Arecibo pulsar rediscovery count passes 200!

In its analysis of radio data from the Arecibo Observatory, Einstein@Home has now passed its 200th re-detection! The 116 different radio pulsars that have been re-detected include 8 milli-second pulsars. More details may be found on the radio pulsar rediscovery page.

Comments

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
Moderator
Joined: 9 Feb 05
Posts: 5842
Credit: 109408237893
RAC: 35242428

Arecibo pulsar rediscovery count passes 200!

200 re-detections means that there are now more than 400 user names recorded on that rediscovery page. Even when you take out the multiple entries for the 'heavy hitter' user IDs, there are still hundreds of entries for users with more 'normal' computing power and even for some who have joined the project quite recently.

Take a look at this user for example (2nd user in the 2nd entry on the current page). He/She has joined this project only, very recently, and with a single computer. This person has no posting history so it seems probable that he/she may be completely unaware of the rapid 'leap to stardom' :-).

This is not an isolated example. A quick look through the complete list shows quite a few user IDs of relatively recent origin. Some of them may have big fleets but I suspect that the majority do not. I think it would be a nice touch if they were to receive a short congratulatory email from the project, even if such a message was generated automatically. Presumably it would be possible to generate such a message at the time the new entries were being added to the rediscovery page? I'm sure people appreciate being thanked for their contribution and the knock-on publicity effect when the message gets passed on to family, friends and work colleagues, etc, could be quite useful as well.

Cheers,
Gary.

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
Moderator
Joined: 1 Dec 05
Posts: 6534
Credit: 284730859
RAC: 105773

RE: Take a look at this

Message 98593 in response to message 98592

Quote:
Take a look at this user for example (2nd user in the 2nd entry on the current page). He/She has joined this project only, very recently, and with a single computer.


Joined 24/05 !! So must have done the relevant WU pretty well straight away - 06/06 apparently. Has ~ 3500 RAC and 150K in total ie. about 50 days worth, and ~ 24 hour turn around on ABP's . Hit the ground running .... :-)

Hmmmm ... maybe a 'watermarked' electronic certificate could be OK here ?? I subscribe to a digital library ( Safari Bookshelf ) and I can download paid-for content. This is for books that you would otherwise purchase as hardcopy and hence has copyright concerns. It comes in PDF format that has overt and covert labelling to denote me as the buyer ( that means I can be nailed copyright wise if I let it out from my private domain ). I suggest this as a means because (a) it shouldn't be too hard to do and (b) verifiable authenticity adds to the reward factor. In fact we've talked before of all sorts of events/milestones that we could commemorate likewise.

Ok. So I've just volunteered myself to research that then ..... Adobe Acrobat methinks ..... :-) :-)

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) Yup, pretty straight forward. For a fee at least. Use say Adobe Acrobat and choose one of their Certified Document Services providers, say VeriSign who call their contribution True Credentials for Adobe, and purchase a digital signature/credential from them. Then enroll at Adobe with that, as an individual or as an organisation. Create the document and sign it ( various options ), then distribute. When viewed by a third party ( say the rewarded user in this case ) the act of opening the document ( via Acrobat Reader and with an internet connection available ) closes the circle of validation. Standard PKI really, but the VeriSign ( was GeoTrust ) site is, worryingly, somewhat obtuse/opaque on pricing detail.

So maybe just a link in an email to the E@H site, the content of which is thus known to be valid, looks rather cheaper then. I'll be quiet now .... :-)

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

MAGIC Quantum Mechanic
MAGIC Quantum M...
Joined: 18 Jan 05
Posts: 1695
Credit: 1043114299
RAC: 1369481

Well I am sure glad I clicked

Well I am sure glad I clicked on the link to the stats page!

I have a pc running in another State by my former auto mechanic and I spent days trying to help him start running Einstein again and he said he couldn't get it to work so he thought it was just running Seti.

And now I see it has been running Einstein since January and I would never have known until I saw it on that page.

Bernd Machenschalk
Bernd Machenschalk
Moderator
Administrator
Joined: 15 Oct 04
Posts: 4267
Credit: 244932206
RAC: 16344

RE: I think it would be a

Message 98595 in response to message 98592

Quote:
I think it would be a nice touch if they were to receive a short congratulatory email from the project

Sounds like a good idea. I'll take this into discussion with the E@H team.

BM

BM

Donald A. Tevault
Donald A. Tevault
Joined: 17 Feb 06
Posts: 439
Credit: 73516529
RAC: 0

RE: Ok. So I've just

Message 98596 in response to message 98593

Quote:

Ok. So I've just volunteered myself to research that then ..... Adobe Acrobat methinks ..... :-) :-)

VeriSign ( was GeoTrust ) site is, worryingly, somewhat obtuse/opaque on pricing detail.

So maybe just a link in an email to the E@H site, the content of which is thus known to be valid, looks rather cheaper then. I'll be quiet now .... :-)

Actually, there are cheaper options.

The congratulatory certificate itself could be created with OpenOffice, which is free. To sign it with the security certificate, you could use NitroPDF, which is much cheaper than Adobe Acrobat. PDFEditor is available for free to Linux users, but I don't recall offhand if it can be used to digitally sign documents.

VeriSign is a rather expensive proposition as well. To get a certificate for simple signing purposes, that doesn't require a high degree of security, you can get a cheaper one from GoDaddy, or a free one from StartCom.org.

MAGIC Quantum Mechanic
MAGIC Quantum M...
Joined: 18 Jan 05
Posts: 1695
Credit: 1043114299
RAC: 1369481

It's not that big of a deal

It's not that big of a deal to me to get any "congrats" when this happens since we just have to click on the link to see it.

And having the link right on the home page makes that easy for even the new members.

And as I said one that looks like it started in January is actually one of mine that was running Einstein before that and I had just switched it to Seti for a while and then when I tried (via emails) to get the guy to start running Einstein again he forgot how to do that (and it is easy as you all know)

Mine is the 8th one on the page (J1937+2544)
(ATNF psrcat)

The link on the home page is much easier than even looking on the message board.

(but you can just send me money )

Fermat
Fermat
Joined: 22 Nov 05
Posts: 44
Credit: 1734217
RAC: 0

I'm curious. Are there any

I'm curious. Are there any that should have been rediscovered (based on the search parameters) but didn't show up? Or is that not something that you monitor?

Mike

Adam Brazier
Adam Brazier
Joined: 13 Aug 10
Posts: 2
Credit: 0
RAC: 0

I believe they do check to

I believe they do check to see if they've missed anything that they know should be there. I didn't hear of any misses, although in some cases it may be that the dataset could have RFI that had the effect of hiding a pulsar.