Japanref Seti@Home Team

[thomas]

SETI = Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence

We invite our members to join our Seti@Home Team. For more info click the link below.

=> http://www.japanref.com/setiathome/

[lineartube]

Hmmm... been there. When I was at school, I used to have SETI client running on the background but I eventually gave up. With Antivirus and the likes running in the background, it was a killer. And I don't have a spare computer, at the moment.

Anyway, good luck.

Does anyone else finds it funny that people are more likely to contribute to finding Aliens than the cure for cancer?
Well... I guess the important is contributing for something, no matter what. Who know? Martians may have the cure for cancer and we might trade it for some Matrix DVDs.


:D

[Twisted]

Seti was the first that came up with a distributed computing program and is therefore the most popular.

I'm running units at home and at work. Got about 2362 units finished at the moment.
I'm currently in another group, but it's a bit dead so i might consider making a switch. It's just a shame that the units i calculated for that other group can't be transfered to another group.

[thomas]

Visited my father today. He's a tech freak and dedicated radio amateur. In his opinion SETI projects such as the one Berkeley maintains are a complete waste of time and resources, as any distant civilization that's able to send signals over distances that can only be measured in light years would certainly not send them as radio signals (apart from the fact that such signals would travel for ages and had to be beamed *exactly* to earth). Indeed, SETI projects haven't brought any results since they had started in the 1960s. He's convinced that we're not alone, but current SETI projects were nothing else but searching for a needle in a cosmic haystack.

Hm?

Btw, has anyone seen "Contact" with Jodie Foster? :)

[Luxpyre]

I would agree that the SETI program is more or less a waste of time. It may be "neat" but chances are, we will never find anything. There is just TOO MUCH OUT THERE. Plus, it needs to be a civilization that is actually broadcasting radio. Do you have any idea how small the probability is that we will be able to find anything? Virtually zilch. I would recomend trying the folding@home project which is basically the same type of program, but works on protein folding which offers clues to curing diseases. Good grief, at least donate your computer cycles to something that will have a use!

[thomas]

Guess you're right. I wasn't aware of the fact that there are other "@home" projects out there. Just found their site

=> http://folding.stanford.edu

Thanks for the heads up.

[Twisted]

Originally posted by thomas
Btw, has anyone seen "Contact" with Jodie Foster? :)

It was one of the first DVD's i bought. Although the story involves the SETI-project, the real theme of the movie is faith in science vs faith in religion.

[thomas]

I admit that the technical aspect fascinated me most. ;)

Religion and science: I refuse to view the issue as 'either-or'.

[moyashi]

WELL, what project should we all contribute to then? I've never done this before and just thought it might be interesting and a fun way to gather a group of members off the forum here.

I'm into the protein thing or even the aliens.

True radio signals but I bet there is at least a chance since figuring a star is a sun and each sun on the average should have at least 3 planets so the figures even on the seat of my pants calculation puts Vulcans as being a reality.

[thomas]

In order to build up some team spirit I suggest we continue with SETI. I'll mark Folding@Home as future project.

[Twisted]

Ok, i've just joined. I wonder how long it will take before my own group finds out that their founder has left them. :)

Install the client software on as many machines as you have within your reach. Be careful when you install it at work, because in the past people have been fired for "stealing" computertime from their employer (this was in the US of course).

Remember that this software does not slow down your computer in any way, since it only uses the processors' idle cycles.

[thomas]

Thanks for your turn, Peter! I hope your members won't view your move as treason, lolol!

I have just finished my first task yesterday, took 26 hours. You can set up the client as permanent background task, which could slow down your PC considerably, in particular if you only have 64 MB RAM (like the old box I'm working on). Now my client runs as screensaver which poses no problems.

[Twisted]

Right, with little internal memory you'll get considerable slowdown, but that's a Windows problem. :)
At home i'm running the command-line version of the client which is supposed to be faster with it's calculations, since it doesn't have to bother with all the graphics.

[thomas]

Excellent idea, will take a look at that.

[thomas]

I tried to set up the SETI client as NT service, but of course I wouldn't succeed. So I switched to the command line tool, it's a big relief for my old box.

[tosh]

@Thomas: ...And language is a form of mathematics, as mathematics is a form of language. So there..(wink). @Moyashi: Vulcans a reality?...yeah, they're in Japan right now, getting "jiggy" with it.

[Twisted]

The Seti-server is currently dropping connection, which causes the commandline-version to shut down.
Nothing serious, but you need to restart your client again.

[thomas]

Thanks for the heads up, Peter. I am using the client only in case I'm not working on my box. 64 MB RAM is just not enough, lol.

[thomas]

Rocketdive, thanks for joining the team!! :wave:

=> http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_lookup&name=Japanref%20Team