Posted on 02/20/2018 11:46:35 AM PST by nickcarraway
Scientists searching space for intelligent life already have a difficult job, but some are now saying their task is being made even tougher because of digital currencies like Bitcoin.
“We’d like to use the latest GPUs (graphics processing units)… and we can’t get ’em,” Dr. Dan Werthimer told the BBC. The chief scientist of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI Project, says the surging demand for GPUs from cryptocurrency miners is leaving the computer chips in short supply.
“This is a new problem, it’s only happened on orders we’ve been trying to make in the last couple of months,” Dr. Werthimer added. “That’s limiting our search for extra-terrestrials, to try to answer the question, ‘Are we alone? Is there anybody out there?'”
Graphics processing units are high-performance chips used for processing large amounts of computer data. They have also been used for powering high quality video games and are now being stacked together by cryptocurrency miners to “farm” the online cash.
For SETI, the GPUs are needed to process all the different frequency channels the group monitors in outer space. “We don’t know what frequency ET will be broadcasting on and we want to look for lots of different signal types,” Dr. Werthimer explains. SETI’s telescope and lab at UC Berkeley reportedly uses around 100 GPUs to crunch all of the data coming in from space.
The boom in cryptocurrency’s popularity hasn’t just meant smaller supplies of GPUs available, it’s also sent the price soaring as well. “Strong demand in the cryptocurrency market exceeded our expectations,” tech company Nvidia’s CFO Colette Kress said, via Ars Technica.
“We’ll be able to weather it but it is coming out of our contingency budget.” said Prof. Aaron Parsons of UC Berkeley. “We’re buying a lot of these things, it’s going to end up costing about $32,000 extra.” Prof. Parson and his team were reportedly buying their GPUs for a radio telescope in South Africa. Since his team initially priced the chips at around $500 in 2017, the price has doubled to over $1,000 each.
One of these activities is pointless. Perhaps both.
Later it changed to searching for cancer cures. Then it went away completely.
The currency may be worth something in the short term, but there is no rule that any putative alien civilization has to use radio to communicate.
They got plenty at BestBuy:-)
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/computer-cards-components/video-graphics-cards/abcat0507002.c?id=abcat0507002&ref=30&loc=KW-4327&ksid=73be48cc-dcc9-4d04-8b4f-09a5f7040b36&ksprof_id=3&ksaffcode=2231348&ksdevice=c&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyv_R4KK12QIVk0wNCh1utwl6EAAYAiAAEgIr1vD_BwE
Moore's Law.
Well the good news is that there’s no such thing as Alien life.
It makes for great movies and all, but it just isn’t so.
lol
well played
It’s still around. SETIAtHome.
a few years ago I said that here at FR and wow was I ever savaged. but....you are correct.
Given the vast distances from system to system, any extra-terrestrial civilization communicating via radio are long gone. If they have developed technology beyond RF, then SETI does not detect it, making their endeavor useless except for the possibility of discovery. If (big IF), such a civilization exists, there is absolutely no way to communicate with, let alone meet with, said civilization. If all they seek is discovery via RF, then it should have been discovered by now.
Why not pass a law requiring them to?
At least they both have two things in common - one being that they’re both just some guys engaging in self-pleasuring in a circular formation and, second, the guys at the top are the only ones who can count on making good money in their chosen endeavor.
Let’s see...search for aliens who want to eat us? Or improve life on earth?
Hard decision, I tell you!
I know a couple of guys at my Coffee Bean who just does this: use wifi to look at cryptocurrency manipulations in the market and they’re serious about it. One of them is an actor on TV ( i forgot which station) and he does this part-time.
Given that Bitcoin has DOUBLED in the past 3 weeks, this GPU problem will only get worse.
Which we won’t be able to find to buy.
The unproductive, pointless, electricity wasting make work that is Bitcoin mining should instead be likened to an activity that has greater socially redeeming value to get coins ... like writing fan fictions.
A gaming pc builder I know just told me about the graphics card and memory shortages now because of mining. He’s quit building til it settles out. Existing g cards worth $$.
Part-time actor + cryptocurrency speculator = future resident of a homeless shelter.
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