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SETI@home Project Responds To School Firing
SETIGuy writes "SETI@home Project Scientist Eric Korpela has responded to many of the allegations made by Higley Unified School District administrator Denise Birdwell regarding the difficulties caused by the installation of SETI@home, which led to the recent firing of the school's technology supervisor. One of the project's founders, David Gedye, takes issue with Dr. Birdwell's claim that 'an educational institution ... cannot support the search for E.T.' Meanwhile, the fired supervisor denies misusing school computers."
Unfortunately in the world of reality, the difference between Idle and Used CPU is at the very least money. My computer idles at ~180W use. When it's at 100% CPU, it's closer to 450W use.
If that CPU time is being used, it has to be paid for.
That's not completely true. A computer that is idle uses less power than one at 100% cpu utilization. So it is costing the school more money for their electricity. It could also lessen the life of the computer. A computer that is shutdown at night would likely last longer than one crunching numbers every night.
What the hell are you talking about? How can something use the same amount of power, but emit different amounts of heat under different circumstances? Unless it has a *very* large capacitor or some other form of energy storage, or it emits radiation (light, etc), every watt used comes out as heat.
If it is getting hotter, it means it is using more power.
This is slashdot, news for nerds. Nerds don't buy computers from Best Buy. Real nerds don't ever even shop for anything at Best Buy. Best Buy is where wannabe nerds go so they can pay higher than advertised prices on products that the salespersons know little about, but they still know more than the wannabe nerds. I could go on, but I think you get the picture, and the rest of the people reading this already knew these facts.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
We're talking about school computers. Not the rig you built to play Crysis at 4096x3092 with all settings maxed. And I'm not knocking that, my rigs are self built, but most people (including schools) usually purchase pre-built computers from companies. And those pre-built machines usually have low end processors (thus using less electricity) and use the IGP. And, because of that those machines usually have lower end power supplies.
Not only does the lady who fired the guy demonstrate how ignorant she is, the reporters demonstrate astounding ignorance too: http://www.fox5vegas.com/video/21785181/index.html
How the fsck do people not know about this program or not consider it research? My wife (not a technically adept person) has run this program for years and in schools, too. Ask the guy to uninstall it if it costs to much in a recession (he had approval of the previous administration to run it though!). Don't fire him because you're stupid.
Unfortunately in the world of reality, the difference between Idle and Used CPU is at the very least money. My computer idles at ~180W use. When it's at 100% CPU, it's closer to 450W use.
If that CPU time is being used, it has to be paid for.
most consumer CPUs idle at ~40 watts and cap out around 95 watts under max theoretical load. That 450 watt PEAK power output is for system max load which never happens.
And the first time any administrator champions his school's or school system's use of distributed computing, his boss (school board, taxpayers) will say:
"Great! Good for us. Now, exactly how much are we spending on this, who is overseeing it, who authorized it, and where are these funds being allocated in the budget?"
And that administrator will not have any answers because no one authorized it and they're dead-ass broke. Then someone would get fired. They can't afford to spend some unknown amount of money on supporting SETI.
No they are not.
I do work for others at about $55 / hour. Just spend the time I did on researching the unlockable Sempron/ ACC vs Athlon II 240/245/'e" version vs an Celeron E3200/core2 duo HT/VT/x64 and the boards that support the various options [ firewire, esata/sata raid, 4x240 pins slots ddr2 [ i have a lot of it , thank you ] took hours. Frys sale on this, Amazon sale on that, NewEgg sale on .. wait there is a combo deal but it only uses ddr3 . - how much more will I spend vs my own ddr2 ...
No, you won't save money.
proc & board , $100
memory, $80
case $50
power supply $30
hd $100
$360
you could buy a dual AMD/Intel for around that money and have a guarantee and have someone with tiny fingers put it together and ship it in a nice box.
I really have better things to do to try to save under $50.
Unless the school is (a) being heated with electricity and (b) not having to *cool* its computer labs, this is untrue.
Electrical resistance heating is a terrible waste of high-grade energy.
If you *were* to want to heat with electricity, a heat-pump would give you two or three times the heat for the same electrical input. (And thus $$$, CO2 emissions, etc.)
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Unfortunately in the world of reality, the difference between Idle and Used CPU is at the very least money. My computer idles at ~180W use. When it's at 100% CPU, it's closer to 450W use.
If that CPU time is being used, it has to be paid for.
Well unless its summer time (when schools are closed) and the school is far enough north you could just think of these PCs running SETI@home as electric heaters. 100% of the energy they use is being turned to heat, so some/all (depending on the schools regular heating system) of the cost of running SETI@home can be subtracted from the heating costs.
Unfortunately, waste heat comes at 1:1 efficiency, while most buildings are heated with 4:1 or better heat-pumps, so, while the waste heat is offsetting some of the heating costs, that only forgives about 25% of the cost.
If you're paying to cool the building, then the waste heat makes things much worse...