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Crypto-currency Craze 'Hinders Search For Alien Life' (bbc.com)
Scientists listening out for broadcasts by extra-terrestrials are struggling to get the computer hardware they need, thanks to the crypto-currency mining craze, a radio-astronomer has said. From a report: Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) researchers want to expand operations at two observatories. However, they have found that key computer chips are in short supply. "We'd like to use the latest GPUs [graphics processing units]... and we can't get 'em," said Dan Werthimer. Demand for GPUs has soared recently thanks to crypto-currency mining. "That's limiting our search for extra-terrestrials, to try to answer the question, 'Are we alone? Is there anybody out there?'," Dr Werthimer told the BBC. "This is a new problem, it's only happened on orders we've been trying to make in the last couple of months."
Aliens have a right to not be monitored, too.
Can only be traded for Flanian Pobble Beads (but at a very good exchange)
crazy dynamite monkey
Just make a cryptocoin, that to mine, will process SETI@home.
Follow the example of Curecoin.
https://www.gridcoin.us/
Life is not for the lazy.
It's disgusting that all that important computing power goes to something so utterly pointless. They should stop this nonsense and just let the cryptocurrency miners have the GPUs.
More reason to switch to Proof of space. Then SETI will be able to buy a bunch of used GPUs on the cheap. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
THere's no rush to mine seti data. it doesn't matter if we detect alien signals now or in 20 years. so just store it and then mine it all in a single day with quantum processors in 20 years.
SetiCoins are also a good idea. But How to make this practical? the characteristic needed is a calculation that is hard to do but easy to check like factoring or hashing. You can't make detection of a signal be the mining event because that's never going to happen. You can't just make it some bolus of processing in which two parties agree as they might collude. So what about the seti signal is hard to do but easy to check?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Use the existing SETI GPUs to mine ETH, then they'll be able to afford the premium needed to get hold of latest GPUs.
Or just give up on SETI for a while, mine ETH, and spend the profits on hookers and blow; it's not like they'll find any fewer aliens than they've found so far.
Oh cool another post about why crypto and mining is bad. Nvidia has already stated they are ramping up production for this year, as is AMD.
...There will be a glut of them soon enough.
If they can't afford to buy an Nvidia then just switch to openCL on AMD.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
statistically speaking, the most likely thing we will detect on an alien broadcast will be the Porn Channel. Eeewww.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Fermi's paradox is that if alien life were inevitable we should see the signls. We wont if the fate of all alien civilizations is to eventually kill themselves quickly so that few would likley broadcast in our brief tenure.
An alternative explanation is that all civilization eventually discover crytocurrency and it consumes all their resources including the broadcasting power. All civilizations go dark after a period of time.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
THere's no rush to mine seti data. it doesn't matter if we detect alien signals now or in 20 years. so just store it and then mine it all in a single day with quantum processors in 20 years.
Or just wait for the cryptocurrency market to either collapse, get more efficient, or move over to ASIC and all those cheap no longer needed GPUs flood the market.
Collectively, a species that invents something as terrible and pointless as cryptocurrency, and adopts it to the point that it causes a shortage of an important piece of technology, deserves to remain isolated :-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It already exists. It is called gridcoin. The POW for Gridcoin feeds the BOINC system which just happens to have the SETI@home project on it along with many other astronomy and science projects.
I wonder how much Folding@Home is affected and other more useful computer projects.
How do we know SETI doesn't want the GPUs to mine cryptocurrency themselves to fund their program? :P
You don't even have to run on their public service. Those guys will set up a local grid computing network for you on all the machines on campus. More than enough CPU power laying around I'm sure.
Crypto miners, ruining life for everybody, not just gamers.
We're supposed to sympathize with people who look us in the eye and tell us with a straight face that searching for aliens in cosmic noise is a worthwhile use of time and money? These guys are bad for science because they waste finite resources on pie-in-the-sky-not-gonna-happen nonsense and because they suck up finite good will for science with their pie-in-the-sky-not-gonna-happen nonsense. Every time someone wants to defund or put down legitimate research, they can point to these whackjobs as a reason for why things labelled "science" don't get automatic credibility.
They aren't going anywhere, so what's the rush?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
After its resources request soared to 100% CPU's capacities, it has become a burden due to: high electricity bills, high PC case innards temperatures, high noise from subsequent cooling fans activations, and high possibilities of a ever-more compact computer failure due to an overall electrical overload and overheat.
I remember times, when their program sipped off CPU cycles. That was circa 1998-2002. Afterwards, their CPU demands have skyrocketed and I have ultimately stopped using their program as my desktop screensaver. It has just became a power hungry beast.
For the cryptocurrency market to crash.
it's also hindering my search for BLEEDING EDGE GRAPHIX (!!)
There are plenty of high end GPUs available. If you consult the distributor directly you can purchase even the low end models. They are selling out, but top of the line NVidia cards are definitely in stock frequently. I'm referring to the NVidia Tesla V. If they didn't want the top of the line cards, they could have bought a while back. A new generation is already (allegedly) in production.
Sensationalist pieces make for better click through revenue though.
The title should have been...
Crypto-currency Craze 'Hinders Search For Intelligent Life'
Dear SETI,
Make your own crypto-currency, and use the extra cycles to run all the calculations you'll ever need.
Love,
Obvious Solution
Evolution, global warming, alien life, and the lie detector.
deserves to remain isolated :-(
You say that as if isolation is a bad thing.
There are benefits to being isolated. Go to a zoo and contemplate how safe you would be if there was no barrier between you and the animals.
Do you think aliens would want to be our friends if we met? Chances are, they would want our resources. They would kill/enslave us and take the resources (graphics cards would be the least of our concerns). Just look at what happened when Europeans got to the Americas.
What kind of space opera kumbayah kool-aid are you drinking? Here's a test for you to perform. Go outside and try to touch a wild mammal. It could be a rabbit, squirrel, mouse, deer, anything. First, they will be hard to find. Second, if you do manage to find one, it will try to get the fuck away from you. Those unintelligent wild animals have a better understanding of the value of isolation than you do.
obvious solution would be to invent a cryptocurrency which does the boinc shit in return for cryptocash
THere's no rush to mine seti data. it doesn't matter if we detect alien signals now or in 20 years. so just store it and then mine it all in a single day with quantum processors in 20 years.
Or just wait for the cryptocurrency market to either collapse, get more efficient, or move over to ASIC and all those cheap no longer needed GPUs flood the market.
That's quaint. You do realize that the whole nature of the beast relies on creating new coins with reset difficulties to mine that can initially done with GPUs to keep the exchanges afloat, where the real money is made.
It's 2018 and /. [Slashdot] readers [people who read Slashdot] need to have the acronym GPU explained to them in their story summary.
What have we come to?
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
They're hindered by instrumentation that can't detect a signal on the nearest star.
We can't get GPUs for biology, either. Molecular dynamics simulations, protein structure determination using cryo-EM, and a number of other areas in computational biology rely on GPU-accelerated computing for obtaining results in a timely fashion.
GPU computing in this area has the particular advantage over CPU clusters in rapid iteration over user-defined parameters. If you know a correct set of parameters, running a job for several days on CPU is fine. If you need to run 100 such jobs to find those parameters, it's totally inadequate.
It's very frustrating that the cost of a 4-GPU workstation has gone from ~$6,000 to ~$12,000 in the past year. It especially hinders smaller labs and institutions. Ethereum can't crash soon enough (bitcoin is mined on ASICS, Ethereum is the real driver of GPU price now).
.:Semper Absurda:.
just clean up the gunk that's polluting your mind, meditate a little or something
May I point out that there's a cryptocurrency that doesn't waste all that precious computing power that is currently simply used as a glorified heater?
https://www.gridcoin.us/
It runs on top of the BOINC platform, so you can choose different proyects you want to contribute to
Why do people want to talk to them via radio? Just get yerself drunk, they'll tell you what to do!
It's theoretical. Not proven, apart from CGI. But yeah, good luck learning that in government schools...
the aliens are starting up cryptocurrencies. taking a page from abbie hoffman and the yippies throwing dollar bills at the trading floor on wall st. from the balcony.
My systems are still processing Seti. I never got into the crypto-currency fad. My systems are not making a huge dent in the Seti data, yet they persist. Is there life out there? I want to believe.