Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, farmpuma, just brew it!
Diplomacy42 wrote:I use Bionic exclusively. they have vastly better projects and pande is a doodoo head...
Geonerd wrote:http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/ has several pulsar search options that I like.
You can opt for Fermi Gamma Ray Observatory data, or one of several radio telescope feeds. CPU and GPU support for a fairly wide range of graphics chipsets. The user forum is helpful and quite down-to-Earth.
(I'm downright cynical about the LIGO gravity wave 'observatory,' and consider it a prime example of Big Science run amok. After all too many lofty presentations about "Solving the mysteries of the Universe," and nearly a $1B spent, there is not a single GW observation to show after nearly 10 years of looking.)
BIF wrote:Geonerd wrote:http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/ has several pulsar search options that I like.
You can opt for Fermi Gamma Ray Observatory data, or one of several radio telescope feeds. CPU and GPU support for a fairly wide range of graphics chipsets. The user forum is helpful and quite down-to-Earth.
(I'm downright cynical about the LIGO gravity wave 'observatory,' and consider it a prime example of Big Science run amok. After all too many lofty presentations about "Solving the mysteries of the Universe," and nearly a $1B spent, there is not a single GW observation to show after nearly 10 years of looking.)
After I saw one Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where the aliens came to Springfield, I decided that we are not yet able to protect ourselves from any big-headed race of slobbering aliens who consider us to be a tasty food source. So no Seti for me.
Either in that episode or another one, they used an ice cream scoop to remove Homer's brain. I laughed for a week. But even more reason not to go looking for aliens...
BIF wrote:After I saw one Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where the aliens came to Springfield, I decided that we are not yet able to protect ourselves from any big-headed race of slobbering aliens who consider us to be a tasty food source. So no Seti for me.
Either in that episode or another one, they used an ice cream scoop to remove Homer's brain. I laughed for a week. But even more reason not to go looking for aliens...
just brew it! wrote:BIF wrote:After I saw one Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where the aliens came to Springfield, I decided that we are not yet able to protect ourselves from any big-headed race of slobbering aliens who consider us to be a tasty food source. So no Seti for me.
Either in that episode or another one, they used an ice cream scoop to remove Homer's brain. I laughed for a week. But even more reason not to go looking for aliens...
Ahh, but most SETI projects aren't attempting to *contact* the aliens, they are attempting to *detect* them. So more of an attempt at an early warning system than an invitation to a buffet!
Geonerd wrote:just brew it! wrote:BIF wrote:After I saw one Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where the aliens came to Springfield, I decided that we are not yet able to protect ourselves from any big-headed race of slobbering aliens who consider us to be a tasty food source. So no Seti for me.
Either in that episode or another one, they used an ice cream scoop to remove Homer's brain. I laughed for a week. But even more reason not to go looking for aliens...
Ahh, but most SETI projects aren't attempting to *contact* the aliens, they are attempting to *detect* them. So more of an attempt at an early warning system than an invitation to a buffet!
But you just know that the moment we discover an unambiguous alien signal, some bright-eyed fool will advocate building and aiming a giant transmitter back at them. "Hey! Yooo-hoo! We're over here, guys! Please come assimilate, exterminate, and/or devour us!"
just brew it! wrote:Given that we're already pretty sure none of the "nearby" systems have intelligent life, it'll take hundreds of years for the message to get there, and for the ensuing fleet to arrive (assuming anybody at the other end is even listening). You and I, and our children and grandchildren will be long dead by then. We may have even wiped ourselves out as a civilization, due to forms of stupidity more blatant than inviting a fleet of hungry aliens over for dinner.
Not my problem!
Takeshi7 wrote:I've been donating my computer power to distributed.net Optimal Golomb Ruler search for a while now. I like it, because it's one of the last distributed computing projects that needs a CPU. Apparently GPUs can't be threaded fine grained enough for OGR searches.