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The SETI@Home screensaver [0] (the predecessor to BOINC) was the peak of nerd-cool when I was 11 or 12 years old. I had no idea what any of the graphs meant, an

The SETI@Home screensaver [0] (the predecessor to BOINC) was the peak of nerd-cool when I was 11 or 12 years old. I had no idea what any of the graphs meant, and still don't, but I knew that I could help find _aliens_, and look like a hacker doing it [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home?useskin=vector#/media/File:Setiathomeversion3point07.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home?useskin=vector#/medi...

widea 3y ago
When energy was cheap...
unsupp0rted 3y ago
> Since its launch on May 17, 1999, the project has logged over two million years of aggregate computing time What a waste of computing time!
- ianlevesque 3y ago
  Just wait until you hear about Bitcoin
  - agilob 3y ago
    Just wait until you hear about most ecommerce platforms doing `SELECT * FROM` just to display 2 columns.
    - mjochim 3y ago
      Even more interesting is the software that does SELECT * FROM just to display two rows.
    - cultofmetatron 3y ago
      Just wait till you hear about the developers out there doing `select* from` and then using reduce inside their api server to sum up the values of a column.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      what if your table just has two columns?
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
  SETI wasn't a waste of time don't have any good alternatives to it. Folding@home on the other hand probably could have been a lot more useful if they were training transformers on their results instead of just doing pure protein dynamics simulations.
  - ianlevesque 3y ago
    Folding@Home predates the ML approaches to protein folding. Just because it has been eclipsed now doesn’t mean it wasn’t worthwhile.
    - jhbadger 3y ago
      Well, it predates the deep-learning ML approaches to protein folding like Alphafold. But people have been applying ML methods to protein folding for decades -- that has long been the two camps in the protein-folding bioinformatics world -- whether the best way to get structures was to simulate what the protein was actually doing or if there was a computational shortcut.
      - natechols 3y ago
        The goal of protein folding simulations like Folding@Home is not to predict 3D structures - it's to understand how folding actually works, and why it sometimes doesn't work. When FAH came out it was already very obvious that there were good computational shortcuts to predicting the end state (the Rosetta approach), but those don't tell you very much about the physical process. Different questions call for different approaches.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- _trampeltier 3y ago
  Seti@home started a long long time ago, when computer used the same amount of power, if they worked hard or if the computer was idle. That's why they started as screensaver, it did just not matter.
  - unsupp0rted 3y ago
    Yes, I remember. But even then we knew full well the chance of identifying anything via SETI was minute. We were looking at a sliver of a sliver of a sliver of what's out there. A tiny office full of grad students could have come up with a dozen more useful ways to use that many distributed computing cycles, say for medical research. Not only folding@home: imagine what a Wolfram or a Knuth would have achieved with all those cycles.
    - renewiltord 3y ago
      Well, we know what they could have done. Nothing. Because both were around and active then and they didn't do anything. Folding@Home followed SETI@Home so we know offering a different thing would have participants. It's actually fascinating. People back then would be eager to find ways to do things. So many people now are lamenters, not doers. Perhaps that's just mean reversion and the original population was more agentic because it was a new tech. After the geeks and mops, perhaps the ones who follow are the lamenters.
    - redundantly 3y ago
      If you're this salty about SETI being a waste Of computing cycles, wait till you learn about bitcoin.
      - unsupp0rted 3y ago
        It's weird people keep comparing this to Bitcoin. That's like "Oh our best & brightest sunk years and billions into a known-bad type of Alzheimers research? Wait till you hear about Pets.com"
        3y ago

widea 3y ago

When energy was cheap...

unsupp0rted 3y ago

> Since its launch on May 17, 1999, the project has logged over two million years of aggregate computing time What a waste of computing time!

ianlevesque 3y ago
Just wait until you hear about Bitcoin
- agilob 3y ago
  Just wait until you hear about most ecommerce platforms doing `SELECT * FROM` just to display 2 columns.
  - mjochim 3y ago
    Even more interesting is the software that does SELECT * FROM just to display two rows.
  - cultofmetatron 3y ago
    Just wait till you hear about the developers out there doing `select* from` and then using reduce inside their api server to sum up the values of a column.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    what if your table just has two columns?
KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
SETI wasn't a waste of time don't have any good alternatives to it. Folding@home on the other hand probably could have been a lot more useful if they were training transformers on their results instead of just doing pure protein dynamics simulations.
- ianlevesque 3y ago
  Folding@Home predates the ML approaches to protein folding. Just because it has been eclipsed now doesn’t mean it wasn’t worthwhile.
  - jhbadger 3y ago
    Well, it predates the deep-learning ML approaches to protein folding like Alphafold. But people have been applying ML methods to protein folding for decades -- that has long been the two camps in the protein-folding bioinformatics world -- whether the best way to get structures was to simulate what the protein was actually doing or if there was a computational shortcut.
    - natechols 3y ago
      The goal of protein folding simulations like Folding@Home is not to predict 3D structures - it's to understand how folding actually works, and why it sometimes doesn't work. When FAH came out it was already very obvious that there were good computational shortcuts to predicting the end state (the Rosetta approach), but those don't tell you very much about the physical process. Different questions call for different approaches.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
_trampeltier 3y ago
Seti@home started a long long time ago, when computer used the same amount of power, if they worked hard or if the computer was idle. That's why they started as screensaver, it did just not matter.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  Yes, I remember. But even then we knew full well the chance of identifying anything via SETI was minute. We were looking at a sliver of a sliver of a sliver of what's out there. A tiny office full of grad students could have come up with a dozen more useful ways to use that many distributed computing cycles, say for medical research. Not only folding@home: imagine what a Wolfram or a Knuth would have achieved with all those cycles.
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    Well, we know what they could have done. Nothing. Because both were around and active then and they didn't do anything. Folding@Home followed SETI@Home so we know offering a different thing would have participants. It's actually fascinating. People back then would be eager to find ways to do things. So many people now are lamenters, not doers. Perhaps that's just mean reversion and the original population was more agentic because it was a new tech. After the geeks and mops, perhaps the ones who follow are the lamenters.
  - redundantly 3y ago
    If you're this salty about SETI being a waste Of computing cycles, wait till you learn about bitcoin.
    - unsupp0rted 3y ago
      It's weird people keep comparing this to Bitcoin. That's like "Oh our best & brightest sunk years and billions into a known-bad type of Alzheimers research? Wait till you hear about Pets.com"
      - 3y ago