about multi-national treaty groups like NATO or SEATO, but armed forces that subsidize, letsee, every Japanese company and individual, who pay nothing (and would suffer no personal losses) because they're protected by the US Army. Ditto Germany, where we still await the tanks of Cold War opponents, like.. uh .. like.. Or Thailand, where we're based to fight off Viet Namese forces and maybe even the Chinese, who have trillions of our dollars floating around through outsourcing, the reason everything we buy today is stamped "made in one of the least free nations on Earth." And the trillion-dollar "drug war" we're fighting in Columbia, where most of the cash we send ends up in the pockets of some very happy individuals. Meanwhile, we spend billions of dollars a year protecting ourselves from that real Power of the Western Atlantic - CUBA! (where we also maintain a base for housing and torturing our own 'disappeared.' Note: One of the things that brought Bill Clinton down (besides talking like a lawyer about Monica, rather than saying 'it's between me,my family and any other person involved - and since it didn't affect the running of the country doesn't concern YOU') was that Draft Dodger Bill was either present when US fighters returned home killed in action, mostly protecting Muslim Serbs from their Christian neighbors, who wanted to refight the 600-year-old Battle of Shrebertniza <leaving them now 0-2>, or, if he couldn't go, the Vice President (remember Al Gore? the guy who "won" the Presidential election by 51,000+ votes?) or a specific line of cabinet members would be on hand. Chickenhawk Draft Dodger George W. hasn't made the trip once - and has ordered the flights bearing many times the number of coffins than arrived during the Clinton years, to come in at night, at bases off-limits to reporters, sneaking those shattered bodies back in the middle of the night. Let's all of us from the 'States (at least those who itemize) deduct our SETI@Home costs, legitimately, maybe $11.34 a year or something the auditors declare official, to show the government where WE think our tax dollars should be going (though the War has been hidden in "off-budget" and "black" budgets, and will be paid for by our kids at this rate, though W inherited a profitable federal bureaucracy and a falling national debt). <BTW> whether you liked this or consider me some sorta dangerous "Liberal" (to the rest of the world - the farthest-right Canadian parties are about like our Democrats, moderate though one would think, listening to some, they are a Fifth Column ready to destroy the 'States when the armies of uh? oh, according to GWB 'the enemy (that) we know is out there, but we don't know who he is but he isn't us'(First inaugural speech). Real Progressives walk around worrying they're going to be put on a new McCarthy/House Un-American Activities Committee list for daring to read a book by Gore, H. Clinton or Barak Obama, or some guide to al-Islam answering the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'a.) Anyway, at least remember to VOTE and make sure your vote, and the votes of all your neighbors, with or against you, are really really counted this time.
10) Questions and Answers : Wish list : BOINK, bounce, dribbledribble, splut! (Message 265202) Posted 19 Mar 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Hey, today it's two systems, no waiting here (#3 is down for a case transplant, cuz Dell doesn't stock its customized fans for 1 GHz Pentium IIIs...) but I can't get a work unit - even an answer! You need more users, ya say? Users need more work - Let's get that upgraded (actually 3rd upgrade, guys) work package on the road so we can find somthin' out there!
11) Questions and Answers : Wish list : BOINC (Message 265200) Posted 19 Mar 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: I agree - but I'm not quitting - BOINC is a BAD idea because it has sucked away users interested on programs with a more immediate return or newsworthiness, i.e. more likely to get public funding (I'll donate machine time to SETI but no cash - And I'll vote only for members of Congress and the Senate who place research education, health and welfare over needless war, Big Brother and debt in November '06 (why do my candidates usually lose? oh yeh, you can't answer a question like why we need basic research "9/11" but it works if you ask why we're attacking a country that had no ties to the criminals who killed a friend of mine,(among countless others), smearing her over the Pentagon).... Sorry for the political rant, but SETI is political. Prior to Sputnik and the Fear of Reds over our Heads (go back and RTFnewspapers for 1956-7-8 if you must) folks who thought about rockets were relegated to "those nuts who read Amazing Stories". Those who don't know history, eh? Remember, the liquid rocket engine was invented by self-funded "nut" Robert Goddard, and first saw use - as a weapon - by von Braun's V-2 builders. Even while we were playing with rockets after the War, the public saw the early NASA as a joke until a little ball that went beep...beeep....beep for a few weeks flew overhead. It CAN be argued that the deaths of two Shuttle crews can be laid directly at the feet of the late Sen. William Proxmire, R Wisc., who took the seat er, vacated by Joe McCarthy - fitting somehow. NASA asked for $10 billion to build a manned winged spaceplane (not glider) that would reach HIGH EARTH ORBIT boosted by a crewed 100% reusable lower stage. Proxmire, who loved making any science he couldn't grasp, or better yet Joe American couldn't grasp look foolish, pathetic and as theft from good Americans who should be at war in Viet Nam, or Latin America, or on the front lines of the Iron Curtain, gave NASA $5G and an order to do the same thing. NASA was forced by Congress and Nixon to work on the cheap and.... Keep your gear on-line if you can afford these artificially-high fuel/electric bills, and ask your candidates "guns or education, research and butter" before voting.
12) Questions and Answers : Wish list : Back up after a severe crash....... (Message 258794) Posted 7 Mar 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: ....I noticed I had a unit sent in February due in by next week. Now, if I could d/l it again, I could fill the gap. I know you send out multiple copies of each unit or overlap work units to prevent this kind of problem from leaving a hole in the data, but I hate seeing an open spot I'll never be able to fill since the data went up in a head crash. Other features I wouldn't mind seeing: ELIMINATION of the screen saver - even with the World's Fastest Video Card, allowing use of the 'saver rather than blanking the screen slows mprogress by at least 50% - OK some people want to feel "connected" - develop a screen saver that delivers running numeric totals every n seconds without wasting time to draw pretty pictures. ALSO: Some report on what came out of a unit that I can go back to - sort of like those who save old lotery tix to see how many numbers they got out of 6 scattered across their 10 picks each week. Put it on the page showing credit awarded, possibly, for reference, listing the best unit so far (and with permission, the computer owner's name) in various categories. Then again, if "My computer" detects a real signal, it's not like I played any special role in matters - I'm just one more donor of unused cycles. -dmr
13) Questions and Answers : Wish list : Lots of number crunching - What is actually being done? (Message 258776) Posted 7 Mar 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: I for one, agree with the initiator and wish we were still getting some idea if we had come at all close to doing the data block that detects "something" - maybe like the old stats you'd get with the SETI Classic window when yoy opened it either to check on what you found or to hypnotize yourself watching theprogression of bars of light. While I'll donate every spare cycle I've got to SETI or another project that should be government-funded (while the treasury and our own pockets are being looted for the benefit of Bush cronies, Big Oil and to pay for the extinction of Iraq with American lives and dollars), I cannot see buying a number cruncher so I can rev up my SETI score! Given recent outages, I think one would be better off buying SETI-Berkeley a box like one I saw advertised today - takes something like 46 SATA drives (just plug 'em in, connector side down) and it handles @18 TBytes of data at Raid 10 on fiber links. Better than the hand-me-downs they're stuck with. I bet they'd make the donor User of the Week of Year. Let's face it, when several "users" are generous IP folks who turn over every spare cycle on the 20,000 PCs they rule, along with servers, number crunchers, whatever that a short-sighted company uses 9-5, 5 days a week, you are not going to "win". By sticking with things since SETI was announced, and I first started sharing resources of my 16-MHz '386, I've managed to remain in the 89th percentile, or so - just stay loyal, and use the numbers to report donation in kind if you have enough taxes to itemize. -dmr For many of the end-users, stats are very important (myself included). However, that being said, the science is the most important aspect of the entire project I agree, and I do believe that this website is due for an update which will add many missing features, and that might be one of them.
14) Questions and Answers : Wish list : 'Cause I'm the taxman, yeh yeh, I'm the Taxman...... (Message 251455) Posted 21 Feb 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: At least in the US, a contribution in kind (like computer time) to a Not-for-Profit educational institution [501(c)3 for those who want to get technical, is 100% tax-deductible to itemizers. UNDER The old SETI CPU time system, life was easy. Time from <any computer> is worth a minimum of <power and a tiny % of value of computer and some determination (to be made by a knowledgable accountant) on the value of say, 100 hrs of CPU time on a 1/4 MFLOP '386, worth far less than 100 hrs on a ? Gigaflop 80(5)86++ or whatever you want to call your Pent'athalon Mark Whatever, which of course, drops every year as the value of a GIGAFLOP falls to near 0) Under the Cobblestone insanity, I cannot even get a total of real CPU time used per machine to compute the power use value of my donation. Could someone come up with a totalizer for BOINC's record keeper by April 12th at the latest??? Seriously - I believe in paying my taxes - and voting for pols who spend the money the way "I" want to see it spent, I know, more of a Canadian NDC attitude than a US Republican one, but running a government costs money and we do get services in return - good ones if the guys running things do a good job. But my fair share of taxes is determined by the US Code, which allows me to say "I gave this much for scientific research that you should have" and deduct it. IF I CAN PROVE I DID IT!
15) Questions and Answers : Windows : Three computers - all waiting here...wonder how many others (Message 226484) Posted 5 Jan 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: I hate forum-type systems - one bump and your leter repeats, not only that but I hate forum-type systems - one bump and your leter repeats, not only that but... Anyway - OK, problem is Main Machine has about 12 hrs a day to run SETI. "Entertainment" machine, a work in progress, currently has 100% of its time to run SETI, barring test times, then will cut out 1-7 hrs/day to handle heavy-bandwidth I/O. And the laptop (why leave it standing) with a 40 meg drive has led me to lower the cache to make sure I don't have too much in store when I grab and run. Do I have to divide myself into a "team" to get different settings? Also - on Main Machine today (3.2G effectively P4) and the laptop last night that both SHOWED no work units, but each reported, as I looked, "stopped processing - user active" OKKKK, if there are no work units, what* exactly is BOINC processing? just a wee bit paranoid - somehow I'd hate to find out the NSA's been grabbing our time to crack cellphone calls<g - really>
16) Questions and Answers : Windows : Three computers - all waiting here...wonder how many others (Message 226477) Posted 5 Jan 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: I looked at your computer list and it looks like you now have a work units to work on. You may want to increase your cache a little if you are having trouble keeping enough work or so you don't need to watch so close. Go to "YOUR ACCOUNTS" at the top of the page. Click on the blue "View or edit general preferences". At the bottom of the page click on the "Edit preferences". That will allow you to increase the spot that says "Connect to network about every". That will increase the amount of work that you will have on your machine ready to run. Maybe try one day or something small at first. You want it small enough that you get the work returned on time but big enough to get through an outage. To make the change show up immediately, go to the "Projects" tab in the BOINC manager and click to highlight the SETI project. Then push the "Update" button. You can also just wait until the next time it connects on its own. Happy Solstice Day. I'm living in Fremont, California and Solstice day goes by pretty much unnoticed.
17) Questions and Answers : Wish list : WHY HAS SCREENSAVER BECOME SO UGLY? (Message 225212) Posted 3 Jan 2006 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: The original SETI screen saver was lifted from the Star Trek Next Gen computer panels, and pretty well looked like the wet dream of a Star Trek fan. But the fact is it burned screens, rather than saved them with its constant use of the same coplors in the same place over 50% of the lit area. At least the new one moves a bit and can use the features folks pay for when they buy ultra-screamer 3d video cards of use exclusively to gamers and a few who need to see their models in 3D. The MAIN PROBLEM is if you are running the screen saver, you are 1) shortening the life of your CRTs and possibly your LCDs (at least the back light) but worst of all you are..... CUTTING YOUR PROJECT PROCESSING SPEED IN HALF! Due to design flaws dating back to the IBM-PC and the PC in general that video output would be integrated, and handled, to some degree, by the CPU (vs the old box with the RS-232 ports to connect a separate "terminal" for you new guys) escalated by PC design as practiced by everyone, especially Apple, your GPU does not just extract data from your computer and present it, using its oen memory and CPU - it lets the CPU do a LOT of the processing and steals cycles to access CPU memory directly. A blank screen, or a screen with a static background or another job showing while SETI@ runs in the background uses much less of your computer's resources to do the same amount of SETI work as one that's constantly updating an image of every step it takes. And, if that weren't bad enough, then it waits while the video card runs its own calculations off the CPU to draw the silly picture. To really save time, money and equipment, set your machine to go to black whenever no one is doing anything, but programs like BOINC are running in the background. It really is better to leave everything but the disks <and that's really questionable these days> and screens running 24/7, and kicking the screens and the necessity to drive them off whenever you're not looking - set a 5-10 minute time-out depending on your style. If it's fantasy images you want, skip screen savers and try for a planetarium with a Lazarium show, aided by some recreational pharmecuticals if be your taste. Meanwhile, maybe someone will build a video card that is acceptable to the standard PCI-EX board running a P4 or equivalent stripped-down core just suffcient that it places almost no demand on the host computer - hey, just like the 60s&70s! With optimized software, you would probably quintuple your SETI throughput from SETI-with-Screensaver or SETI in background with a lit screen.
18) Questions and Answers : Wish list : Limited by only 1 TB of storage? Does SETI need a coupla more HDs? (Message 223356) Posted 30 Dec 2005 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Or what.... I've been getting rather frustrated as the amount of outbound work, speed of processing things as minor as old-SETI-credits-Mar-Dec-05 (a pure vanity thing I know), few units arriving here for work (3 machines No Waiting) Then reading that SAH's difficulties are caused by things like having only 1 TB of storage to analyze results. Which can be doubled for about $400 if the server doesn't need SCSI. Question, What Does SETI Need Most? Either <product/service/personnel> or <grant for same> be specific - let us know what we can convonce our bosses , friendly companies and foundations (anyone hit BillandMelindaG up recently or even made application?) to contribute. Or, is it a general failure in interest in SETI at large (the concept) that has caused this shoe-string budget crisis. I mean I know Washington, or at least the White House would like to stamp out science in general and replace it with the KJRV (not meant to insult those who share that faith/mythos - all of them are equal as personal guides, yet bad science,any other mythos imposed on each of us with our own mythos-belief structures would be as bad). I would hope a few years scanning a few stars wouldn't cause the hopeful to walk away too. So Guys in Charge, whazup? (might help to post yer latest IRS 990 as well)
19) Questions and Answers : Windows : Three computers - all waiting here...wonder how many others (Message 220727) Posted 24 Dec 2005 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: Hey Hey its Solstice Day, light the bonfires one and all String colored lights, burn candles bright but DON'T give my sillicon a day off! I think it's been 24 hrs since I've seen a work unit come through any of the three machines here at Razler Central and Computer Tangle! We've been steady SETI workers since 1999, posing about every 18 months for the necessary upgrade. How can I beg for MORE POWER to find any intelligent life outside of this sphere if you guys won't give me puzzle pieces to dissect!
20) Questions and Answers : Windows : Final Credit for 2005 work units Mar-Dec??? (Message 220722) Posted 24 Dec 2005 by Y. A. Winston Smith Post: I'd like to get credit for about 3Kwork units gone missing between March and the switchover, I don't know why, bragging rights (Look how much I donated and look how things weent when I moved froma '386,'486,P-II and 486, P-II+PIII, P-III+P-4, P4-P-III-PM/Centrino and another P-II, etc., even tax deduction on power bills or aproximate value of a mflop (whatever that plummeting number is these days.) Please Credit where credit is due!

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