|
Episode
1: What are the K Files?
Now Showing...Episode 2: SETI@Home Explained!
No2K!
As a surprise to a lot of people, the SETI servers passed the Y2K test
with flying colors. The servers seem to have been up without any
hitches, and hopefully up for a nice continuous period of time!
New No. 3
Team Slashdot passed MacAddict
sometime on New Years Day, and is now the #3 club team. They still
are cranking out work units faster than Team Lamb Chop though.
Current estimates put Slashdot passing us sometime around 2/6/2000.
I have updated the Overall Top Teams this week also. Team
Lamb Chop by passing Slashdot and MacAddict a couple of weeks ago
now stands at #7 overall. Slashdot moves up to #8 dropping MacAddict
to #9. The only other change is that IBM
passed Apple and is now #11 overall.
Graphically Inclined
There are two changes in the graphs today. The first one is that I
changed the graphs back, to 1-20, and 21-40. The second thing you
probably have noticed (and I hope that it isn't too annoying) is that the
graphs have a white border around them. This border is actually a
by-product of exporting the graphs from Excel, and then saving them as a
.gif. To help save time with the page, and also to have a consistent
size to the graphs (no squeezing/stretching artifacts from
Frontpage), I have stopped cropping each of the graphs. If you
think that this looks too ugly let me know.
Top 40 Changes
Over the past couple of days there were some movement in the top 40.
Most notable one is that the SouthPark Admin Crew moved up one to the #3
team spot passing SpeedRacer. I noticed that since SouthPark has
started cranking up WUs that SpeedRacer is ramping up also....not sure if
it is going to last, since guru said that he was quitting
SETI. Others moving up include Darkmage and elBeavis moving up
two spots each to #35 and #36.
The Page....
The News updates, may be a bit slow in the next several days. I am
trying to revamp the way I have been calculating the numbers and graphs
for the page. It may take me a while to try to get things automated
so I can spent a tad less time with it. I also have a couple of
ideas for new things, and would like to implement them also.
Patience grasshoppa!
Happy New Year!
Shuffling of the Clubs
In the past couple of days there was some changes in the bottom of the top
14 Club Teams. After the "correction" a couple of days ago
Team NIPPON briefly moved into the #14
spot ousting Team Lockergnome. Today's update changes a little bit
more. The Knights Who Say Ni!
has moved up the charts looking for some shrubbery. They hopped past
both Team NIPPON and Team BeOS and up into the #13 spot. Team NIPPON
realizes that it is only a flesh wound, and will try to regroup.
Team Slashdot has the
chance to ring in the New Year in the #3 spot. They are only about
1,000 WUs behind MacAddict, and will either pass them tomorrow or
Sunday. Team Slashdot is still gaining on Team Lamb Chop, and the
current estimate to pass us is 2/13/2000.
I expect that our numbers may be down for the next couple
of days. I know of one person for sure, and there may be others,
which have been shutting down their machines (on networks) as a precaution
for the Y2K bug. I would assume that this will affect people from
other teams. I know I will be keeping my machine crunching (between
Q3A fragfests) so maybe I can catch up a tad.
Top 200
Again last night there was a brief opportunity to see the Top 200 team
members. I updated the Top 200
page again last night. I still am not sure if they will
implement a top 200, or not. If they regularly keep it, I will
probably keep statistics for the Top 200 instead of the Top 100. If
things remain the way they have (with the top 200 disappearing an hr or
two later) I may only be able to update the Top 200 every week. The
SETI servers update their pages sometime around midnight, and I cant keep
trying to see if I can get the page at the right time. Does anyone
know a way to pull and save a webpage while I am offline (maybe from a
routine on my ISP?). If so, please let me know!
Episode 2
I just finished the second installment of the K-Files.
This episode covers the basics of the SETI@Home project. Take a look and
let me know what you think. -zAmboni
Y2K and SETI@Home
How will the SETI@Home guys deal with the Y2K threat? They think
that they are ready. Their servers should remain online (barring
unforeseen circumstances) During the New Years weekend. Here is what
Eric has to say about it:
>I just wondered what
the plan was for dealing with the rollover. Are you
>planning on shutting down the servers prior to midnight and
restarting in
>the new year, or are you going to go for broke and let it
ride? :>)
We're just going to let it ride. We think we're all patched up and
ready
to go. Barring power outages and network failures downstream from
us, we
should work continuously.
Eric
Korpela
Top 200 Again?
The SETI team pages update came through with the top 200 team members
again. I took the list and posted it on a page again today.
You can find the Team Lamb Chop Top 200
here. Unfortunately, like a couple of days ago that team
stats page reverted back to a top 100 only. Are they testing
something new? Or is there just a glitch in the matrix? I just
don't know.
Correction!
With today's Club Team Update, it appears that the Stats server
finished(?) the "correction" for the unposted work units from a
month ago. Team Lamb Chop was credited with over 16,000 work units
for the day. One thing of note is that the other teams had a
"correction" also.
With the good news of a large posting of work units, comes
the news of a loss of a member. Uncle Timbo,
who moved up through the ranks and reached the #30 position, has left the
team. He takes with him ~1300 WUs. There was only one move in
the top 28 today....that was Vomesh
passing up romkey and moving into the #9 spot. The SouthPark
Admin Crew is closing in on SpeedRacer, right now they are only 470
WUs away......#3 should be theirs soon!
300,000 Work Units
Team Lamb Chop passed the 300K WU mark sometime late last night. Congrats
Team!
Beefcake!
After a long absence the SouthPark Admin Crew
is back crunching work units. They have crunched out 300+ work units
since yesterday. Welcome Back! They are immediately
challenging SpeedRacer for the #3 spot....and if they keep it up they will
be passing him in about a week.
Also, svdsinner continues
his move passing up _Quinn for the #23 spot. tron
moves up one place by passing Grimas, and is now #26
SETI Server Status
Had problems connecting to the SETI servers? Wonder if the problem
is with your ISP or the SETI servers? Now you can find out the
server status of the Berkeley servers. Found this on the
alt.sci.seti newsgroup today:
>Is there anywhere or
way to to tell if the s@h server is down besides not
>being able to connect?
We're in the process of adding a page to the web site. It's
currently
at http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/sstatus.html
and will eventually
be linked into the home page.
Eric
More Server Fun
Apparently there was another server outage this morning/afternoon.
This time it wasn't due to the equipment, but other "external"
sources:
December 28, 1999
Due to a screwup elsewhere on campus, there were a series of short power
outages at the lab early this morning (starting around 7:00am PST). We
waited until we were convinced that power was stable before getting all
the machines back up and running (around 10:00am PST).
I know some of you remember the previous lengthy server
outage. The Sun guys came out to take a look at the recently
installed server and found that the crash(es) that were happening was due
to 2 faulty DIMM modules. I guess you are only as good as your
installed memory.
300K tonight?
As of this writing, Team Lamb Chop is a just 200 WU shy of 300,000 WUs
processed. The odometer should click over in a couple of hrs.
Way to go TEAM!
On the top 100 front, there were a couple of spots
changing place today. Dr. Xing
passed FluffyPants for the #20 spot. svdsinner
did triple duty today. He passed up three to move him up to #25.
New "Unofficial" Team Thread
The old thread (the phoenix edition) died a horrible death today.
Bad HTML table in the thread screwed things up. I got Caesar to fix
it and lock the thread. We get to start anew with another
thread......check it out here.
(Man....I just noticed after what? 3
months.....I had "Unofficial" spelled wrong in the menu.
DOH!)
Oh Well.....
Before the Stats pages reverted back to a top 100, I did get to save the
page with the top 200 in it. If you want to see just how you rank
top 200 wise, I have put up a Top
200 page. Unless the SETI guys decide to go back to a top
200, this may be the only time (for now) that you can see the top 200 team
members. Check it
out! (Note....page is about 120K, may take a little time to
load)
Top 200?
I received a note from jelmore today
saying that the SETI pages now show the top 200 team members. I will
probably start keeping stats for the top 200 for the team, but i may have
to wait until I get my copy of Office2K sometime later this week. If
you cant wait and want to see just where you are check out the SETI
Team Lamb Chop Page. Damn.....and I was kind of close to the
top 100 (#115)!
Update: Did I
speak too soon? I just checked again.....and it was back down to the
top 100 :(. I don't know just what is up....will have to see if
things change in the next couple of days.....
Trouble on the Horizon?
Now that the SETI stats have settled down a bit, I am able to do some
calculations with the data. I have started a table on the Team
Standings page which shows estimated times for one team to
overtake another team. WU/day for the last 5 days are averaged for
each team, and is then used to calculate the day that one team will pass
the team ahead of them. Of most importance to Team Lamb Chop, it
appears that /. is cranking up the work units recently. They are
currently knocking off 6-700 WU/day off of our lead over them. At
the current rate /. will pass MacAddict on 1/5/00 and pass Team Lamb Chop
on 2/16/00. Another point of note is that /. appears to be
split into two different factions. There is the main team "Team
Slashdot" which is currently in 4th place, but there is also another
faction "Slashdot", which is currently 33rd in the Club Team
List. If the two teams would pool their WUs they would be ahead of
Team Lamb Chop. There does not seem to be a consolidation of teams
going on at the point, but it may happen.
One last thing to add....even though guru is still
cranking out some work units, he will stop producing work units for the
team in the next couple of days. Without those 400+ WU/Day /. will
gain on us even faster.
Weekly Update
I have updated the weekly stuff. The top three WU producers for the
week were the same as last week, they were guru,
followed by Vomesh, and then svdsinner.
There was a new top mover for the week...it was newcomer LrdHghFxr.
He moved into the top 100, and then moved up another 25 spots this
week. He was followed by VulTure and spagthorpe.
I also updated the archived stats.
A word of warning though, these graphs are getting pretty large.
There were a couple of movers the past couple of
days in the top of the top 100. Vomesh
was at it again, he moved past cthulhu and it now #11. C.
Eric Smith was also doing some movement up to #12 by passing
cthulhu also. A bit further down there were also some moves, Dan
Dan The Linux Man passed Guidant into #16, and also _Quinn
passes up Uncomm0n for #21.
The K Files
I have just added the first installment of The K
Files. This is a new page that will highlight some of the
feedback from SETI@Home team member Dr. Eric
Korpela. This feedback mostly comes from the newsgroups
alt.sci.seti and sci.astro.seti. Eric has been a valuable resource
and I felt that his comments deserved a page of its own. Take a look
at the K Files here.
We Have an Answer...
Eric Korpela comes through again. I had asked on alt.sci.seti
asking for an explanation about this which previously was on the client
version 2.0 page: "NOTE:
it is no longer possible to download work units with one version of
SETI@home and process the data with a different version; the same exact
version must be used throughout." Eric came back
with a reply tonight:
>From what I have been hearing from
some members on our team that if it was
>#1 above it may be a problem with them and their multiple machines
running
>the SETI client(s)
We had a big discussion about this on tuesday and
came to the conclusion that
we would do whatever we could to support current current caching and
proxying
schemes.
>If you could explain alittle bit more, it would be greatly
>appreciated....(maybe this is the reason why it was taken off of the
Version
>2.0 page?)
Exactly.
Eric
Well apparently the new version would have been limited to
processing a work unit with the same client that the work unit was
downloaded with. But it seems that the SETI guys have decided it
might not be a good idea......and then they amended the version 2.0 page
accordingly. Happy Day!
- News
Archives
|
