# ATTN: SETI@home Straight Dopers **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 20, 2002, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035 "2002-10-20T01:26:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/21 "2002-10-22T05:03:08Z")
Don’t listen to him, Bean Counter! Dark side, eh? Let’s see: [Straight Dopers](http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_147143.html) = 4985 units. [alt.fan.cecil-adams](http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_31937.html) = 44582. Okay, assuming you started with 4800 units two days ago (a generous assumption on my part as it looks like you generate a little over 18 units per day), it will take you about 425 days to achieve afca’s _current_ status. You’ll catch up - in an additional 675 days. (Assuming I haven’t FUMTU’ed my calculations.) Clearly you need more members. Just do it. Uncle Cecil wants you. Do one for the Cecil. Political pull May be Of use For exploration pull There’s no excuse Burma-Shave. Excuse me, Cecil Adams (and SETI!) ---
**Author:** ![Spit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spit)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/22 "2002-10-22T13:40:44Z")
I’m with you guys, and I brought 175 units to boot. ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/23 "2002-10-22T15:03:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > \*\*Well, it’s certainly not worth getting yourself fired over or anything. \*\* Nah. The worst I might get is a “WTF, is this?? Take it off!”. As long as its not a game, it’s usually ok with the Bossman. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/24 "2002-10-22T18:59:06Z")
Well, we’re up to 5,000 units now. Clearly, though, **brachyrhynchos** is right–We need more members! I know there were a couple of dozen members of the old “Straight Dopers” SETI@home group. C’mon, where are all you guys? ---
**Author:** ![Bean\_Counter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/db5fbb/32.png) [@Bean\_Counter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bean_Counter)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/25 "2002-10-22T20:58:53Z")
Hmmm… decisions, decisions. Stay where I am and remain in 25th place of a 50+ member team or jump ship to be in 5th place with the nubies. Stay where I am and remain on the team with (at least one) member(s) who hold their Ph.D.'s or defect to a team with (at least one) member(s) who hold the mark of the beast. Stay where I am or defect to the team with only 11% of the total units completed and probably only 50% of the current production. _I’M SO TORN_ Anyway, I received work my new computer was delivered. My current machine spits out a completed work unit about every 31 hours. I am really anxious to see what the new one will do. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/26 "2002-10-24T15:58:35Z")
Stay…stay…stay…stay… A unit for Cecil is a unit generated anywhere. **Bean Counter** , I bet your new machine will go through units like a hot knife on summer butter. When I first started, it took me nearly _two days_ to complete a unit. Sputter, groan, choke. Now I can do units in the background, and it takes between 5 and 6 hours. ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/27 "2002-10-24T16:58:41Z")
Count me in. My office PC has a permanent connection to the net and has lots of idle time… time better spent running this as opposed to a Matrix screen saver. The dusty old p3-500 can be busy finding ET instead! ---
**Author:** ![Kwyjibo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/59ef9b/32.png) [@Kwyjibo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kwyjibo)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/28 "2002-10-24T17:56:05Z")
_sigh_ My IT department has desided to play god and remotely access my work PC and remove SETI. They didn’t uninstall it, just delete the EXE file…smart, huh? (I know that if I had a pair of tits I’d be allowed to keep it…long story…never mind.) \>:( ---
**Author:** ![Rutabegger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9de0a6/32.png) [@Rutabegger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rutabegger)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/29 "2002-10-24T19:44:22Z")
Ok, I’m in with my miserable 33 units. What I want to know is what Max does with his life? We’re either talking lots of parallel processing, or someone’s been watching little red spikes for the past 3.8 years. ---
**Author:** ![Kwyjibo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/59ef9b/32.png) [@Kwyjibo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kwyjibo)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/30 "2002-10-24T20:41:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rutabegger \* > \*\*What I want to know is what Max does with his life? We’re either talking lots of parallel processing, or someone’s been watching little red spikes for the past 3.8 years. \*\* At my last place of employment, I was running it on 5 or 6 machines at once. That got me up there rather quickly. I was getting them in almost as quickly on this one machine (about one unit every 4 or 5 hourse)…but alas, the IT department is playing God again… ---
**Author:** ![Kwyjibo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/59ef9b/32.png) [@Kwyjibo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kwyjibo)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/31 "2002-10-24T20:43:09Z")
Also… …I started running it in '99. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2002, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/32 "2002-10-25T12:53:03Z")
Well, I’d love to contribute my 2,883 units to the SDMB, but I’m a member of a small group that produces a surprising amount of WU. We’re #172 overall (all teams) and #113 in club teams, and we only have 95 members. We’ve completed 241,704 work units (that’s 2500 units/member average) so far…of course, a few of our members have over 20,000 units to their names, and produce 40+ units/day. My machine only cranks out a bit over 6 per day. Jman ---
**Author:** ![iconoplast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3d9bf3/32.png) [@iconoplast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iconoplast)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2002, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/33 "2002-10-25T17:53:53Z")
I’ll bring my78 units over. I haven’t tried to run this on a decent system yet, so it should be fun. Also, **Kwyjibo** , see if you can borrow someone’s tits so you can keep running it. (I’d loan you mine, but I’m sort of attached to them. If it’s urgent, though, we can talk.) ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2002, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/34 "2002-10-26T01:49:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jman \* > Well, I’d love to contribute my 2,883 units to the SDMB, but I’m a member of a small group that produces a surprising amount of WU. We’re #172 overall (all teams) and #113 in club teams, and we only have 95 members. We’ve completed 241,704 work units (that’s 2500 units/member average) so far…of course, a few of our members have over 20,000 units to their names, and produce 40+ units/day. My machine only cranks out a bit over 6 per day. > > Jman See, you could be a big fish in a small pond! You’d have a shot at being the top dog\*! Especially since our current ace is having trouble with the IT department, and lacks the proper, ah, equipment to resolve the matter. \*Except that I’ll always be the Leader, of course. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/35 "2002-10-27T02:26:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kwyjibo \* > **_sigh_ My IT department has desided to play god and remotely access my work PC and remove SETI. They didn’t uninstall it, just delete the EXE file…smart, huh?** I haven’t sufficient rights on my company machine to install anything so I did some poking around on the SETI site and found a command-line version of the program. Being non-Windows, it doesn’t fool with the registry and installed just fine. Since it doesn’t do the screen-saver thing, it’s really quick in analyzing work units. I run it minimized and the only disadvantage is it leaves the button on tha task bar instead of the cute li’l Arecibo dish in the tray. I leave the box locked when I leave for the day so it can continue all night. Once every week or two, something goes sour – I suspect in sending in a work unit – and it hogs CPU cycles, so I check things out when I arrive in the morning by closing the command line window, then reopening it. If . . . it . . . puts . . . the . . . opening . . . lines . . . up . . . slowly I close the SETI window, then reboot Windows. Everything works fine after that. I’ve joined, bringing my 1,444 units with me. DD ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/36 "2002-10-27T03:15:09Z")
Hmmm, **DesertDog** , you don’t seem to be showing up as a member of the cult–I mean, uh, group. Try going to [this form](http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_join_form&id=147143) and registering there. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/37 "2002-10-27T03:55:13Z")
I’m in. This sounds more useful than my old Space Invaders screen saver, anyway. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/38 "2002-10-27T04:09:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > \*\*Hmmm, _DesertDog_, you don’t seem to be showing up as a member of the cult–I mean, uh, group. Try going to [this form](http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_join_form&id=147143) and registering there. \*\* Did dat. I was just figuring it takes a little while for their server to update, or something. I’ll try again. DD ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/39 "2002-10-27T05:25:53Z")
Yeah, looks like this one “took”, or their server finally updated, whichever. Welcome aboard! (To all the new people, of course, not just **DesertDog** and his 1400+ work units.) ---
**Author:** ![Kwyjibo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/59ef9b/32.png) [@Kwyjibo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kwyjibo)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035/40 "2002-10-27T21:19:01Z")
Ta da! My bro Arcturis, a long time lurker, has just joined the team 🙂 Looks like I have been bumped to Number 2. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attn-seti-home-straight-dopers/133035.md?page=3)