R.I.P. SETI@HOME

Okay so it's not really R.I.P. as SETI@HOME is being rolled in to a newer more comprehensive service called BOINC, but very soon the SETI@HOME site will probably disappear in to web archive obscurity.

Why do I care about S@H if I haven't had the software installed in any of the last 4 computers I've owned (man, I need less computers)? It's mostly nostalgia I guess. I remember when S@H was "the new thing", the way Java, and XML, and now RSS and W2.0 are "the new thing", but those other things which in my mind really haven't changed much, merely extended what was already there. S@H was a great new idea for the good of the world: use everyone's spare computing cycles to achieve herculean tasks that would boggle Deep Blue. Did you even know that about 90% of the time 99% of your computers CPU power is idle?

Not that scanning through radio waves searching for signs of life accomplishes that, but the basic assumption behind S@H is that lots of small computers can equal or exceed one big computer. Now this is pretty much taken for granted, and everyone's second brain is a good example.

Distributed computing literally says that many individuals can meet or exceed the one big individual, and that has a certain appeal. If nothing else the transfer of S@H to BOINC may generate enough buzz that people re-look at distributed computing, and if you're inclined: For my money the best use of distributed computing is still medical research.

Posted at 11:14 AM to Personal By: John Fairley