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theSkyNet Wants Your Spare CPU Cycles

An anonymous reader writes "Thousands of PC users are being called on to donate their spare CPU cycles to help create a massive grid computing engine to process terabytes of radio astronomy data as part of theSkyNet project. It will be used for, among other things, processing the huge amount of data expected to flow off Australia's forthcoming Square Kilometre Array telescope." One can only assume that "other things" will include achieving sentience and finding John Connor.

15 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dammit by c0lo · · Score: 2

    For the love of everything, can we stop making shitty references to Terminator in computational intelligence stories? There are actually people stupid enough to believe that shit. Also, its not funny.

    Can't blame us, mate. The SKA people knew about it and still decided to chose this unfortunate name.

    Better tell us when's the date the SkyNet is supposed to become self-aware.

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  2. Re:Dammit by formfeed · · Score: 3, Funny

    For the love of everything, can we stop making shitty references to Terminator in computational intelligence stories? There are actually people stupid enough to believe that shit. Also, its not funny.

    How does it make you feel that There are actually people stupid enough to believe that shit?

  3. Re:This is different from SETI@Home...how? by c0lo · · Score: 4, Informative

    SKA - The SKA will give astronomers insight into the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies after the Big Bang, the role of cosmic magnetism, the nature of gravity, and possibly life beyond Earth.

    SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is an exploratory science that seeks evidence of life in the universe by looking for some signature of its technology.

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  4. Re:Great choice of name by Wolfling1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why not? Just about everything else in the Australian outback is deadly to humans.

  5. Re:Dammit by Bobakitoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Better tell us when's the date the SkyNet is supposed to become self-aware.

    August 29, 1997
    July 25, 2003
    July 25, 2004
    sometime in 2005
    April 21, 2011

    Fear not, judgment day is like the rapture. It is always more profitable to rescheduled it the next year.

  6. Re:This is different from SETI@Home...how? by Patch86 · · Score: 2

    I'm happy about it. I only really use SETI@Home because I want to contribute to astronomy with my CPU cycles, and it's the best of the bunch (I found Einstein@Home a little flaky in terms of work unit updates, and for some reason never saw the appeal of MilkyWay@Home). If my cycles could do something more useful for SKA, I'd definitely consider moving over.

  7. Infinite cpu cycles by lucm · · Score: 2

    Remove all youtube videos that contain any of the following:
    -rick
    -a cat
    -a black person talking about rapists
    -a crossdresser
    -lipdubs with fat chicks wearing clothes that are too tight or too sexy for them
    -hot chicks talking about their emotions/hope/career/fashion tips, thinking that because they have a lot of subscribers people care about what they say, while actually most subscribers are just sick old pervs doing the ol' nasty while watching these videos in their basement

    Then use all the processing power suddenly available on youtube servers, and give us a break with screensaver processing a la seti.

    thinking of that, scratch the whole list above and just remove videos with hot chicks that have a lot of subscribers but that are seldomly watched completely because viewers are "done" before the hot chick... and there you go, plenty of cpu available, and probably a few more bucks will find their way to those single moms working the pole to pay their student loan.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  8. Re:This is different from SETI@Home...how? by mcvos · · Score: 2

    For one of them, it's actually quite likely that they'll find something interesting.

  9. CPU Throttling by metalmonkey · · Score: 2

    With modern CPU's generally slowing down to save power and reduce heat output, are spare CPU cycles really spare?

    I defiantly know - fans speed up when CPU is busy, does this grid type of software take this into account and use only really idle cycles or does it keep the CPU powered up when there is no user doing anything 'important'?

  10. They can have them. But... by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd happily donate my CPU cycles to them. I have 4 cores here sitting doing mostly nothing, and I fully agree it is for the most part completely wasted silicon for the 23 hours a day I don't play games.

    But I will have to send them my power bill. While my processor cycles are free, the energy usage is not. The difference between a computer sitting idly all year and running full pelt on the processor can easily be $100+ from a back of the envelope calculation, the GPU can also amount to the same.

    1. Re:They can have them. But... by StoneyMahoney · · Score: 2

      Did a few calculations myself for the UK. Based on some figures I pulled from a Bit-Tech review of the Core i7-990X CPU I figured the difference between CPU idle and CPU flat-out (running Prime95) was 122W. I then pulled up some electricity costs based on living in London using British Gas's standard rate tariff. I then figured out how much extra it would cost per hour and per year overall to run a CPU-hogging processing client against leaving the CPU idle during the day and during the night-time cheap electricity rate period:

      Day-time rate = 26.353p per kWh (17 hours per 24h period)
          hourly rate = 0.122kW * £0.26353 = £0.03215/hr
          yearly rate = £0.03215 * 17 hours * 365 days = £199.49 / year
      Night-time rate = 12.167p per kWh (7 hours per 24h period)
          hourly rate = 0.122kW * £0.12167 = £0.01484/hr
          yearly rate = £0.01484 * 7 hours * 365 days = £37.93 / year

      Total = £236.42 extra per year to run something like this or Folding@Home on a high-spec CPU.

  11. Re:Like everyone else has said before me. by slackbheep · · Score: 2

    Herpaderp. RTFA, this project is to perform research, not hunt for sexy green women.

  12. Drop the the by grantek · · Score: 2

    Drop the "The." Just "SkyNet." It's cleaner.

  13. Don't have to worry about SkyNet anymore... by ibsteve2u · · Score: 2

    It read a Gartner report and outsourced itself to another galaxy.

    --
    Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
  14. Re:Why Zooniverse? by jovius · · Score: 2

    I actually emailed them about BOINC, they responded that

    ..there's currently no plans to introduce this to Boinc but we're only just beginning so anything's possible at this stage.