SETI@Home Close to Half-Billionth Result

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."

Comments

the original?

[Loki_1929]

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!

Re:the original?

[sam_handelman]

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.

Quite a bargain...

[KFury]

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...

It *is* worth it

[EReidJ]

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.

My spare cycles go to the GIMPS

[circletimessquare]

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.

Re:My spare cycles go to the GIMPS

[circletimessquare]

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