Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
Screen Saver - what are we looking for?
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Author | Message |
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David Ranson Send message Joined: 22 Jul 14 Posts: 9 Credit: 1,264,361 RAC: 0 |
Does anyone know what a extraterrestrial signal will look like on the Seti@home screen saver. Being a nerd, I watch them, then it dawned on me, don't know what I'm looking at, or for. Please help, I want to know when to be excited............ |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
Josef Segur gave this explanation in Message 1535565: For the Atropulse displays, the left to right time encompasses only 1.31072 milliseconds centered on the "Telescope time:" shown above. There are actually 32768 power values in that time, but for graphics purposes that has to be subsampled since displays aren't 32K pixels wide. The back to front Dispersion has 16 slightly different values, which causes the apparent spiky presentation. I have highlighted the most important bits explaining that watching the screen saver isn't really going to help you find much of anything. |
David Ranson Send message Joined: 22 Jul 14 Posts: 9 Credit: 1,264,361 RAC: 0 |
Thanks for the answer Ozzfan, I can sleep now, and stop watching the screensaver, for hours on end. I shall return to my other hobby, biting off chicken heads................. |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
Whoa there! Sounds like you're going off the rails on the crazy train! |
David Ranson Send message Joined: 22 Jul 14 Posts: 9 Credit: 1,264,361 RAC: 0 |
must have the wrong oz [img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-pGMMYe2nlsI/UauEtD_bxdI/AAAAAAAAAOU/UHKgNXpuABM/w545-h673-no/122_1006_01_o%2Bozzy_osbourne%2Bprofile.jpg[/url] |
David Ranson Send message Joined: 22 Jul 14 Posts: 9 Credit: 1,264,361 RAC: 0 |
I'll get the hang of posting soon.... I hope |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
Don't worry. I wouldn't go barking at the moon about it. |
Josef W. Segur Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 4504 Credit: 1,414,761 RAC: 0 |
The old SETI Classic Screensaver explanation may also be of interest. At the time SETI@home started, many graphics cards did not directly support OpenGL so a lot of CPU time was needed to do the screensaver displays. Thus, showing the graphics was counterproductive. Newer cards had full support for OpenGL so at least showing the graphics did not impact CPU processing much. But most recent cards also have support for OpenCL or CUDA so their GPUs can be used to process tasks. Thus, again it is most productive to avoid the screesaver. OTOH, many new users have joined after seeing the graphics on an existing user's system. That may be the most important factor. Joe |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
OTOH, many new users have joined after seeing the graphics on an existing user's system. That may be the most important factor. That would be the reason why I joined SETI@home back in 2002. I saw the SETI Classic screen saver on a co-worker's machine and loved it, and loved the idea of it. I rather miss having the screen saver in the optimized applications. :-) |
Bob DeWoody Send message Joined: 9 May 10 Posts: 3387 Credit: 4,182,900 RAC: 10 |
The way I have my computers set up the screen saver still comes on. But on this one it flips screens rather rapidly so I can never watch what it is doing. I understand by now that the screen saver isn't really relaying any significant information to my eyes but it is still fun to watch from time to time even though I am still not sure what I expected to see if ET was phoning home. Bob DeWoody My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events. |
Znix Send message Joined: 24 Jun 03 Posts: 2 Credit: 2,508,217 RAC: 0 |
I would like them to utilize multi monitor setups with their screen saver..:) |
anniet Send message Joined: 2 Feb 14 Posts: 7105 Credit: 1,577,368 RAC: 75 |
I would like them to utilize multi monitor setups with their screen saver..:) Oooh hello! :) Welcome to the boards Znix :) |
Znix Send message Joined: 24 Jun 03 Posts: 2 Credit: 2,508,217 RAC: 0 |
Thank You. |
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