Axel Kurth wrote:
[...]

questions of mankind - are we allone - this and the feeling you are
not the only nutcase trying to find out, there are millions others
working on it and sharing their time and funds.

Yes, s@h is very popular for those reasons. Sometimes a little too much so seeing some of the raised passions on the message forums. (Or is that just avarice in chasing the stats?!)

Boinc has changed to a more commercial venue where SETI is second
( not that I blame the guys at Berkeley) there seems too little aspect in the original cause. Other Boinc projects and their support will
eventually let SETI become a low priority issue.

That also is an important point and interestingly one that I expect many 'misinterpret'. And then suspicions roll in that it must be because of a 'commercial twist'. (Not surprising considering the subversive coercion that American advertising foists upon people.)


To try to give a clumsy brief explanation for how boinc has 'expanded':

s@h classic was overrun with ever increasing computing resources, so that WUs were being processed more than the required 3 times each;

New clients for new science were wanted, for example Astropulse and a new s@h client to include additional processing;

New data recorders and new data sources were to become available that would again need new clients for processing the new data;

User computers were getting ever more powerful whereby no one project could ever keep everyone busy;

The levels of cheating on s@h classic were getting to be overly burdensome.


A Boinc-like structure to allow multiple projects for different processing was required. Expanding this very slightly to give complete freedom for project clients and project data beyond just s@h was easy and sensible.

Although this now makes s@h 'one project amongst many', this in reality is no different than for deciding which of whatever other DC projects you wish to support.

A positive difference is that a 'standard interface' is being established that can be used quickly and easily by many groups without 'wastefully reinventing the wheel' many times over. We also get a more thoroughly developed and secure system.


There is also the Scientific ideal that we should selflessly contribute to the best common good of Science for all of Mankind.


s@h is still an interesting and important part of all that :)

Happy crunchin',
Martin