The following short writing is only a general observation with a simple conclusion. I invite others to provide their own conclusions.

Seti@home's stated goal is to use excess computer cycles to run scientific calculations. However, many of us who love the program set up computers to run 24/7 with the express purpose of running Seti@home. These same people take a very high interest in the details of the project. However, it is often these same people who get angry at the project when there's a shortage of work or an outage because their many computers are sitting idle.

Considering the stated goal of the project is to only use *excess computer resources*, and considering that many people go *far beyond this* and set up farms just to run Seti@home, I conclude that these complaints are groundless and moot. If you choose to surpass the stated goals of the project you have no right to complain when something doesn't meet your *artificially inflated standards* of efficiency or acceptance.

It's not Seti@home's fault for not providing your farms work units - instead, it's your fault for setting up all those computers when the project isn't meant for that.

Not everyone who runs farms complains but I get angry when people hold Seti@home hostage to their own zealous standards. Stop it.

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> The following short writing is only a general observation with a simple
> conclusion. I invite others to provide their own conclusions.
>
> Seti@home's stated goal is to use excess computer cycles to run scientific
> calculations. However, many of us who love the program set up computers to
> run 24/7 with the express purpose of running Seti@home. These same people
> take a very high interest in the details of the project. However, it is often
> these same people who get angry at the project when there's a shortage of work
> or an outage because their many computers are sitting idle.
>
> Considering the stated goal of the project is to only use *excess computer
> resources*, and considering that many people go *far beyond this* and set up
> farms just to run Seti@home, I conclude that these complaints are groundless
> and moot. If you choose to surpass the stated goals of the project you have
> no right to complain when something doesn't meet your *artificially inflated
> standards* of efficiency or acceptance.
>
> It's not Seti@home's fault for not providing your farms work units - instead,
> it's your fault for setting up all those computers when the project isn't
> meant for that.
>
> Not everyone who runs farms complains but I get angry when people hold
> Seti@home hostage to their own zealous standards. Stop it.

Amen.

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Bravo!

I originally was only going to crunch Seti. Then seeing the different projects, the sometimes lack of work, and other things that can happen, I looked into the different projects. I now crunch for Seti, Predictor, Einstein and CPDN. I am very happy to help all of these. I should almost never run out of work, and my farm stays crunching.

There is a lot more to using your excess processing power on a farm. Faster machines can do Einstein and CPDN, the rest can do Predictor and Seti. I have not done LHC, so I can not give any position on that.

I am glad this was rehashed. It's good to see people that have a positive outlook on things, hoping to see the ones with a negative outlook can see a little light at the end of the tunnel.

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My movie https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/502242

Well, call me a cheerleader!

i'm with you all the way, and as the owner of a farm have had this outlook all along.

"this too shall pass" is very applicable to any scientific endevor, problems will arrive and be solved - it it the nature of the beast.

"all cheer for the sun god, ra Ra RA!"

i appear to have been able to talk only in clichés, awesome ;)

Micah

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S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club

Hear, hear!

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And that is why the other project were created, to use those spare cycles, my mini farm is connected to S@H, PP@H, E@H,and LCH@H and is never ever out of WUs, so there.

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Semper Eadem
So long Paul, it has been a hell of a ride.

Park your ego's, fire up the computers, Science YES, Credits No.

> And that is why the other project were created, to use those spare cycles, my
> mini farm is connected to S@H, PP@H, E@H,and LCH@H and is never ever out of
> WUs, so there.

I think Matt's original point was more along the lines of:

"Thall shalt not complain about wasted CPU cycles if you are intentionally generating CPU cycles to waste."

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And here I am trying to make more cycles available for wasting...

[Add] That sounds stupid when you say it out loud, doesn't it?

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> And here I am trying to make more cycles available for wasting...

... Making more cycles == good.

... Complaining about wasted cycles != good.

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Complaining is good.
Kvetching is kosher.
Quibbling is OK.

ing and moaning about how your seven-hundred-year-long cache is running dry is just plain whining.

Ed. Note: This is coming from a guy whose cache setting is 10-minutes.

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> > And that is why the other project were created, to use those spare
> cycles, my
> > mini farm is connected to S@H, PP@H, E@H,and LCH@H and is never ever out
> of
> > WUs, so there.
>
> I think Matt's original point was more along the lines of:
>
> "Thall shalt not complain about wasted CPU cycles if you are intentionally
> generating CPU cycles to waste."
>

Right, I'm not addressing people who run all the projects and always have their computers crunching. I'm addressing the people who set up farms only to run SAH.

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I agree with you! That's very annoying to see posts of people complaining about an outage! How long is the outage more harsh is the complainings! The objective is to do science using the spare power that is not used when we do our regular tasks or playing games on the computer! Although in my opinion this happen because this project for many people are more like a competition and they want to get more credits as much as they can, so this is directly porporcional to the number of work units that can be download by them: less work units, less credit.

In part this is very healthy because more units are crunched and faster than it was if it wouldn't be any competition! I think that the project itself wouldn't have the success it has if there wasn't no credits or in the case of the seti classic counting the number of units crunched! Would be very nice to know how much people still remaning crunching if the credit system being disabled?!

But the objective to use the spare cycles to do science cannot be assumed literally because there is people that have a personal computer at home and if the PC isn't turned on the suficient time to crunch a unit the deadline will pass and ther be no use for that WU! This is a disavantadge comparing to seti classic! So that people could ever do a project like this!

Conclusion: Crunch all WU you can but STOP complaining about your low qeues, or outages, we are here to help not to make them slaves of the disasperated hungry wich some people have for WU to crunch!

Crunching until the cpu toasts completly!

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<img src="http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php?userID=1331">

> But the objective to use the spare cycles to do science cannot be assumed
> literally because there is people that have a personal computer at home and if
> the PC isn't turned on the suficient time to crunch a unit the deadline will
> pass and ther be no use for that WU! This is a disavantadge comparing to seti
> classic! So that people could ever do a project like this!

The big difference between BOINC and Classic: when you are late, BOINC tells you that you are late. On classic, you got credit, but the extremely late work units were simply redundant and probably unused.

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> The big difference between BOINC and Classic: when you are late, BOINC tells
> you that you are late. On classic, you got credit, but the extremely late
> work units were simply redundant and probably unused.

You're right, people are compensated by the fact that the result sent is needed and not a result with no kind of interest! But crunching for seti evolved from a trivial task in seti classic (You could send a unit one year after, even is no more of interest) to a more serious participation from the participants. You are commited to deliver the result until the deadline; if you most of the times can't acomplish that is better to detach from the project! I said that as a fact, not as a negative point to the Boinc project!
This philosophy is far much better for us and for the Seti Team!

Crunching until the cpu toasts completly!

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<img src="http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php?userID=1331">

> I said that as a fact, not as a negative point to the Boinc project!
> This philosophy is far much better for us and for the Seti Team!

I'm not sure which you are arguing:

Classic gives credit for everything, even totally bogus results.

BOINC gives credit only for scientifically valid results, delivered on-time.

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> BOINC gives credit only for scientifically valid results, delivered on-time.

They also have to be under budget too ...


Sorry, I could not resist ...

Especially as I am one of those pesky "Farmers" ...

But it mostly just means I have more money than brains ...

[edit]
But *NOW* i feel guilty for buying a new computer ... sob ...

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>
> But the objective to use the spare cycles to do science cannot be assumed
> literally because there is people that have a personal computer at home and if
> the PC isn't turned on the suficient time to crunch a unit the deadline will
> pass and ther be no use for that WU! This is a disavantadge comparing to seti
> classic! So that people could ever do a project like this!
>
I agree. It sounded like a great idea at the time, make a screen saver that does real work around your normal usage. Back when I started with Seti classic, it took about 70 to 80 hours to crunch a single work unit. (And that was with a reasonably good computer for its time - some people took well over a hundred hours). I didn't run my computer 24/7, but I did find I left it on longer just to get a little more time in. A couple of weeks of that and you'd have a whole work unit ready to turn in!

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> But *NOW* i feel guilty for buying a new computer ... sob ...
>
shouldn't you be playing with the new baby by now? I thought Overnite was delivered before 9 a.m?

tony

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> > But *NOW* i feel guilty for buying a new computer ... sob ...
> >
> shouldn't you be playing with the new baby by now? I thought Overnite was
> delivered before 9 a.m?

Tony,

Well, I got it at noon ... and it is working as we speak ...

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Ahh... that internal fuzzy feeling of a brand new box... ;-)

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