I work on SETI@home, helped get it started, maintain all the servers, databases, web sites, write scientific analysis code, etc. I also helped work on that iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge. And I also regularly record and tour internationally with all kinds of rock bands. I work equally hard on both tech and music careers, I think the ratio of money in tech vs. music is roughly 99 to 1, give or take 1.
Anyway, I'm a musician who knows about technology.
Since it's in real time to tape record 11,000 songs that would take, at 3 minutes per song, roughly 3 weeks. I'm sure people wouldn't stay up doing this 24 hours a day, so let's say at 12 hours a day of sitting there copying 11,000 songs one at a time, inserting new cassettes, etc. would take about 2 months at least. Two really grueling months making you question the worth of what you were doing.
However to copy 11,000 mp3s from one computer to another, about 7 hours. Go to sleep, wake up, all done. And nobody got hurt, right?
It's all about the ease and the scale at this point radically affecting the bottom lines.
My own two cents, but I've been living in Oakland for 20 years, and never had one urge to move to SF. Oakland has much better weather, amazing parks (10 minute drive from my house and I'm in a redwood forest), and now that it's mathematically impossible to start new clubs, bars, or restaurants in SF they are all moving here!
I get why people have skewed ideas about Oakland (the media, the closet and overt racism) but I tell them: It's a great place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there.
It also currently works on mac osx, linux, solaris.. with graphic versions of each of these being tested as I type. And it's open source, of course.
We just got a bunch of new hardware to handle the load as we transition the 500,000 active SETI@home classic users to BOINC. This will happen very early in 2005.
Not that this makes me feel special, and I certainly don't mean to sound righteous, but when I am done sitting in front of a computer all day I am
done with technology.
Obviously I understand the fun part of being wired, but it's just not for me.
I never owned a laptop, or a palm pilot. I certainly will never own a cell phone. I'd like a digital camera but never got around to researching which one to buy. Anyway, film works just fine for me still. Basically all I got is occasional use of my wife's iPod.
Does this make me less of a person in the eyes
of/.?
I gotta say that the annie lennox song was dreadfully dull. Have you seen the movie "Triplets of Belleville?" The song was *part* of the movie, and was integral to the plot. It wasn't just some closing credits filler that most people miss because they are rushing out to go pee already.
I feel if a song deserves an Oscar, it needs to be a major part of the movie, like the "Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" and "Belleville Rendezvous."
I hear people singing that stupid "gimme a break" theme from the kit-kat bar commercials, too. They can't help it. It was wedged into their brains from hearing it over and over and over again. Like the same, undeveloped themes in the movie. Dah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah... Doesn't make it good.
Back in the 80's there was a shakuhachi (I'm too lazy right now to check the spelling) flute patch that was used on *every goddamn film score* for a movie that had trees in it. I was so glad in the 90's when people learned how obnoxious that was and eased back on it a little bit. Suddenly, trees... horses... wood flute... AAAGH!
I mentioned this last time people were celebrating the accumulation of LOTR Oscars, including an Oscar for music. Giving an award to the music once a couple years ago was a big mistake, twice is a horrific joke.
I mean.. Jeez! I understand that people like things that are bad. Like candy bars, for instance. You may also like the music for LOTR, but it was still bad. Boring themes, tired arrangements, incredibly monotonous, embarrassing use of wood flute. Film scoring 101, basically. The Triplets of Belleville, among others, had much much better scores.
Doesn't anybody realize this? I found this particular award insulting to all musicians who actually have an original voice.
To be fair, it's a hard job to score three 3.5 hour movies. Still, that doesn't make the music better. Just adequate at best.
I excluded slashdot for two reasons. One, just to be funny/ironic (which may not have come across as I refuse to use those sideways smiley faces). Two, because while slashdot is riddled with misinformation as much as any news source, it allows the public to respond in kind. I respect that, even though my scant few postings are usually met with flames.
I find it troubling how much of a disconnect there is in the American public (and beyond) such that political opinion overshadows scientific fact and mathematical logic. Yet another sign our education system is in crisis.
Even sadder is that people generally don't care to understand the difference between 1 million and 1 billion and 1 trillion. It's all just some big number to them, but a few extra zeros really matter!
As always, I blame the news media (present company excluded, of course). They could really help bridge the gaps but they don't. I believe a law should be passed that every number ever stated in the news should be followed by an analogous per capita statstic. Like, $87 Billion more for the War on Iraq? That'll be $300 each per American. Funny.. Isn't that exactly what Bush gave us in the first tax year after he was elected?
I think it would be an entirely sad world if the only way somebody could get emergency help is via their cell phone. Aid should not be more readily available to those who bought into some commercial entity. Another perfect example of how capitalism is evil.
Anyway, get off your damn cell phone and pay attention to the road - maybe then there would be less calls to 911 in the first place!
This article is really giving us a headache. Quotes taken out of context or points exaggerated, etc.
Basically, we're always in a funding crisis. I personally spend a huge chunk of my time here at the SETI lab writing grant proposals. That's what academia is all about. I've been working in this group for 6 years now, and we've always been just scraping by. This is NOT NEWS.
In fact, we're pushing forward on all fronts. Please see:
This is from my own personal experience, as well as the experience of many close friends. There's really only one way for a band to get the attention they deserve: to GO ON TOUR CONSTANTLY!
It's the plain truth. Interent marketing of music is total crap. Any joker can throw.mp3s on their site these days. The web is too damn noisy to find any music worth listening to. So go to the pubs around the world where people actually made an effort to see you, and therefore with give you a real listen.
I can't believe nobody has said this yet (or I didn't read all the posts). The music was some of the worst movie music I heard in ages. Completely uninspiring, unoriginal, derivative, phoning-it-in crapola. Whenever anybody asks me how I liked LotR I make it a point to mention that it was great though the music nearly ruined it for me.
So to see it win best music goes to show the Academy doesn't know what they are talking about. At least John Williams didn't win either (another overrated film score hack if there ever was one).
Hi. I work on SETI@home. I was under the
impression he didn't install our software.
For what it's worth, we do say during the
install to not put SETI@home on machines on
which you don't have permission.
And anyway.. Consider SETI@home software's
track record for security compared to, say,
some larger commercial companies. I'm always
getting paranoid rants via e-mail about how
we can't be trusted, yet people download
netscape and install microsoft products as
if they are any safer and don't slow your
machine down needlessly.
We here at SETI@home collected
hundreds and hundreds of 35 GB DLTs worth of
data, all staring at the hydrogen line. So
with relatively little effort at all, we can
construct a rather robust map of hydrogen
in the sky above Arecibo Observatory.
I was a total Apple II/Amiga hacker in my youth,
but burned out on computers in college while
studying CS (and getting a degree in Music at
the same time). I moved to California for no
good reason after college and tooled around as
a slacker musician for a long time.
Bored of being broke, I got an administrative
assistant job at UC Berkeley's Space Lab. They
were using troff to format documents and I
happened to know it, which is how I landed this
job.
Nobody knew I was a programmer until the
sys admin discovered me screwing around trying
to use the "sudo" command. He was desperate
for help, so he asked if I was willing to take
on some sys admin dirty work (tape backups and
the like). This sys admin was then one of two
people who comprised the Berkeley SETI project.
Long story short, I ended up also helping port
some programs for the SETI SERENDIP project,
and eventually moved from being an admin
assistant to a full time sys admin. Next thing
I know this SETI@home project comes around and
takes over all my time.
So.. Lessons learned: hackers get jobs and
universities are great places to learn about
sys admin.
Hey. This is Matt. I'm one of the core SETI@home guys, but I'm really a musician, and must interject about one of my slowly-growing side projects called clamazon.com. It's an on-line CD store, and stocked with rare, collectible, and
wholly non-RIAA affiliated bands. Unlike most
CD on-line shops, we actually have the items in stock and at reasonable prices.
It's a new site - a work in progress, but we got the whole credit-card ordering thing going, over 1000 titles, blah blah blah. Enjoy.
Yeah, there's an xsetiathome client that will be bundled with the various unix versions. It's not a screensaver, though - just an X window that opens up with similar graphics as the Mac/Windows client. Maybe someday it'll act as a screensaver as well. - Matt - SETI@home
Slashdot Mirror
I work on SETI@home, helped get it started, maintain all the servers, databases, web sites, write scientific analysis code, etc. I also helped work on that iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge. And I also regularly record and tour internationally with all kinds of rock bands. I work equally hard on both tech and music careers, I think the ratio of money in tech vs. music is roughly 99 to 1, give or take 1.
Anyway, I'm a musician who knows about technology.
Since it's in real time to tape record 11,000 songs that would take, at 3 minutes per song, roughly 3 weeks. I'm sure people wouldn't stay up doing this 24 hours a day, so let's say at 12 hours a day of sitting there copying 11,000 songs one at a time, inserting new cassettes, etc. would take about 2 months at least. Two really grueling months making you question the worth of what you were doing.
However to copy 11,000 mp3s from one computer to another, about 7 hours. Go to sleep, wake up, all done. And nobody got hurt, right?
It's all about the ease and the scale at this point radically affecting the bottom lines.
Um... I bought over 1000 CDs before the internet. That's roughly $15,000. Doesn't seem like that much to ask for all that entertainment.
My own two cents, but I've been living in Oakland for 20 years, and never had one urge to move to SF. Oakland has much better weather, amazing parks (10 minute drive from my house and I'm in a redwood forest), and now that it's mathematically impossible to start new clubs, bars, or restaurants in SF they are all moving here!
I get why people have skewed ideas about Oakland (the media, the closet and overt racism) but I tell them: It's a great place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there.
This always drove me nuts. I'm glad somebody else made this montage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk
Download the BOINC/SETI client now:
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu
It also currently works on mac osx, linux, solaris.. with graphic versions of each of these being tested as I type. And it's open source, of course.
We just got a bunch of new hardware to handle the load as we transition the 500,000 active SETI@home classic users to BOINC. This will happen very early in 2005.
- Matt - BOINC/SETI@home
I never owned a laptop, or a palm pilot. I certainly will never own a cell phone. I'd like a digital camera but never got around to researching which one to buy. Anyway, film works just fine for me still. Basically all I got is occasional use of my wife's iPod.
Does this make me less of a person in the eyes of /.?
-Lebofsky
I feel if a song deserves an Oscar, it needs to be a major part of the movie, like the "Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" and "Belleville Rendezvous."
- Lebofsky
Back in the 80's there was a shakuhachi (I'm too lazy right now to check the spelling) flute patch that was used on *every goddamn film score* for a movie that had trees in it. I was so glad in the 90's when people learned how obnoxious that was and eased back on it a little bit. Suddenly, trees... horses... wood flute... AAAGH!
- Lebofsky
I mean.. Jeez! I understand that people like things that are bad. Like candy bars, for instance. You may also like the music for LOTR, but it was still bad. Boring themes, tired arrangements, incredibly monotonous, embarrassing use of wood flute. Film scoring 101, basically. The Triplets of Belleville, among others, had much much better scores.
Doesn't anybody realize this? I found this particular award insulting to all musicians who actually have an original voice.
To be fair, it's a hard job to score three 3.5 hour movies. Still, that doesn't make the music better. Just adequate at best.
Oh, well. You can't win them all.
- Lebofsky
http://boinc.berkeley.edu
- Lebofsky
I excluded slashdot for two reasons. One, just to be funny/ironic (which may not have come across as I refuse to use those sideways smiley faces). Two, because while slashdot is riddled with misinformation as much as any news source, it allows the public to respond in kind. I respect that, even though my scant few postings are usually met with flames.
- Lebofsky
I find it troubling how much of a disconnect there is in the American public (and beyond) such that political opinion overshadows scientific fact and mathematical logic. Yet another sign our education system is in crisis.
Even sadder is that people generally don't care to understand the difference between 1 million and 1 billion and 1 trillion. It's all just some big number to them, but a few extra zeros really matter!
As always, I blame the news media (present company excluded, of course). They could really help bridge the gaps but they don't. I believe a law should be passed that every number ever stated in the news should be followed by an analogous per capita statstic. Like, $87 Billion more for the War on Iraq? That'll be $300 each per American. Funny.. Isn't that exactly what Bush gave us in the first tax year after he was elected?
Oops. Too much coffee. Back to work..
- Lebofsky
I think it would be an entirely sad world if the only way somebody could get emergency help is via their cell phone. Aid should not be more readily available to those who bought into some commercial entity. Another perfect example of how capitalism is evil.
Anyway, get off your damn cell phone and pay attention to the road - maybe then there would be less calls to 911 in the first place!
- Lebofsky
Basically, we're always in a funding crisis. I personally spend a huge chunk of my time here at the SETI lab writing grant proposals. That's what academia is all about. I've been working in this group for 6 years now, and we've always been just scraping by. This is NOT NEWS.
In fact, we're pushing forward on all fronts. Please see:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/setifuture.html
- Matt Lebofsky - SETI@home
This is from my own personal experience, as well as the experience of many close friends. There's really only one way for a band to get the attention they deserve: to GO ON TOUR CONSTANTLY!
.mp3s on their site these days. The web is too damn noisy to find any music worth listening to. So go to the pubs around the world where people actually made an effort to see you, and therefore with give you a real listen.
It's the plain truth. Interent marketing of music is total crap. Any joker can throw
- Lebofsky
So to see it win best music goes to show the Academy doesn't know what they are talking about. At least John Williams didn't win either (another overrated film score hack if there ever was one).
- Lebofsky - www.lebofsky.com
And anyway.. Consider SETI@home software's track record for security compared to, say, some larger commercial companies. I'm always getting paranoid rants via e-mail about how we can't be trusted, yet people download netscape and install microsoft products as if they are any safer and don't slow your machine down needlessly.
- Matt Lebofsky - SETI@home
Details at: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/newsletters/newslet ter10.html
- Matt Lebofsky - SETI@home
Bored of being broke, I got an administrative assistant job at UC Berkeley's Space Lab. They were using troff to format documents and I happened to know it, which is how I landed this job.
Nobody knew I was a programmer until the sys admin discovered me screwing around trying to use the "sudo" command. He was desperate for help, so he asked if I was willing to take on some sys admin dirty work (tape backups and the like). This sys admin was then one of two people who comprised the Berkeley SETI project.
Long story short, I ended up also helping port some programs for the SETI SERENDIP project, and eventually moved from being an admin assistant to a full time sys admin. Next thing I know this SETI@home project comes around and takes over all my time.
So.. Lessons learned: hackers get jobs and universities are great places to learn about sys admin.
- Matt - SETI@home
It's a new site - a work in progress, but we got the whole credit-card ordering thing going, over 1000 titles, blah blah blah. Enjoy.
- Matt Lebofsky - matt@clamazon.com
Yeah, there's an xsetiathome client that will be bundled with the various unix versions. It's not a screensaver, though - just an X window that opens up with similar graphics as the Mac/Windows client. Maybe someday it'll act as a screensaver as well. - Matt - SETI@home