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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

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"
    - sgift 3y ago
      "known-bad" ... defined by you? Cause if the best & brightest did it (in this case SETI@Home) it seems they disagree with that categorization.
    - redundantly 3y ago
      Well, one used maybe tens or hundreds of megawatt hours over the course of a year, while the other uses tens or hundreds of terawatt hours per year. One was a launching platform for dozens of scientific and other large scale volunteer computing projects, and the other's value is entirely based in speculation.
- samatman 3y ago
  What makes you think there would have been a folding@home without SETI@home?
- dale_glass 3y ago
  I suspect the useful things you can do with this model are quite limited. You need: * A problem that can be cut into chunks small enough for a low end desktop computer * One that's solvable without communicating with anything else * The chunk is solvable enough that the user doesn't interrupt the process * And the bandwidth usage is small * And the solution is easily verifiable * And the problem is big enough that it needs a vast amount of hardware to solve * But is relatively unimportant, so nobody wants to spend any money to solve it faster Especially the latter parts seem to mostly suggest quirky uses like SETI. If it's something important you can probably do it faster by just finding funding, than by trying to convince millions of people to install a screensaver.

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"
  - sgift 3y ago
    "known-bad" ... defined by you? Cause if the best & brightest did it (in this case SETI@Home) it seems they disagree with that categorization.
  - redundantly 3y ago
    Well, one used maybe tens or hundreds of megawatt hours over the course of a year, while the other uses tens or hundreds of terawatt hours per year. One was a launching platform for dozens of scientific and other large scale volunteer computing projects, and the other's value is entirely based in speculation.
samatman 3y ago
What makes you think there would have been a folding@home without SETI@home?
dale_glass 3y ago
I suspect the useful things you can do with this model are quite limited. You need: * A problem that can be cut into chunks small enough for a low end desktop computer * One that's solvable without communicating with anything else * The chunk is solvable enough that the user doesn't interrupt the process * And the bandwidth usage is small * And the solution is easily verifiable * And the problem is big enough that it needs a vast amount of hardware to solve * But is relatively unimportant, so nobody wants to spend any money to solve it faster Especially the latter parts seem to mostly suggest quirky uses like SETI. If it's something important you can probably do it faster by just finding funding, than by trying to convince millions of people to install a screensaver.