Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm just wandering what you think how far we can count across the pond...
"Mmm, 1, 2, 3, many things..." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A million is a thousand thousand, wherever you are. It's the billion that the UK and US can't agree on. In the UK we liked to think of it as a million millions, but the US Version has always been a thousand million (just to make everything look bigger http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ).

Of course, the US Version is now becoming the standard, just like with everything else. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not really. At least not on the Continent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A million is a thousand thousand, wherever you are. It's the billion that the UK and US can't agree on. In the UK we liked to think of it as a million millions, but the US Version has always been a thousand million (just to make everything look bigger http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ).

Of course, the US Version is now becoming the standard, just like with everything else. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Are you guys joking? A billion doesn't mean a billion every where you go? What do you call a thousand million over there then?

Geoschmo

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

It a "milliard"

See http://www.jimloy.com/math/billion.htm for all sorts of other international number fun...

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

I hit 10,000 units over the week end. Only 6900 and 20 more to get past.

Your credit:
Name (and URL) Thermodyne
Results Received 10075
Total CPU Time 5.397 years
Average CPU Time per work unit 4 hr 41 min 34.2 sec
Average results received per day 20.15
Last result returned: Mon Nov 11 19:35:14 2002 UTC
Registered on: Fri Jun 29 21:45:58 2001 UTC
View Registration Class
SETI@home user for: 1.370 years
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Your group info:
You belong to the group named: Space Empires
You are not currently the founder of any teams.

Your rank: (based on current workunits received)

Your rank out of 4080972 total Users is: 6920th place.
The number of Users who have this rank: 2
You have completed more work units than 99.830% of our Users.

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Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

I re-installed SETI@Home on my office machine and will add it to my old AMD 150MHZ machine, at home, which I generally never turn off.

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

Ok, I've heard about this Seti@home stuff long enough. I'm curious now. Exactly what is it and what do you do? How does it work etc...

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

Ragnarok,

From the seti web site;
SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is a scientific effort seeking to determine if there is intelligent life outside Earth. SETI researchers use many methods. One popular method, radio SETI, listens for artificial radio signals coming from other stars. SETI@home is a radio SETI project that lets anyone with a computer and an Internet connection participate.

Re: OT: Space Empires and Seti@Home
 

What happens is that you download a small program, and it will run in the background while your computer is on.
It does a pretty good job of only using your idle processor time, so it will slow down or stop its work while you run some other application.

It will first download a chunk of raw data, and then grind away looking for patterns.
After roughly 10,000 Mhz-hours, it will finish, send the results back, and get another unit to work on.

If you're on a high-speed connection, you can set it to autmatically connect. If you're on dialup, it is probably best to have it wait. In that case, you will see the icon blink, and when you're connected, you can click it and press "connect now..." to send the results.

The total work done is tracked by email address, so if you have multiple machines, you can enter the smae address into the settings, and they will all count towards your ranking.