Supporting SETI@Home and all BOINC Distributed Computing Projects
September 2007

©SETI.USA 2006-2007

CONTENTS:

* Latest News
* SETI News
* Member of the Month Interview
An Interview with SETI.USA's Crazybob
* Project of the Month
September/October
* BOINC News
* Trivia Winners for August
* Computer of the Month
* Quote of the Month
* Personal Milestones
* Users of The Day

Intel, AMD Enter Into Quad-Core Chip Duel

Kathleen Lau, Computerworld
Friday, September 07, 2007 2:00 PM PDT

Intel Corp. 's release this week of the 'Tigerton' Xeon 7300 chip was promptly met with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. 's contention that the technology is merely packaged dual-cores, and not native quad-core.

Intel unveiled Wednesday a new version of its Xeon processor, touting it as the "industry's first quad-core processors specifically designed for multi-processor servers". The announcement came just before AMD's release of its quad-core chip, Barcelona , next week.

SETI NEWS:

How I Spent My SETI Summer
By Lisa Grossman, 2007 REU student.

Every kid loves to play make believe. Some play cops and robbers. Others play house. And some dress up in their parents' clothes, pretending they have their parents' jobs and dreaming about what they'll be when they grow up.

When I was a kid, I dreamed about being an alien hunter. As a third grader peering into a microscope at single celled organisms, I imagined a universe full of tiny, hardy life. Why not? Microbes can live comfortably in the most absurdly unfriendly reaches of the planet. If these little creatures can survive in volcanoes, at the bottom of the ocean, embedded in glacial ice, and even in countless human guts, then they must be able to exist on other planets! Life must be absolutely everywhere!

I didn't know then that there was an entire community of scientists who felt exactly the same way. I certainly didn't expect that before I'd even graduated from college, I'd be working with them.

Member of the Month Interview: -Beerdrinker

I know that feeling...How long can a month be? Is that newsletter coming soon? Wait no more! Yet again we go beyond borders to serve our team. Because they deserve the very best we can do. This month I have the pleasure of introducing a member who is a very frequent poster on the messageboard, which has earned him status of platinum member. So please welcome......

Crazybob!

Read Interview

Project of the Month: -DrBob

SETI.USA encourages its members to participate in the project of their choice. Now that we have accomplished the team's original goal of being #1 in SETI@home, credit in ALL BOINC projects is valuable to the team's future success.

Some members have asked for direction as to which projects they should allocate their resources to. Therefore we have decided to designate a “Team Project of the Month”. The chosen project typically will be one in which our team currently has a poor showing in that projects standings, however, this month we have made a change.

Riesel Sieve has been chosen for the Team Project of the Month for September/October.

Our team is currently ranked 1st in BOINC standings on the project but our lead is regularly threatened by the French and Belgians. We are hoping enough members will participate in this project to increase our lead there to a comfortable level by October 19th.

Project URL: http://boinc.rieselsieve.com//
Create an Account: http://boinc.rieselsieve.com/orig/create_account_form.php
Join Our Team: http://boinc.rieselsieve.com/orig/team_display.php?teamid=476

BOINC News:

BOINCpe: Live-CD for BOINC

With BOINCpe you can run a dedicated BOINC machine in-RAM (using a RAM disk) starting from only 256 MB of total RAM . This is useful to operate your BOINC farm more energy-efficient (without HDDs) or to temporarily activate machines without hard disk drives (HDD) for BOINC. In combination with a BAM (BOINC Account Manager) Account, it is extremely easy and comfortable to integrate new machines. Basically, it is copying a couple of files (~4 of them), burning the CD and booting up… Check the above link for more info.

August Trivia Winners -SargeD

Week 1

Subject: Food & Drink
Winner: Possum
Score: 100
Time: 1 min 10 sec

Week 2

Subject: Mythology & Legend
Winner: Logan 5
Score: 90
Time: 1 min 04 sec

Week 3

Subject: General Knowledge
Winner: Aviationnut
Score: 100
Time: 1 min 03 sec

Week 4

Subject: Netherlands
Winner: Crunch3r
Score: 80
Time: 0 min 55 sec

Computer of the Month:

This month's computer of the month belongs to theflux.

STATS:
Intel quad core 2 duo q6600 (OC'd to 2.7ghz)
Gigabyte 965p-ds3 MB
OCZ vindicator coolor
600W Power Supply
2 GB pc6400 RAM
250 GB sata II hd + an external
Creative X-Fi Audio Processor (WDM)
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)
OS - Microsoft Vista Ultimate
25C idle
45C under load

View pictures

Do you like this month's featured machine? Do you have a PC that you would like to see featured in our newsletter? Then visit here and tell us about your cruncher!!

Quote of the Month:

We are here and it is now.
Further than that,
all human knowledge is moonshine.

-H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Personal Milestones: -Orion

SETI.USA would like to thank ALL of it's dedicated members and offer CONGRATULATIONS to all those who achieved significant personal milestones in the month of August. As you all know, we are growing exponentially. We now have:

78 members with 1,000,000+ SETI credits
123 members with 500,000+
480 members with 100,000+

Combined:
94 members with 1,000,000+ COMBINED credits
159 members with 500,000+
661 members with 100,000+

View SETI Milestones
View Combined Milestones

Users of The Day -SargeD

August was another stellar month for us with a total of 35 UoTDs. We had a four way tie for the top producer between Tank, Dr. Dan, Irondog and Teratome (3 each). Our best project for the month was QMC with 6 UoTDs. We gained 20 on the number 8 team and are now only 21 from taking it away.

View August UoTDs