LWD - Featured Cruncher - Friday, February 20, 2004

Happy Friday folks! It's been a sad week here at LWD, BUT, this fun-loving dog should lift everyone's spirits! So let me waste no more of your time and get on with it! Introducing .... GERTIE the Pug!!!

Nattiebo: So, Gertie… Give us some details about yourself… - Age, Sex, Student/Career?

GERTIE: I'm a four year old female Pug dog. I specialize in gnawing and laying about.

Nattiebo: Do you have any hobbies or interests other than computers?

GERTIE: Mainly just the gnawing and laying about. Oh, yes, and eating bacon and other pork products.

Nattiebo: How do you feel about pig ears? Some dogs seem to love them while others hate ‘em…

GERTIE: I love pig ears. And pig snouts.

Nattiebo: How did you get the name GERTIE?

GERTIE: My owners named me that. Its short for Gertrude. As a puppy I was fairly wild, so part of the inspiration is the famous “Galloping Gertie” Tacoma Narrows bridge that collapsed in a storm way back when. I guess they thought it suited me.

Nattiebo: Oh, it’s safe here… You can admit that you own them… We dogs know how that is. How did you pick your human pets out?

GERTIE: Blind date: we met through an ad in the paper.

Nattiebo: Wow, so personals really work, huh? Would you recommend that other lonely dogs try it out?

GERTIE: Absolutely!

Nattiebo: When did you start running SETI?

GERTIE: Around 1999, I think.

Nattiebo: Where did you hear about SETI?

GERTIE: I don't recall...

Nattiebo: How did you find LWD?

GERTIE: I was looking for another team to join, and this was the only dog-related one I found.

Nattiebo: How do you feel about there being some cats on the same team? Do you think dogs and cats should co-exist?

GERTIE: I can deal with cats, provided they don't encroach on my ability to get food or attention.

Nattiebo: How many machines do you run now?

GERTIE: At home, I have seven. Usually at least one is offline in some state of disrepair or upgrade.

Nattiebo: Wow, seven at home… are those humans you own pretty into computers?

GERTIE: Yup. They need the redundancy to handle all the traffic to my website and live Gertie-Cam.

Nattiebo: Your own site? You are one special dog! And not camera shy either. What is your favorite pose for photos? Any particular photo you like the best?

GERTIE: My favorite pose is me asting my birthday steak dinner: http://www.gertie.cc/photos/birthday03/17.html.

Nattiebo: I see that you just moved from west coast to east coast. How did you handle the cross-country move? Was it for the human’s job?

GERTIE: Yes, it was a job relocation. We used to live in Seattle, where the high-tech boom became a pretty big bust. We moved to Alexandria, Virginia. We drove across the country, which was pretty exciting. And I now have a yard to play in!

Nattiebo: Are you an overclocking "Freak" on your home boxen?

GERTIE: I wouldn't consider myself a freak, but sure, I overclock a little here and there. Haven't gotten into water cooling or any of the freak-level stuff. It seems rather pointless: no matter what you do to your AMD or x86 box, they're still mid-level machines. An SGI Origin or some other big iron machines will always wipe the floor with souped-up desktops. It’s like the kids with their hot-rod Civics. I'm sure it gives them a thrill to bolt performance parts onto their cars, but at heart its still a damn Civic, and its not going to beat an AMG Mercedes.

Nattiebo: Do you use SETI Queue or any other add-ons?

GERTIE: Nope. I run SETI on the command-line. Primarily from Linux boxes.

Nattiebo: What flavor of Linux is your favorite?

GERTIE: Well, I use RedHat (or Fedora, now). Its not necessarily the best, but I chose it for the good hardware support and simple installation. I used to run FreeBSD, and there are many things about that OS I prefer, but in the end the hardware support won the day.

Nattiebo: What do you hope to accomplish by running SETI?

GERTIE: Good question. I was hoping it would encourage development of some open-source grid computing projects. It’s certainly raised the profile of the whole idea, which I like.

Nattiebo: What would your ultimate SETI Crunching machine be?

GERTIE: SGI Origin 3000. The Linux clusters are nice for this type of thing, but the CCNUMA architecture makes the Origin inherently more robust for really serious number crunching (beyond SETI).

Nattiebo: In very the near future, possibly as early as later this month, SETI will be ported over to the BOINC Platform, with Astropulse and the Southern Hemisphere Projects coming online shortly thereafter. Can we count on you to switch to one of those when the ßeta test is over? Which?

GERTIE: Yes, I'll switch.

Nattiebo: Are there any goals you would like to reach before SETI is discontinued?

GERTIE: Well, they've been giving conflicting information on discontinuation for some time now. I expected it to be discontinued a year ago, so I kind of dropped out then. It would be nicer if they were clearer on the status of the project and its timeframes. So, not really.

Nattiebo: What does your significant other or some of your good friends think about SETI?

GERTIE: They don't appreciate the power bills.

Nattiebo: Have you had any success in recruiting people to LWD?

GERTIE: Erm, haven't tried.

Nattiebo: If you could improve anything about the SETI@Home Project, what would it be?

GERTIE: Better reporting and explanation of what the results mean.

Nattiebo: What do you think the best thing is about LWD?

GERTIE: Better reporting. And the forums.

Nattiebo: How often are you able to drop into the forums?

GERTIE: Not that often actually. Used to be once a week, but I've slacked off a little.

Nattiebo: Well, thanks letting us get to know you a little better. Do you have any final comments (free reign here)?

GERTIE: Like I said, I've been kind of dormant for the last year because I expected the project to end. I look forward to being more active again on their new platform.


Telling it like it is...