LWD - Featured Cruncher - Friday, February 27, 2004

Good morning all and sorry for the late publishing of this interview. I had it on my work computer and not on my home one... Enough of my excuses and rambling though! I'd like to introduce a very interesting dog in this pound! So without further ado, here is Bob Smith! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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

BOB SMITH: Well, I am 43 years old Male, Married w/5 Children, Currently I am a Senior Systems Consultant with Boston College, I also have my own Systems Consulting Business as well (NECON).

Nattiebo: How is your family surviving that cold New England winter?

BOB SMITH: It’s been really rough this year, my daughter who had a room in the basement moved backed up stairs because of the cold, I had about 3 inches of ice on my walkway, some of our Christmas decorations are still frozen to the ground and I probably spent an additional $600.00 on Oil. One good thing though, kids are spending more time at home.

Nattiebo: Yikes about that oil bill! How many months of warm weather do you think it will take to defrost the ground?

BOB SMITH:Shouldn’t take that long, it hit 42 last week for a couple of days (t-shirt weather) and the ground start to thaw, so all we need is some nice weather for a couple of weeks.

Nattiebo: Any thoughts on Boston College joining the ACC?

BOB SMITH: I think it will be good for BC, it is a great school and they have a great football team, coming off a great season, so they should do well.

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

BOB SMITH: Mostly gaming when I have time, I enjoy games like Warcraft, C&C, and AOE, I also enjoy working on my home and yard and spending time with my children and my websites.

Nattiebo: Are your children into computers, the web and games?

: My son and my youngest daughter, my son is a big on-liner, playing games like Black Hawk Down and MOH. My daughter plays a lot on Nickelodeon and my site Kidzsurfsafe.

Nattiebo: How did you get the name BOB SMITH?

BOB SMITH: Well I will have to thank My Dad for the SMITH as my mom had a more traditional Irish name (Gillooly) and as far as BOB we are still trying to figure that one out, My Dad’s name is Jim, but Mom called him Bob, I guess they were a couple of Crazy Kids.

Nattiebo: When did you start running SETI?

BOB SMITH: Pretty much since the beginning, starting off slow but got into crunching the numbers, always wanting to hit that next big number.

Nattiebo: Where did you hear about SETI?

BOB SMITH: My wife actually heard about it on Good Morning America, and she thought I may be interested.

Nattiebo: How did you find LWD?

BOB SMITH: I received an e-mail from someone at LWD and I checked out the site, seem like a good place to hang my numbers.

Nattiebo: How many machines do you run now?

BOB SMITH: Depends on kids and systems lent out to customers, currently about 4, sometimes as many as 10.

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

BOB SMITH: Use to be, don’t have time.

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

BOB SMITH: I have looked into them, but no I don’t.

Nattiebo: Do you run the command line version or the screensaver? Or run SETI as a service?

BOB SMITH: Mostly the graphical screensaver, but I set it to go to blank after a minute; I do have one server running as a service.

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

BOB SMITH: Well do you remember the guy in the movie Armageddon who had the big telescope and first found the asteroid and wanted to name it after his wife… same idea J

Nattiebo: What would your ultimate SETI Crunching machine be?

BOB SMITH: Quad Zeon 3.2ghz, 2mb cache, 2 gb Ram, dual 120gb SATA drives, maybe in a Alien case with neon green lights, basically Fast and Mean.

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?

BOB SMITH: But of course. Not sure which one, need to look into it.

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

BOB SMITH: Nope, I just reached my goal, to get beyond 10k, anything else is cake.

Nattiebo: Congratulations! That is HUGE!! Did you celebrate?

BOB SMITH: Not really, but I did mention it to some friends that were over, and we talked about how I go started, we had a chuckle when I told my wife I wanted to name an alien after her.

Nattiebo: You seem like someone who would know a lot of people just through working at a College and also having your own business. Have you ever found out that other folks you know also run SETI?

BOB SMITH: Sure, mostly techies that’d bailed out around a couple of hundred, but occasionally I run into the few hardcore.

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

BOB SMITH: First she thought it was cool, but now she says I’m whacked -not seti to blame, 5 kids, 4 of which are teenagers and 4 of which are girls- what was I thinking.

Nattiebo: Do your kids pay any attention to SETI?

BOB SMITH: Occasionally, mostly when I tell them to restart the computer after playing games, and to make sure they don’t power off any of my systems.

Nattiebo: So, when an alien is discovered out there by one of the many people who crunched for SETI (you in this case), what will its name be so that we know it is yours?

BOB SMITH: Well believe or not my wife took great offense, and I was like, oh what an honor it would be, so she says you like it so much you name it after yourself, so if I get the chance I would name them BOB J.

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

BOB SMITH: Quite honestly, I have not tried, My work schedule keeps me fairly busy and when I get home I am kept busy as well.

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

BOB SMITH: A little more info (FAQ’s, Tips, Etc.), I wanted to increase my speed and had to really search for the info.

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

BOB SMITH: site, good numbers and good people.

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

BOB SMITH: Well I have fairly strong political beliefs so I wont go there, and I may be going someplace I shouldn’t but here goes, GOD no matter whose GOD you believe in, would not condone people blowing themselves up or killing others in the name of GOD, don’t let selfish/mindless people use you, be your own person, think for yourself. Sorry for the pulpit. PEACE.


Telling it like it is...