The Outsider's Inside Post#003 - Jamais Arriere
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The Outsider's Inside Post#003 - Jamais Arriere
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 KevinDouglasPhD  Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0 
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Things are going pretty steady lately. I have 67 SETHI cubes done now, though Jeff wants to reboot lando so I won't start any new jobs on that machine until he does that. I hope to be halfway done this week, ie. 72 of the 144 cubes should be done. We just had our group meeting and it was a good discussion, though nothing major. A new version of BOINC is out, that's supposed to be easier than ever to install, so hopefully that will help attract lapsed and new users. We might get some more awesome hardware from SUN, which would be great. And some disk drives with new Arecibo data arrived while we were meeting too. There was a lot of talk about our network and databases and the like, but I kind of drone out when they go that far into detail. Suffice it to say everyone's got a lot on their plate, and there's more at the buffet table waiting for us. We might get some visits from some big shots in the computer industry, though I can't say I recognized any of the names mentioned. I'd never even heard of Jim Gray until his boat went missing several days ago. No discussion about $ for WUs, happily. So February should be busy. Eric's taking some time off while his parents are in town, but I'm sure once he's back there'll be some progress made on the new client. Arecibo is taking new data with ALFA pretty much every day for the next month at least, so I'll have lots of GALFA data to keep me busy. I also got some data from a colleague at Harvard over the weekend, so that will help with one of my other projects (molecular gas in diffuse interstellar clouds). I was asked to give a talk for the Radio Astronomy Lab seminar down on campus, so I'll have to put that together too, though I managed to push that to March. Matt has been splitting more HI tapes lately too, so I have to try and keep up with him on that. We recently passed 14.4 million HI spectra, with lots of tapes to go. Now if I could only find a conference in Toronto near May 20, so I could see Koenjihyakkei with my friend who lives there. This is one of the greatest, most fierce rock bands on the planet. They're from Japan, and they sing in a totally made-up language, inspired by the great French bandd Magma, who've been doing the same for over 35 years. Hmmm, this looks perfect! ID: 513783 ·  |
Dr. C.E.T.I.  Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 16019 Credit: 794,685 RAC: 0 
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Things are going pretty steady lately. I have 67 SETHI cubes done now, though Jeff wants to reboot lando so I won't start any new jobs on that machine until he does that. I hope to be halfway done this week, ie. 72 of the 144 cubes should be done. We just had our group meeting and it was a good discussion, though nothing major. A new version of BOINC is out, that's supposed to be easier than ever to install, so hopefully that will help attract lapsed and new users. We might get some more awesome hardware from SUN, which would be great. And some disk drives with new Arecibo data arrived while we were meeting too. There was a lot of talk about our network and databases and the like, but I kind of drone out when they go that far into detail. Suffice it to say everyone's got a lot on their plate, and there's more at the buffet table waiting for us. We might get some visits from some big shots in the computer industry, though I can't say I recognized any of the names mentioned. I'd never even heard of Jim Gray until his boat went missing several days ago. Thanks for the Post Kevin . . . loads to absorb eh . . . ID: 513816 · |
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KevinDouglasPhD Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0
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I'm at the lab this evening, listening to the Sharks vs. Ducks game on NHL radio, while my wife's at home watching Gilmore Girls and my son is hopefully falling asleep. We had to bring ewen down today, so Eric could install a bunch of 750 Gb drives and build a RAID array on it. So I wasn't able to do much earlier today. I did make a pretty nice datacube of some GALFA HI data, as a way of getting ready to do a lot more data processing on ewen, now that it has about 4 Tb more space. I'll have to use less CPU's for SETHI on ewen though. And we got a $50K donation. That's quite a nice boost for us. Ducks are leading 2-1 going into 1st period intermission. Maybe I'll switch over to Canucks vs. Oilers. ID: 514436 · |
Byron Leigh Hatch @ team Carl Sagan  Send message Joined: 5 Jul 99 Posts: 4548 Credit: 35,667,570 RAC: 4
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I'm at the lab this evening, listening to the Sharks vs. Ducks game on NHL radio, while my wife's at home watching Gilmore Girls and my son is hopefully falling asleep. We had to bring ewen down today, so Eric could install a bunch of 750 Gb drives and build a RAID array on it. So I wasn't able to do much earlier today. I did make a pretty nice datacube of some GALFA HI data, as a way of getting ready to do a lot more data processing on ewen, now that it has about 4 Tb more space. I'll have to use less CPU's for SETHI on ewen though. Hi Kevin , I thought I would stop by and say "Hello" I used to be a prospector , and I spent many a many a summer in the 1950's .... prospecting in your old Stomping grounds ... of the ___Okanagan Valley , British Columbia , Canada :-) also , the Highland Valley .... near Merit ............. when I was a young man ............... aahhhaa .... but that was years ago :) it was reading all of ... Dr Carl Sagan's Books ... that got me started .... with my interest in Astronomy :) that is why I like SETI@hone , and prospecting in both cases , ya gotta be an eternal optimist :-) I have prospected in the Yukon NORTH of 60 and south of 60 in British Columbia , Canada I have prospected many parts of British Columbia Also My Grandfather Hatch was also gold prospector. My Grandfather Hatch was Born on the Canadian -- prairies in , 1880 , and he participated , along with thousand of other people , from all over the World , in The Great Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 , on the Klondike River Yukon territories , Canada. ---- In 1898 I love Camping out in the Wilderness in the ... Okanogan Valley Looking up at a , clear dark Moonless night sky a blaze with the light of the Milky Way and a Million Stars ! aahhh ..... I love the __ Looking up __ at the _ Stars ! and to think and wonder ................ Kevin ....... Best Wishes for a Great Scientific Career .................. and I expect to see your Name ..... nominated for a noble Prize , for you work with ... Hydrogen .... in the Cosmos ! I'm retired now , and ... living in Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada Best Wishes___from the Pacific West Coast of Canada Byron :-) ID: 514458 · |
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Dr. C.E.T.I. Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 16019 Credit: 794,685 RAC: 0
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And we got a $50K donation. That's quite a nice boost for us. and You may Repeat that ONE again . . . Cheers to that DONATION EH!!! ID: 514497 · |
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KevinDouglasPhD Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0
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I'm retired now , and ... living in Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada Thanks for that post, Byron. I lived in Vancouver for 4 years while an undergrad at UBC. Beautiful city, and I love getting back there to visit friends. I hope you're a Canucks fan. And yes, I spent a long time in the Okanagan Valley too, about half my life in fact. It was there that I got interested in radio astronomy, because there was (and still is) the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory just south of the city. The picture in my profile is an aerial view of that place; I wish I knew how to make it appear over on the left on these boards. Can anyone tell me how? I could just go next door and ask Eric, but I've nagged him about something already for the day. Gold prospecting sounds like a neat way to spend a life. I remember going to Barkerville, BC when I was younger, and seeing all sorts of exhibits on the gold rush days. Lots of fun. My 72nd SETHI datacube finished earlier today, so I'm halfway to having my SETHI survey done (using the first 14.3 million spectra, at least). ID: 514705 · |
OzzFan     Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28
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I wish I knew how to make it appear over on the left on these boards. Can anyone tell me how? I could just go next door and ask Eric, but I've nagged him about something already for the day. Eric probably needs the human contact, lest he forgets that there is an entire society out there! ;-) Just click on Your Account, then click on Edit Message Board Preferences, then find the option "Avatar" (and no, they're not talking about the Last Air Bender). If you still have the image on your computer, then select browse and find your file and upload it. When done, scroll down to the bottom of the preferences page and click "Update Info". Hope that helps! ID: 514713 · |
Fuzzy Hollynoodles  Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 9659 Credit: 251,998 RAC: 0 |
I wish I knew how to make it appear over on the left on these boards. Can anyone tell me how? I could just go next door and ask Eric, but I've nagged him about something already for the day. Here's an 100x100 pixel avatar for you. Download it to your computer and upload it as described  EDIT: I made this also, it's a bit sharper, I think  Hope you can use one of them. :-) They both go well on a light grey background. "I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me 
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KevinDouglasPhD Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0
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Here's an 100x100 pixel avatar for you. Thanks, OzzFan & FuzzyNoodles. I just forced my image down to 100^2 in xv, so it's a bit stretched but it looks good enough. We just had our science meeting in Dan's office, though Dan is down at SUN most of the week. We're making good progress. I've probably got this a bit wrong but I think Eric said within a week we could have multibeam SETI@home in beta, and the application could be ready for public in about 3 weeks. Astropulse is sort of working in beta, and we may try and get some science done with SERENDIP IV data since that's only about 60 Gb of data to sift through, compared with the several Terabytes of SETI@home data. One thing Dan had mentioned on Monday that I just remembered is that eventually there will be at least five different backends at Arecibo to record data from ALFA, many of which will run simultaneously. The GALFA spectrometer and the SETI@home II data recorder are installed now, plus the new spectrometer for pulsar and continuum observations (I've heard it called pDev but it might have another name) was just delivered to Arecibo last month. A clone of pDev for extragalactic work will also arrive sometime this year, and then there's (our) SERENDIP V, which could be ready by summer. There's also a backend called WAPPs that is currently being used by the pulsar and extragalactic groups, so I'm sure it'll still be able to record with ALFA once the new devices go in. ID: 514729 · |
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Clyde C. Phillips, III Send message Joined: 2 Aug 00 Posts: 1851 Credit: 5,955,047 RAC: 0
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I had thought Alfa Multibeam was already in Beta, for well over a month. Maybe we/I were/was misinformed about this. ID: 515007 · |
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KevinDouglasPhD Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0
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I had thought Alfa Multibeam was already in Beta, for well over a month. Maybe we/I were/was misinformed about this. No, it's probably I who has it wrong. I think Eric wants to wait about another week for more beta results to come back on a few things (chirping on different processors or something like that). The beta project has been working on data from the multibeam receiver for a while now. ID: 515030 · |
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KevinDouglasPhD Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0
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It's a rainy Saturday in the East Bay. I thought I'd come in and check on my SETHI jobs and reduce the GALFA data taken overnight. Four more of my SETHI cubes are done, which brings me up to 80 of 144. Five-ninths of the way done! I've now got 26 processes running: 12 on sidious, 8 on lando, and 3 each on ewen and thumper. The ones on ewen are going much slower than the others, though. It's because so much else is being done on ewen right now - rsync'ing data onto the new 750 Gb drives, accessing the SETHI database from all these other jobs, and me trying to do actual work with these cubes once they're made. Plus Matt is splitting more HI data into the database, and a few other things too. So the data crunching is getting a bit throttled. Good thing it's only 3 cubes. I use IDL to crunch my SETHI data; I don't know how well-known it is but it's a really great programming language. That's just my opinion, I'm not trying to violate the "no commercial advertising" rule. We use IDL to reduce our GALFA data too, so I've become pretty adept at programming with it. My laptop's having problems connecting to the internet, so I can't listen to any hockey games or any progressive music stations either. I can't work very well without some kind of good distraction going on in the background. I've always been this way. The soft whirring of the computers just doesn't do it for me. I reset the router so hopefully that'll help. ID: 515885 · |
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