Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

500-fold Increase in Data Flow from SETI Telescope

Posted by Soulskill on from the et-in-crystal-clear-high-defintion dept.

coondoggie brings us an article from Networkworld about a flood of new data for the SETI@home project. We discussed something similar a few months ago when a new telescope array went live. The vast amount of processing power required to handle the new data is prompting the SETI@home team to make a plea for more volunteers. Quoting the press release: "What triggered the new flow of data was the addition of seven new receivers at Arecibo, which now let the telescope record radio signals from seven regions of the sky simultaneously instead of just one. With greater sensitivity and the ability to detect the polarization of the radio signals, plus 40 times more frequency coverage, Arecibo is set to survey the sky for new radio sources."

5 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. sounds like by Laebshade · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds like a good time to re-install BOINC and start up SETI.

    1. Re:sounds like by Trouvist · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, and I personally found it to be much much better than the BOINC system they use now.

  2. Re:Left seti when they went to bonic by gsn · · Score: 4, Informative

    If they want more people to install it, they need to do something like create a RPM installer and setup a yum repository. If the installation was as simple as 'yum install bonic' plus a simple Python configure script to set the project URL, then RedHat could/would probably add it to Fedora. Which would mean that 1000's of people would see it listed in the install options, and some of them would probably give it a go. It is on the Ubuntu box I'm sitting in front of at the moment.

    gnarayan@munin|~> apt-cache search boinc
    boinc-app-seti - SETI@home application for the BOINC client
    boinc-client - core client for the BOINC distributed computing infrastructure
    boinc-dev - development files to build applications for BOINC projects
    boinc-manager - GUI to control and monitor the BOINC core client
    kboincspy - monitoring utility for the BOINC client
    kboincspy-dev - development files for KBoincSpy plugins

    There are plenty of tools to convert debs to rpms

    The other reason I left was the change in the way that stat were reported. When I started, their website showed a headline figure of number of CPU years in the last 24hrs. To me, seeing that figure increase as the project gained more users was a real incentive to add machines and contribute more to the project. It gave you the warm fuzzy feeling that we were all contributing to what was at the time one of the largest computing projects in the world. You can still see this - login to your account (from boincmgr) and it shows you that - if anything today you get more stats - I know how many total users there are - it still is very much one of the largest computing projects in the world. I also know what the highest position I stood in the world is (if only that was my slashdot UID), where relative to my team, where relative to my country, how much credit I got from each work unit, how much credit I got on a day to day basis...
    --
    Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
  3. Re:are the cycles really "spare" by Xelios · · Score: 5, Informative

    The difference between idle and full load power use on processors nowadays is on the order of 20W (though admittedly this is more like 60W on processors like the Core 2 Duo if you have SpeedStep enabled). 50 hours at full load before you've used a kilowatt more energy. Given an average energy price of $0.13 per KWh that's a pretty small amount, on the order of $2 per month. It's still something, but to me the work done for SETI or Folding@Home is at least worth the price of a cappucino every month.

    Processors are also built to run at full load, as long as it holds a good steady temperature (say 50C) you might see its lifespan decreased from 30,000 hours to 20,000 hours. What they're not built for is constant temperature cycling between load and room (off) temperature. Turning your PC off at night will likely have the same affect on its lifespan as constant load does. Again, to me at least, it's worth it. I replace the CPU every 2-3 years anyway and have yet to see one KIA.

    I do think, though, that Folding@Home is a better investment than SETI. Not that I'm not curious about finding life out there, but there are more important things to do here first.

    --
    Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
  4. No, You're Wrong by perspectival · · Score: 5, Informative

    Did I say that people's spare CPU cycles should be mandated to SETI? As if that were feasible or even possible?

    When I say that Protein Folding *should* take precedence over SETI, I'm simply making an appeal to people's personal priorities--and mine favor understanding and curing diseases over inconclusive alien signal-hunting every day of the week.

    Yes, you're free to choose for yourself what cause you want to help out. As you should be. And I'm free to try to persuade others to help a very worthwhile cause:

    http://folding.stanford.edu/