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SETI@Home - What's Been Happening w/ Team Slashdot?

Posted by Cliff on from the wh00t!-way-to-go! dept.

StArSkY wonders: "I just had a quick look at the Team Slashdot page on the SETI site, and it looks as though only about 10% of the names are still active participants. Does Slashdot have limited patience? Have the Men In Black movies dulled our sense of commitment to the search for alien life? Or do we just rebuild our PC's too often and forget to reinstall the SETI client? For those of you who are interested, 'Team Slashdot' is currently ranked 27th in total results returned, and when I was typing this, we only needed another 6003 results to reach 1 million. Now that would be a huge achievement. So all of you Slashdotters out there with dormant SETI accounts get fired up, install the client, and get back to using those idle CPU cycles." not two days later, cybrpnk2 writes in with this update: "This week Team Slashdot becomes only the 28th registered group to process one million work units (basic blocks of radio data). Since the entire SETI@Home project has processed only around 600 million work units total, Slashdotters have made a pretty significant contribution to the overall project. Kudos to all involved, particularly slashdotter Mike Hardy for his team-leading contribution of over 23,000+ work units." A big hearty "Thanks!" to all current and future members of Team Slashdot. You guys rock! cybrpnk2 continues with this bit of history on Team Slashdot: "Team Slashdot was formed in Spring 1999 to participate as a group in the SETI@Home search for extraterrestrial radio signals. Over 2200 Slashdotters have joined over the past three years, with around 250 active today. You can join Team Slashdot here."

34 comments

  1. Because I'm on team Linux by Gaetano · · Score: 4, Funny

    We have 1327385 work units completed and are in 22nd place.

    So if everybody on Team Slashdot would join Team Linux then we could almost compete with "The Knights who say Ni!" who are in 11th place. I suspect they are in 11th place because they have a cool name and I almost want to join them myself.

    1. Re:Because I'm on team Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what about those of us who enjoy slashdot, but think that Linux is for bitches.

      Come on Gnat, slashdot != linux...

      Is there a way I can undo work units for team linux?

  2. Folding@Home by iofire · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I don't mean to undermine the significance of the SETI@Home project, but personally the reason I no longer contribute to it is because a cause that is more important to me is now receiving my spare CPU cycles...Folding@Home

    Perhaps alternative distributed computing projects have gotten slashdotters attention lately...

    While finding extraterrestrial life is certainly fascinating, computation that could lead to cures for diseases like the Folding@Home project appeals to me in a way I can't turn down. Perhaps Team Slashdot could expand to include Folding@Home as well?

    In the mean time I'll consider donating a bit more CPU time to SETI@Home, since it's been quite a while :)

    --
    --Avoid metagame thinking, browse with scores hidden (This sig is in violation of itself)
    1. Re:Folding@Home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      blockquoth the poster:
      computation that could lead to cures for diseases like the Folding@Home project appeals to me in a way I can't turn down.
      i can turn it down, when i know that the industry that will use our 'results' will charge us a whole lotta money to use these 'medicines' that will cure whatever. sod it.
  3. Under one million results not accurate. by Speedy8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It seems that if you take a look at the groups page of seti you will notice there are two slashdot teams. one called "Team Slashdot" and another called just slashdot. Between the two of them they have over 1.2 million work units processed.

  4. Seti@Home doesn't answer their mail by NaDrew · · Score: 1

    Six months or so ago, I stupidly lost my account password. Since then, I have been trying to get someone at SAH to respond to a request to send the password to the email address on my account. There's a Web form on the SAH site but as far as I can tell it does nothing. There's another one for general support questions, but again I've never even gotten a courtesy "we received your mail" reply.

    There are no email addresses posted for SAH staff--and I can see why, with no responses to their automated system, their inboxes would be full. I even tried postmaster@berkeley.edu, and although I -did- get a response, it was the poor overwhelmed Cal postmaster who said he couldn't do anything about SAH.

    Has anyone reading had this experience? Did you ever manage to get your password or did you just give up and start a new account? While not at the impressive Team Slashdot level, I've amassed 418 work units over 19955 computer hours, which seems worth keeping.

    --
    Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
    1. Re:Seti@Home doesn't answer their mail by Perdo · · Score: 2

      S@H sends out so many e-mails, it is considered a spam site by most filters.

      They will send you your password. Just disable your filters for the 20 minutes it might take them to send you a password.

      I had the same trouble with web based mail provider filtering mail from seti

      --

      If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

    2. Re:Seti@Home doesn't answer their mail by Jonner · · Score: 1

      I have just used the form to get the password for two of my accounts; one at mailandnews.com and one at a small domain. Both worked immediately. As the previous replier said, perhaps mail from Seti@Home is being filtered by some mail services.

    3. Re:Seti@Home doesn't answer their mail by NaDrew · · Score: 1

      Thanks to both who replied. Apparently the free mail account I used to start the S@H account way back when is filtering their mail. I get enough spam in that inbox, you'd think they don't have any filters at all. Thanks again for the tips.

      --
      Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
  5. Some motivation for SETI by minesweeper · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Many people believe there are better things to do with their computers than search for aliens. That's fine. United Devices' Cancer Research project, for instance, is certainly a worthwhile distributed computing alternative to SETI@Home.

    However, for those who need some motivation for running SETI@Home, the following quote from Carl Sagan's Contact is a bit inspiring:

    "We're just beginning SETI. You know how many possibilities there are. This is the time to leave every option open. This is the time to be optimistic. If we lived in any previous time in human history, we could wonder about this all our lives, and we couldn't do a thing to find the answer. But this time is unique. This is the first time when anybody's been able to look for extraterrestrial intelligence... Nobody's guaranteeing success... Imagine them out there sending us signals, and nobody on Earth is listening. That would be a joke, a travesty. Wouldn't you be ashamed of your civilization if we were able to listen and didn't have the gumption to do it?"
    1. Re:Some motivation for SETI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am a bit ashamed of my civilization anyway, the last couple of centuries...

  6. Not Perdy by Trevelyan · · Score: 2

    I was annoyed to find that the Linux (Unix) clients dont do pretty graphs, like the windows clients.
    as far as I could tell all we get is a deamon, which is all well nice, but I was after a nice screen saver for X too.

    At the mo I running dnet (rc5-64), but that dont do perdy graphs either.

    How is Linux ever to become a desktop OS w/o the eye candy? ;-)

    1. Re:Not Perdy by windi · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was annoyed to find that the Linux (Unix) clients dont do pretty graphs, like the windows clients.
      as far as I could tell all we get is a deamon, which is all well nice, but I was after a nice screen saver for X too.

      Actually, there is a nifty graphical application. Run 'setiathome' with the '-graphics' option and then run 'xsetiathome'. It might not be fullscreen, but you get a window with the exact same content as the Windows screensaver.

    2. Re:Not Perdy by geekindustries · · Score: 1

      Although the *nix versions may not have the graphics that the winblows version does, who cares? I set my Seti screen saver to go blank after a minute....you know how much more you get done without those graphics? Those purdy charts and graphs of fast fourier transforms take a chunk out of your processing power. It takes my computer long enough as it is!

      --
      Hard work usually pays off over time, but procrastination pays off now.
    3. Re:Not Perdy by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

      There's a fullscreen option for xsetiathome.

  7. Why I'm not on there by mosch · · Score: 2

    I'm not in the seti or d.net competitions anymore because I'd rather spend my cycles on Distributed Folding, or a cure for cancer.

  8. Why kill the earth? by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sorry, some pipe dream about finding E.T. is not enough for me to waste electricity and contribute to global warming.

    1. Re:Why kill the earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > some pipe dream about finding E.T. is not enough
      > for me to waste electricity and contribute to
      > global warming.
      >
      Your reasoning is certainly valid and the concern it shows for our own planet commendable. Of course it also needs to be mentioned, that your coffee machine uses ca. 10x as much electricity as your computer. My suggestion would be: replace even just one incandescent lightbulb in your house with a compact fluourescent one and you save enough energy to allow you to leave on your computer working on projects of your choice.

    2. Re:Why kill the earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      we ask you to do something WORTHWHILE and you shit on us.

      Yeah, except SETI isn't exactly WORTHWHILE.

      Geez, spending money to find something that probably doesn't even exist, and is based on hubris doesn't sound very WORTHWHILE to me.

      If someone came up to you, and said "We'd like you to help us find a needle in a haystack - only we're not sure which haystack it's in, or which state it's in, or which country it's in.. or even that the needle exists at all." Would YOU call that "WORTHWHILE"?

      If so, I have a WORTHWHILE bridge to sell you.

  9. Cancer takes my relatives, research takes my CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I will only give my CPU time to ET searching when the problems facing humanity are fully researched.


    Until Cancer is beat, my CPU time is going to its research.


    http://ud.com

  10. seti@home is annoying to use... by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 2

    Here's why my seti@home activity has dropped over time:

    - I have a dual boot machine. I use Linux 50% of the time, and Windows the other 50% of the time.

    - I only run the seti@home client in Windows, and only as a screensaver. The Windows client has an option to only run as a screen saver. But the Unix version runs 24/7, and is difficult to automatically disable and reenable. I gave up and have never tried again (and I haven't tried the xsetiathome client).

    - I like to run Windows with a minimal configuration. Unfortunately, seti@home requires that you run a seti@home process all the time. Even if you just want to run it as a screensaver, the seti@home process is always there, sucking up resources. I wish it only ran during screensaver mode. I'll probably

    - I often need to disable the the seti@home screensaver, and I forget to reenable it. Why? Sometimes I need to run Scandisk, run a virus scan, or need to run some CPU-intensive process. Before you do this, the seti@home screensaver needs to be disabled. The client (or Windows) isn't intelligent enough to NOT run the screensaver whent the load is too high. If I am running scandisk, the screensaver starts 5 minutes into the scan, Windows detects a change on the system, and scandisk restarts; over an over again.

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
    1. Re:seti@home is annoying to use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      - I like to run Windows with a minimal configuration. Unfortunately, seti@home requires that you run a seti@home process
      all the time. Even if you just want to run it as a screensaver, the seti@home process is always there, sucking up
      resources. I wish it only ran during screensaver mode. I'll probably

      That system tray icon can't take that much up. .01% of your Pentium IV 1.8GHz, and 2MB of your 512?

    2. Re:seti@home is annoying to use... by Bloater · · Score: 1

      Look up how to use SIGSTOP and such, you can then set up a screensaver to start and stop it (or use a commandline program).

    3. Re:seti@home is annoying to use... by dmforcier · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of options to run and manage setiathome. First is to realize that the screen saver version is just eye candy to hook those that need visual stimulation. If you run the command line version, it will run at least twice as fast, use a lot fewer resources, and stay out of your way. It actually runs at idle priority and effectively replaces that idle loop that executes when there is nothing else to execute. You can get the Windows client
      here. (Don't let the 'unix' in the URL fake you out. They put all the non-graphical clients on that page.)

      This tip is brought to you by the crunchers at Ars Technica Team Lamb Chop.

      --
      You can't take the sky from me!
  11. I lost my password... by Dr.+Nonsense · · Score: 1
    I lost my password, and the account tied to my SETI@home is an account no longer accessible by me.

    BTW, does anybody know where or in what file on your computer they store the SETI@home password? It MAY still be on my parents old computer.. somewhere amongst all the files... I WOULD like to recover it if possible.

    I had sinced switched that computer to prime95 which runs all the time on the computer with little to no significant impact on the system; however, they barely use that computer anymore anyways, so now it's not participating in any project.

    I currently run a few other projects on my own system. Basically, the SETI @ home project gets boring... there are other projects, as has been said that either 1) will impact scientific knowledge 2) have a definite end, or points of production when you feel like you actually are accomplishing something. SETI@Home proved it's point.. that millions of people are interested in the project, and also just willing to use their unused processor time to run a distributed computing project. Did SETI@Home ever get beyond their "this is an experiment and even though we have far outpaced our capacity, we won't open it up for other possibilities"? According to their own website, they are going to be winding down the SETI @ Home project and starting new ones over the next year.

    IMHO, it uses up too much processor time, and slows down computers, whereas other projects I can run on even slow/old computers and not get it slowing down the system. Also, that 'pretty screensaver' gets boring, too, and technically it doesn't "save the screen" anymore because it repetitively displays the same images over and over again in the same place, not like most of us have to worry about monitor-burn-in anymore, BUT...

    1. Re:I lost my password... by adpowers · · Score: 1

      My neighboor/friend was foolish to leave Seti on as his screensaver. They never turned off their monitor and now it has some text and that LCARS like interface burned into their monitor. Haha.

    2. Re:I lost my password... by _CyRuSS_ · · Score: 1

      The client never has your password, you just need your email-address to get/process the workunits.

      So you won't find the password on ur pc... the pass is only for your profile and deleting ur account n stuff afaik... which can be emailed to u, from their page.

      _CyRuSS_

    3. Re:I lost my password... by Dr.+Nonsense · · Score: 1

      Well, okay that answers the question, but..

      You didn't pay attention then... see, it can't be emailed to me, because I no longer have access to that account. :(

      I would bet this applies to a lot of people..

  12. Re:Cancer takes my relatives, research takes my CP by Dr.+Nonsense · · Score: 1
    But, if we find the aliens,

    They will have the solution to all these problems facing humanity.

    Of course it's true. It's in all the sci-fi. :)

    Seriously, I run (earth-bound) scientifically-contributing projects too.

  13. System resources under Windows 9x by yerricde · · Score: 1

    That system tray icon can't take that much up. .01% of your Pentium IV 1.8GHz, and 2MB of your 512?

    It doesn't matter how fast your processor is or how much RAM your machine has. Even on a 4 GHz machine with 2 GB of RAM, all programs running under Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME compete for the same 64 KB user.exe heap and the same 64 KB gdi.exe heap. The 64 KB limit of each of those heaps is a remnant of the Windows 3.x architecture. NT-based operating systems such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP, on the other hand, can expand the heaps to available memory for the use of Win32 programs, reserving the first 64 KB for "WoW" (NT's Windows 3.1 virtual machine).

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  14. Because of LIGANDFIT by alatesystems · · Score: 1
    From the client:
    LigandFit helps scientists to characterize therapeutic targets and identify and assess drug candidates by performing automated docking of flexible ligands to a protein's binding site.

    To view screenshots, learn how to participate, and sign up for our team, go to http://www.uteguild.com/cancer.html. My user id is: cbenard

    I think looking for aliens is cool, but I'm more interested in solving big problems here like cancer.

    Thanks,
    Chris

  15. i didnt know by Guipo · · Score: 0

    I just joined up, so team slashdot can have my 420 units!

    --
    Theonlyuse of monkeys is to testthings onthem.Some peoplemay say"Hey That'scruel!"and myresponse is"I don't like monkeys