Supporting
SETI@Home and all BOINC Distributed Computing
Projects November 2006 ©SETI.USA
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Premiere Issue! |
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* Latest News SETI News * Member of the Month Interview An Interview with SETI.USA’s Founder, Project III * Topic of the Month The Proliferation of BOINC Projects; The Trend of The Future? * Computer of the Month * Member’s Pick of the Month Salute to Our Veterans * Team Stats * Personal Milestones * Quote of the Month
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Latest
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SETI.USA Releases First Monthly Newsletter!
Welcome to SETI.USA's first monthly newsletter! This is a new collaborative effort among several SETI.USA members to help keep our members, and the SETI community at large, informed of interesting monthly events. We are also hoping that those reading this newsletter, who are not members of SETI.USA, will visit our website (at http://www.setiusa.net) and check out our active message forums for the most recent event discussions. Thanks to all of our members who have contributed to our first newsletter release for November 2006! Intel Releasing New Quad Processors This Month With many people still waiting to get their hands on a new Intel Conroe Dual Core CPU, Intel is not slowing down with its assault of new CPU technology. The latest releases from Intel this month include the Kentsfield Core Duo Quad and Cloverton Xeon Quad processors. These new CPUs hold tremendous processing potential and there will likely be waiting lists for several months on these, as production catches up to demand. |
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SETI
News |
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A month ago, Berkeley sent e-mail invitations to all inactive SETI@Home members. The intent was to get as many of those who left the project to come back and give it another try. Well, the results have been tremendous! SETI.USA's production in the SETI project has doubled in the past month alone! And we are not the only team experiencing this recent growth - it is apparent with most of the active SETI teams' recent statistics.
Berkeley Still Seeking Donations Support from Members
Berkeley is still in need of donations, to keep our favorite distributed computing project funded. Go to http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php for more information regarding funding goals, and to find out how you can help.
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Member
of the Month Interview |
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An Interview with SETI.USA’s Founder, Project III by Beerdrinker Welcome to the first edition of SETI.USA newsletter. In this, our very first edition, we would like to introduce you to a member who we all know. This person is one of the reasons that
SETI.USA is what it is today. So without
any further introduction, please welcome...
Project III! Beerdrinker: Tell
us a little bit about yourself. What do you do for fun? For a living? Project III: I stopped going to school after no major
stuck. I tried mathematics,
philosophy, music, computer science, and psychology. Nowadays I work at my family's used
bookstore purchasing and researching books and use my free time to write,
draw, make music, and attempt various other creative endeavors. I also read a lot; classic literature and
non-fiction about schizophrenia and philosophy, mostly. Beerdrinker: When
did you first join SETI@Home and why? Project III: I began dabbling in SETI@Home
roughly in the fall of '04. I originally
crunched classic, and at my peak I had my single dorm room filled with gutted
OOOOLD computers running SETI. In the
winter I had to leave the window open all day and night to keep the room
reasonably cool. However, the
computers were so old that I didn't get much credit. A few months later I discovered BOINC. I read that BOINC would eventually replace
classic, and I started formulating. I
started a small team with some friends, and originally thought that's all it
would ever be. Then one day I had an
epiphany. Beerdrinker: Where did you first hear about SETI.USA?
When did you join? And what caused you to stay? Project III: I realized the Beerdrinker: How many machines do you have running SETI@Home? Project III: I have 4 older computers running SETI@home. That's
it. Beerdrinker: Tell
us about your fastest cruncher. Project III: My fastest cruncher is a smokin'
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ with one gig of ram and SATA
RAID 0. It's fairly outdated now. Beerdrinker: If
you could build your "dream" cruncher, what would it be like? Project III: My dream cruncher? Hmmm... I think I'd like to get geared up
and sneak into Fermilab (only an hour away) and
hijack any supercomputer(s) they have sitting around. I'd be like Tom Cruise in Beerdrinker: Any
advice for the other members of the team? Project III: This is a marathon, not a sprint. Patience is important. If each of us finds our individual strides,
then we'll pass SETI.Germany with little
trouble. Most importantly, remember to
have fun doing this. On behalf of the
SETI.USA newsletter staff, I would like to say thank you to Project III for
participating in this interview. Follow us, as we present
a new member next month - right here at SETI.USA! |
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Topic
of the Month |
| The Proliferation of BOINC Projects; The Trend of The Future? by BlkJack-21 Dr. David Anderson had a vision. Some critics may have thought this vision was viewed through a crystal ball. Dr. Anderson understood the full potential of the concept of Distributed Computing. His idea was growing roots as early as when SETI@Home was in it's infancy. Dr. Anderson conceptualized the world with its millions upon millions of PC's all connected in some sort of way. However at the time of his vision, the technology needed was somewhat a step behind what was required. But in the Present day, that crystal ball has exploded into a reality. The world of BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) and it's community are now beginning to realize its full potential. From 2003 to late 2005 there were the occasional formation of new projects. These projects, however were limited to only a few themes. They typically fell into the categories of either SETI, Climate Prediction, or protein structures. (not excluding the orphan Animation and BOINC teating platform). SETI BOINC in the early stages of BOINC was the project that dwarfed all other projects by comparison. But at the end of 2005/early 2006 to the present, things dramatically changed. BOINC projects relating to every form of Science and Mathematics began to appear. Even in the more recent present there are now projects that simulate games of chess, nano structures, and now a distributed Web Crawler (DepSpid). Trying to track new projects that are in Alpha can be a full time job. Fellow teammates of SETI.USA that report a new project that has progressed to Beta, it seems that 3 or 4 new projects are released as Alpha in the same timeframe. There is even a site "Pizza@Home" that comically spoofs this proliferation of projects. Joke or not, BOINC is now the grandfather of Distributed Computing. "Google" the word "BOINC" and one will find almost 11 million results that links to "BOINC". If Dr. Anderson were to look into that crystal ball and see what the future of BOINC will be, say in the next 10 years? Maybe people's cell phones will be crunching a Distributed Computing Project....One can only dream like Dr. Anderson. |
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Computer
of the Month |
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This month, jghilino has sent us the following information from Herr Fritz, who is the proud owner of SETI.USA's Computer of the Month!
Herr Fritz: I
knew it was time to upgrade when my old PIII wasn't cutting it anymore
for playing games, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was on the
horizon. This was only the second PC I built myself, though I upgraded
my first fairly extensively. I wanted a large case so I would have
plenty of room, and the Tai-Chi caught my eye. It wasn’t cheap, but I
like the looks. The choice of AMD was a no-brainer for a gaming PC at
the start of ’06. I knew that I wanted an LCD to replace my old CRT,
and I wanted it big. The Dell 2405 is a 24” 16:10 running 1920x1200.
Playing games at that resolution requires some serious horsepower, so
that meant SLI as I’m an nVidia fan, and Crossfire was still being
worked on. I went with two factory overclocked 7800 GTXs from eVga.
These are only the 256 MB versions, as the 512s were very rare.
Motherboard and PSU decisions led from video choices. I wanted to have
some room with overclocking, so I went with 3500 DDR.
Specs Case: Thermaltake Tai-Chi
More pictures here... http://home.comcast.net/~cdredman2/index.html
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Member’s Pick of the Month |
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Salute to Our Veterans
World War I officially ended on June 28, 1919, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The actual fighting between the Allies and Germany, however, had ended seven months earlier with the armistice, which went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. Armistice Day, as November 11 became known, officially became a holiday in the United States in 1926, and a national holiday 12 years later. On June 1, 1954, the name was changed to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans. It is only fitting that our inaugural newsletter is being published in the month of November. Our team represents the United States in the world of distributed computing and is composed of US citizens and those who consider themselves our allies. This inaugural issue of our newsletter is therefore dedicated to the many veterans who are members of the team:
Member Service Years Served melec
US Army 4 Years
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Team Stats |
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Hi everyone!
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Personal Milestones |
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250,000 Boyle Ke, Grover, Ken
- Compiled by Orion
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Quote of the Month |
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With the first "Quote of the Month", I thought it only right to acknowledge and salute those rare souls who realize there is more "out there" and are inspired to pursue it. Since we are SETI.USA, I also felt it was appropriate to start with an American. - Orion
"The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk into the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."
-Walker Percy (1916-1990)
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