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SETI@Home Close to Half-Billionth Result

Posted by timothy on from the why-if-I-only-had-a-nickel-for-every dept.

Jonathan writes: "SETI@Home, the largest distributed computing project in the world, is on the verge of receiving its 500 millionth result. This is a major milestone for both the project and distributed computing as a whole. Oh, and if you still need some added incentive to get involved, there's a $500 reward for the user who returns the milestone result."

10 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. the original? by Loki_1929 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ok, now all you folks staring at the pretty screensaver really ought to be cracking keys for Distributed.net.

    If everyone just jumped on RC5, we'd have the 128-bit key done by now, and ET would still be there waiting for us. If you're going to talk to aliens, shouldn't you at least let them know your computer can brute force a 128-bit encrypted RC5 key? If that doesn't impress them, nothing will. Once they see that, they'll probably show us the secrets of interstellar travel, and eternal life, things like that. But only if we crack keys first, so go download the Dnetc client and get cracking!

    --
    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    1. Re:the original? by sam_handelman · · Score: 5, Funny

      ET: Greetings, hu-mans. We contact you to usher you into the great community of sentient species!
      Human: We have d3crypt3d ur private k3v/s! \|/3 wi11 h4xxor u!
      ET: Stop that. It's an insult to the dignity of all thinking beings.
      Human: 1 4m s0 3|_33T!
      ET: I didn't wait 10,000 years for my answer to cross the icy depths of space so I could read your sophmoric babblings.
      Human: 1 r0xx0rd u!
      ET: Your puny intellect is no match for our massive weapons!
      Human: Br1|\|g it on! U \|/1|_|_ f34r /|\3!

      Of course, I just assume that alien intelligence is like me. Maybe I'm just too closed-minded to envisage a form of consciousness that isn't driven into a homidical rage by leet-speak.

      Seriously, while there are a great many ways besides SETI you can meet people and waste processor cycles together (I know - keep analysing the ripples in the surface of loch ness until you find the "messages" pixies are sending us from another dimension!) my colleagues at Oxford have managed to come up with something genuinely useful to do with your spare processor cycles.

      --
      The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
  2. Better hurry... by tg_schlacht · · Score: 4, Informative

    By my calculations based on Seti's stats from the last 24 hours the 500 millionth result will be reached in 3.67 days.

  3. Quite a bargain... by KFury · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not that I'm critical, but just because it's amusing: $500 is the prize for the half-billionth unit. That equates to 0.0001 cents per 17-hour CPU unit.

    Looked at another way, the total number of FP operations to reach the 0.5 gigaunit mark is 1.5319e21. The brand new NEC Earth Simulator runs at 35,600 gigaflops. At that rate, the world's fastest supercomputer would take 43030061.73 seconds, or 498 days, to do the job.

    I wish I could lease the world's fastest computer for $1 a day...

    --

    Kevin Fox
  4. It *is* worth it by EReidJ · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Worth it? Oh yes, most definitely.

    I consider SETI@Home to be one of the most inspirational projects ever attempted by our generation. Really, it's my equivalent of the moon shot (which happened two years before I was born).

    I don't get misty-eyed very easily, but when I think about the films of JFK's inspirational speech... well, I hope the Kleenex is handy.

    "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

    Who cares if this ever produces real results or not? It doesn't matter. It's the search that is important. Human beings striving for something new, working hard to discover whether they are truly not alone in the universe. I consider that to be an outstanding effort and achievement, even if we never find ET. I am proud to donate my computer's spare CPU cycles to such a noble effort.

    God, that sounds so cheesy to go back and read it. But there it is. There's not much in the world today I get to feel good about. SETI@Home is definitely one of them.

    --
    modern choral music...
  5. My spare cycles go to the GIMPS by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. A Mersenne Prime is of the form 2^x-1. Five have been found so far through GIMPS.

    If it's money you want, it's $100,000 to the GIMPS for the first person who can catch a ten million digit prime number, and then split up according to the rules on this page.

    If it's nobility you want, the money is awarded by the EFF to spur on cooperative computing.

    BTW, it was a Slashdot story that clued me in in the first place.

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:My spare cycles go to the GIMPS by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Informative

      Where's the fun in that? We already know those prime numbers exist!

      i think the point of the search is that some 2^x-1 are prime, and some are not... and because of the mathematics involved, it is relatively easily to factor them, and to also find some really huge primes in the process...

      the deeper question of why the heck we should look for them are more philosophical... some concrete reasons? there are cryptological applications, i think, and mathematical implications, most definitely... but mostly, it's just kewl, you know? why do anything in life? why go to the south pole? why go to mars? why get out of bed in the morning!

      here's a good list of detailed reasons:
      Tradition!
      For the by-products of the quest
      People collect rare and beautiful items
      For the glory!
      To test the hardware
      To learn more about their distribution

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  6. Join "Team Slashdot" by smagruder · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm posting this to ensure that everyone here is aware that there's a "Team Slashdot" group on SETI@home. Click here to see the latest team results. This team is actually not far away from reaching the one-millionth result.

    By the way, I'm ranked #174. Kewl. :)

    --
    Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
  7. Re:$500??? by sandidge · · Score: 4, Funny

    the movie and book rights, plus revenues from public speaking by the individual who finds ET

    Yeah, that'd be a thrilling movie, book, speech. Basically:

    day 1: checked my computer, no result
    day 2: checked my computer, no result
    day 254: checked my computer, screensaver turned off... turned it back on, disaster averted, no result.
    day 675: checked my computer, no result
    day 676: checked my computer, n.... hold on... no, that's nothing, no result

    etc, etc

  8. I want to see the slasdot effect in their output by dfelznic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many /.ers are going to run over and start up a client in order to get 500 bucks. I realize not everyone is going to run over but it will be interesting to see if there is a spike in there productivity. I stopped doing seti@home a while ago, when the reports of small amounts of data came out. I went back to dnet, but I still did more than 85% of the people...

    If i get the loot I will donate half of it to the GNU foundation...

    --
    Douglas Calvert