No, my comment was about optimized apps vs. stock apps, not about different projects. I do not think its OK for other projects to give more credit than others. I agree with the cross project parity (CPP) concept in that all projects should offer the same amount of credit in their stock apps. Optimized apps (regardless of project) are usually considered unofficial and are therefore out of the realm of control of CPP. If other projects open their code to receive the same benefits that SETI@Home currently enjoys in the open source community, then they can get more science done too. And if they decide to make some of those improvements official, then they would have to reduce their multiplier too so as to remain constant with CPP.

WHY?

Scenario: -

I'm a project admin & devise a project where results provide some answers for mankind. The WU's are of a reasonable length & I decide to award 100 credits per wu. Crunchers flock to my project & after a short period, I get the credit debate on my forum. I delete said posts & state that crunchers either help the project or leave. I'm pretty sure that there are users out there who will crunch my project regardless.

On a regular basis, information is posted for all crunchers to see how well the project is doing. My project is well funded & secure.

CPP - 2B or Not 2B? That is the Question!

Why should I reduce my credits to keep in line with a project that has no real value to mankind & is totally unsupported & struggling to survive?

---

If I want to run the newest optimized code, I have to buy new computers, and I don't need new computers.

Since your computers are hidden, I cannot say whether you are right or wrong, but JD is working on a SSE2 compile....maybe that will help you....

IIRC, one of the optimizations found long ago had to do with making up a table of SIN() or COS() values and caching them instead of calculating them over and over.

These particular FLOPS are expensive.

... and this will speed up any platform, any compiler, any processor (Intel/AMD, PowerPC, Motorola 68000, whatever). Belongs in the standard app.

Maybe Joe could comment on whether this has been tried yet or not.....he keeps up with most of the approaches that have been tried....and those which have failed.....

There are opportunities where optimizations help everyone, and those should go in the standard application. If your "optimization" is to compile the stock code on a different compiler, then short of buying a compiler for SETI you have no worries.

No argument with you on that, my friend......
The project allows freelance work on optimized code, and if some of that work can be taken back into the stock app to everyone else's and the project's benefit, it really is a victory for those whose main interest is in the science of Seti.....

---

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

[quote][quote][quote]

<snip>

. . . and also the hopeful Whaleport for SSE2 when optimizing appears to me to be encouraged and allowed by BOINC/SETI.

<snip>

JD has Posted regarding: ==== S S E 2____S T A T U S____U P D A T E ====

> in the event this was 'missed' . . .

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Why should I reduce my credits to keep in line with a project that has no real value to mankind & is totally unsupported & struggling to survive?

That's totally subjective, isn't it? What you may see as having "no real value" might be seen as valuable to many others. Who gets to decide what is more important? Under what fair system will each project be judged? What if many don't agree with the judgement? Who gets to be "right"? Why not remove such subjective debates altogether and leave it at personal preference? Providing even pay across all projects will do exactly that.

Regardless of what we all value, all BOINC based projects should try to avoid the credit hounds by making everything even and fair so that the only other way to weigh which project to join would be purely out of scientific interest. If you (generally speaking) don't feel SETI@Home is worth the time or effort, then you join a project which you feel is worth the time and effort and for no other reason. The reason to join or switch projects should never be based solely on "pay", rather the entire "payment" argument should be removed from the equation altogether.

No, my comment was about optimized apps vs. stock apps, not about different projects. I do not think its OK for other projects to give more credit than others. I agree with the cross project parity (CPP) concept in that all projects should offer the same amount of credit in their stock apps. Optimized apps (regardless of project) are usually considered unofficial and are therefore out of the realm of control of CPP. If other projects open their code to receive the same benefits that SETI@Home currently enjoys in the open source community, then they can get more science done too. And if they decide to make some of those improvements official, then they would have to reduce their multiplier too so as to remain constant with CPP.

WHY?

Scenario: -

I'm a project admin & devise a project where results provide some answers for mankind. The WU's are of a reasonable length & I decide to award 100 credits per wu. Crunchers flock to my project & after a short period, I get the credit debate on my forum. I delete said posts & state that crunchers either help the project or leave. I'm pretty sure that there are users out there who will crunch my project regardless.

On a regular basis, information is posted for all crunchers to see how well the project is doing. My project is well funded & secure.

CPP - 2B or Not 2B? That is the Question!

Why should I reduce my credits to keep in line with a project that has no real value to mankind & is totally unsupported & struggling to survive?

The answer is very simple.

Credit is supposed to be a measure of work done, not a measure of the value of the work.

While I understand that there is a project to eradicate Malaria, to me personally, it doesn't excite me at all.

The Hash-clash project is over, but I found it interesting professionally, so I crunched for them.

I think SETI, in the incredibly unlikely event that it succeeds would have a profound effect on Mankind. I also like SETI because it demonstrates what can be done on literally no money.

So, if you argue that credit is based on value, then the credit standard (1/100'th of a days' work on a machine that does 1,000 double-precision MIPS based on the Whetstone benchmark, and 1,000 VAX MIPS based on the Dhrystone benchmark) is completely useless -- it measures work, not value.

We're paid for digging ditches, it doesn't matter if the ditch will be used for sewer pipes, or to lay a foundation for the most incredible museum ever made.

The only reason for choosing between projects should be in your heart, not your "pocketbook."

---

Why should I reduce my credits to keep in line with a project that has no real value to mankind & is totally unsupported & struggling to survive?

That's totally subjective, isn't it? What you may see as having "no real value" might be seen as valuable to many others. Who gets to decide what is more important? Under what fair system will each project be judged? What if many don't agree with the judgement? Who gets to be "right"? Why not remove such subjective debates altogether and leave it at personal preference? Providing even pay across all projects will do exactly that.

Regardless of what we all value, all BOINC based projects should try to avoid the credit hounds by making everything even and fair so that the only other way to weigh which project to join would be purely out of scientific interest. If you (generally speaking) don't feel SETI@Home is worth the time or effort, then you join a project which you feel is worth the time and effort and for no other reason. The reason to join or switch projects should never be based solely on "pay", rather the entire "payment" argument should be removed from the equation altogether.

but that's my point! There ARE crunchers out there who crunch on projects that they are generally interested in. Because of Boinc, they now have multiple choices of projects, and the problem being which one to choose. Personally, I found the answer to that question. Join a good team & join in on their POTM. That way all our crunching benefits both the project & the team, hopefully in a good natured & competitive spirit!

I've stated it before & I'll state it again. The credit debate SHOULD be only discussed by Boinc & project leaders in private. When an agreement is made then all project leaders can post that on their boards.

If CPP is introduced, I can see a very serious problem cropping up on Seti. With even parity, all projects will start to devise means to attract more crunchers, yes, even Seti. With Seti's current problems, where will the time & resources come from? If they succeed in this aspect, then they will leave themselves open to accusations as to why they couldn't do what most crunchers have asked for. Nice CATCH 22 situation isn't it?

If this happens, Seti will dig themselves such a big hole, they will never be able to climb out of, which could completely finish them off. Is this wise?

I personally think that they have opened Pandora's Box & are unable/unwilling to close it!

---

Maybe Joe could comment on whether this has been tried yet or not.....he keeps up with most of the approaches that have been tried....and those which have failed.....

I can...Although it was before my time I see remnants of a trigonometric arms race, of sorts, that are scattered throughout Chicken & Alex's code . Mostly between Joe & Alex in apparent friendly competition.

In say my pentium 4 Northwood, a CPU sin instruction takes some ridiculously long amount of time to return 1 SIN() value..(like 80 cycles).. don't ever use that in speed critical code.

In Lunatics there are two types, Trigaarray, which is a huge non-linear LUT like one described (but graduated for chirping use), and then there's Taylor Series Approximation in various forms too.
These are ridiculously fast, though each has its strengths. I'm quite partial to the polynomial method because you can choose the required accuracy and once coefficients have been determined, then only additions are required:

- 8 x 128 bit SSE registers (each can hold 4 x single floats) = 32 floats
- Let's say 5th order polynomial, that's 4 additions (having pre calculated
coefficients)
- Now depending on the cpu you might get up to four simultaneuous 128 bit additions per cycle, so that's 16 float sin() vales per cycle,(...on a good day..)

Now compare that to p4 FSIN cpu instruction takes ~80 clock cyles ... to get 1 result!

Of course if we're using double floats in places, or we want a higher order polynomial for greater accuracy, then the times change, but the method is still several orders of magnitude faster than using SIN()

Jason

[Note: I should point out the techniques actually made it back to stock application ....]

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Two things I would like to clear up here:

1. There was no one complaining about the optimized code being put into the SETI standard which, as has been said, gave all crunchers the same advantage. (this has been insinuated in some previous posts) The only complaint was due to the reduction in credit.

2. Those of us that are competitive will not stop project hopping (as someone called it) even if the credits were exactly the same on each project. Being the competitors we are, we have to maintain and gain positions on all of our projects, which means we will be constantly shifting resources from one project to another. So your "project parity" is meaningless in that respect. As you can see in the stats, even though many of the heavy hitters on my team left SETI completely as a protest, we still maintain enough on the project to keep and lengthen our lead there and that is because of our competitive nature.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the "credit hounds" who left SETI during the protest some time back feel the same way. Project hopping is going to happen in spite of project parity and as long as competitors participate in the projects this will ALWAYS be true.

Why should I reduce my credits to keep in line with a project that has no real value to mankind & is totally unsupported & struggling to survive?

That's totally subjective, isn't it? What you may see as having "no real value" might be seen as valuable to many others. Who gets to decide what is more important? Under what fair system will each project be judged? What if many don't agree with the judgement? Who gets to be "right"? Why not remove such subjective debates altogether and leave it at personal preference? Providing even pay across all projects will do exactly that.

Regardless of what we all value, all BOINC based projects should try to avoid the credit hounds by making everything even and fair so that the only other way to weigh which project to join would be purely out of scientific interest. If you (generally speaking) don't feel SETI@Home is worth the time or effort, then you join a project which you feel is worth the time and effort and for no other reason. The reason to join or switch projects should never be based solely on "pay", rather the entire "payment" argument should be removed from the equation altogether.

but that's my point! There ARE crunchers out there who crunch on projects that they are generally interested in. Because of Boinc, they now have multiple choices of projects, and the problem being which one to choose. Personally, I found the answer to that question. Join a good team & join in on their POTM. That way all our crunching benefits both the project & the team, hopefully in a good natured & competitive spirit!

I've stated it before & I'll state it again. The credit debate SHOULD be only discussed by Boinc & project leaders in private. When an agreement is made then all project leaders can post that on their boards.

If CPP is introduced, I can see a very serious problem cropping up on Seti. With even parity, all projects will start to devise means to attract more crunchers, yes, even Seti. With Seti's current problems, where will the time & resources come from? If they succeed in this aspect, then they will leave themselves open to accusations as to why they couldn't do what most crunchers have asked for. Nice CATCH 22 situation isn't it?

If this happens, Seti will dig themselves such a big hole, they will never be able to climb out of, which could completely finish them off. Is this wise?

I personally think that they have opened Pandora's Box & are unable/unwilling to close it!

CPP was introduced on day one of BOINC, it is just that some projects have not followed the rules or have weak leadership, that when they found they were outside the BOINC parameters and tried to adjust to the correct level, some of the participants there complained so loud the management crumbled.
And on at least one project, at least for a while, because there was no validation at the BOINC level, it was done later by the back end science, you got what you claimed. At that time it was easy because of the Trux clients where you could adjust the benchmark scores to get close to the correct claims. Unfortunately it didn't stop overclaiming. Thats why you will find third party clients are banned or frown upon at some projects.

Two things I would like to clear up here:

1. There was no one complaining about the optimized code being put into the SETI standard which, as has been said, gave all crunchers the same advantage. (this has been insinuated in some previous posts) The only complaint was due to the reduction in credit.

2. Those of us that are competitive will not stop project hopping (as someone called it) even if the credits were exactly the same on each project. Being the competitors we are, we have to maintain and gain positions on all of our projects, which means we will be constantly shifting resources from one project to another. So your "project parity" is meaningless in that respect. As you can see in the stats, even though many of the heavy hitters on my team left SETI completely as a protest, we still maintain enough on the project to keep and lengthen our lead there and that is because of our competitive nature.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the "credit hounds" who left SETI during the protest some time back feel the same way. Project hopping is going to happen in spite of project parity and as long as competitors participate in the projects this will ALWAYS be true.

Spot on, Sarge. Well said!

---

Two things I would like to clear up here:

1. There was no one complaining about the optimized code being put into the SETI standard which, as has been said, gave all crunchers the same advantage. (this has been insinuated in some previous posts) The only complaint was due to the reduction in credit.

2. Those of us that are competitive will not stop project hopping (as someone called it) even if the credits were exactly the same on each project. Being the competitors we are, we have to maintain and gain positions on all of our projects, which means we will be constantly shifting resources from one project to another. So your "project parity" is meaningless in that respect. As you can see in the stats, even though many of the heavy hitters on my team left SETI completely as a protest, we still maintain enough on the project to keep and lengthen our lead there and that is because of our competitive nature.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the "credit hounds" who left SETI during the protest some time back feel the same way. Project hopping is going to happen in spite of project parity and as long as competitors participate in the projects this will ALWAYS be true.

Spot on, Sarge. Well said!

No, not well said, he and Seti.USA are wrong about the complaint they had about credit reduction. They know that but just cannot face up to the fact.

---

Two things I would like to clear up here:

1. There was no one complaining about the optimized code being put into the SETI standard which, as has been said, gave all crunchers the same advantage. (this has been insinuated in some previous posts) The only complaint was due to the reduction in credit.

2. Those of us that are competitive will not stop project hopping (as someone called it) even if the credits were exactly the same on each project. Being the competitors we are, we have to maintain and gain positions on all of our projects, which means we will be constantly shifting resources from one project to another. So your "project parity" is meaningless in that respect. As you can see in the stats, even though many of the heavy hitters on my team left SETI completely as a protest, we still maintain enough on the project to keep and lengthen our lead there and that is because of our competitive nature.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the "credit hounds" who left SETI during the protest some time back feel the same way. Project hopping is going to happen in spite of project parity and as long as competitors participate in the projects this will ALWAYS be true.

Spot on, Sarge. Well said!

No, not well said, he and Seti.USA are wrong about the complaint they had about credit reduction. They know that but just cannot face up to the fact.

If we were so wrong, then why did Eric initially agree to raise the credit multiplier? There must have been some legitimacy to our complaint for him to make such an agreement (even though he backed out on his agreement). If you will remember, the initial reduction in credit (which was when we started complaining)had nothing to do with the optimizations being added to the stock app. We probably could have lived with the reduction after the change in the stock app (though we would have still not liked it)because it made sense. But the first reduction had nothing to do with optimizations and made no sense.
BTW: If you are too lazy to look back in the post history and find it, I think I still have a copy saved.

but that's my point! There ARE crunchers out there who crunch on projects that they are generally interested in. Because of Boinc, they now have multiple choices of projects, and the problem being which one to choose. Personally, I found the answer to that question. Join a good team & join in on their POTM. That way all our crunching benefits both the project & the team, hopefully in a good natured & competitive spirit!

I've stated it before & I'll state it again. The credit debate SHOULD be only discussed by Boinc & project leaders in private. When an agreement is made then all project leaders can post that on their boards.

If CPP is introduced, I can see a very serious problem cropping up on Seti. With even parity, all projects will start to devise means to attract more crunchers, yes, even Seti. With Seti's current problems, where will the time & resources come from? If they succeed in this aspect, then they will leave themselves open to accusations as to why they couldn't do what most crunchers have asked for. Nice CATCH 22 situation isn't it?

If this happens, Seti will dig themselves such a big hole, they will never be able to climb out of, which could completely finish them off. Is this wise?

I personally think that they have opened Pandora's Box & are unable/unwilling to close it!

I will agree with you on one point: credit discussion really should be left to project heads and the BOINC development head, but unfortunately, we are all very obsessive in our nature and many will want to have their hand in that pot regardless.

And as WinterKnight already said, CPP was supposed to be since Day 1 in BOINC. Its supposed to be up to the Lead Project Scientist to make sure all is correct with their app.

As for trying to attract more crunchers, that's what all the emails are sent out for. They're trying to reach out to all those who forgot about the project by digging into their past and their valuable database of emails that most other projects wish they had access to. Yes, each project will have to attract users on other means, but I don't believe this will spell doom for SETI, I just think they need to provide more technical news and make it a little more 'fun'.

Folks..............
I realize this whole CPP and granted credit rate subject is very emotional for some.......
But please try to refrain from making personal attacks over it.

I am no longer officially a mod, but if things don't cool down a bit here, I can see the handwriting on the wall.

Thanx,
Mark.

---

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

1. There was no one complaining about the optimized code being put into the SETI standard which, as has been said, gave all crunchers the same advantage. (this has been insinuated in some previous posts) The only complaint was due to the reduction in credit.

Understood. However, regardless of trying to hold Eric to some obscure post where he may have felt increasing the multiplier was appropriate, in hindsight it appears that this is not the correct thing to do. People need to understand that, accept it and move on.

2. Those of us that are competitive will not stop project hopping (as someone called it) even if the credits were exactly the same on each project. Being the competitors we are, we have to maintain and gain positions on all of our projects, which means we will be constantly shifting resources from one project to another. So your "project parity" is meaningless in that respect. As you can see in the stats, even though many of the heavy hitters on my team left SETI completely as a protest, we still maintain enough on the project to keep and lengthen our lead there and that is because of our competitive nature.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the "credit hounds" who left SETI during the protest some time back feel the same way. Project hopping is going to happen in spite of project parity and as long as competitors participate in the projects this will ALWAYS be true.

I don't think any project has a problem with project hopping. They simply want to eliminate those who would choose a project based solely on pay alone.

If by your wrongly conceived rules, that a project should never change the credits/task. Then a project would be allowed to start with a very badly written app, written the worse possible language and compiled on the very worse compiler they could find, then set a level that agrees with CPP.
Then a few days or weeks later introduce version 2 of the app completely hand written in assembler by the best programmers they can get, which is 100 times faster that version 1.
Because they have set their baseline for credits and by your rules do not change the credit level every one crunching for them gets 100 times the CPP level.

Don't be ________ stupid.

If we were so wrong, then why did Eric initially agree to raise the credit multiplier?

A mistake perhaps? Eric is still human after all. Does that mean he should make good on his mistaken word just to appease a bunch of people and damn the CPP principal? I would think not.

There must have been some legitimacy to our complaint for him to make such an agreement (even though he backed out on his agreement). If you will remember, the initial reduction in credit (which was when we started complaining)had nothing to do with the optimizations being added to the stock app. We probably could have lived with the reduction after the change in the stock app (though we would have still not liked it)because it made sense. But the first reduction had nothing to do with optimizations and made no sense.

Are you sure his 'agreement' wasn't made in error? Credit reductions will be a part of BOINC life if CPP is to be achieved.

PS - This topic has been beaten to death. I don't know why beating a dead horse is appropriate to some unless they are simply grinding their axe.

Two things I would like to clear up here:

1. There was no one complaining about the optimized code being put into the SETI standard which, as has been said, gave all crunchers the same advantage. (this has been insinuated in some previous posts) The only complaint was due to the reduction in credit.

2. Those of us that are competitive will not stop project hopping (as someone called it) even if the credits were exactly the same on each project. Being the competitors we are, we have to maintain and gain positions on all of our projects, which means we will be constantly shifting resources from one project to another. So your "project parity" is meaningless in that respect. As you can see in the stats, even though many of the heavy hitters on my team left SETI completely as a protest, we still maintain enough on the project to keep and lengthen our lead there and that is because of our competitive nature.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the "credit hounds" who left SETI during the protest some time back feel the same way. Project hopping is going to happen in spite of project parity and as long as competitors participate in the projects this will ALWAYS be true.

Spot on, Sarge. Well said!

No, not well said, he and Seti.USA are wrong about the complaint they had about credit reduction. They know that but just cannot face up to the fact.

If we were so wrong, then why did Eric initially agree to raise the credit multiplier? There must have been some legitimacy to our complaint for him to make such an agreement (even though he backed out on his agreement). If you will remember, the initial reduction in credit (which was when we started complaining)had nothing to do with the optimizations being added to the stock app. We probably could have lived with the reduction after the change in the stock app (though we would have still not liked it)because it made sense. But the first reduction had nothing to do with optimizations and made no sense.
BTW: If you are too lazy to look back in the post history and find it, I think I still have a copy saved.

I think you will find that the confusion arrose because a certain member of your team released a version of the enhanced app with the wrong credit multiplier. A person who has now left this project and asked why that version was still available and still being used several days if not weeks later. Admittedly his language was not correct but his observation was correct.
This displeased your team when the correct multiplier was applied, and you, and I do mean you, haven't stopped playing the same record over and over again.

Two things I would like to clear up here:

1. There was no one complaining about the optimized code being put into the SETI standard which, as has been said, gave all crunchers the same advantage. (this has been insinuated in some previous posts) The only complaint was due to the reduction in credit.

2. Those of us that are competitive will not stop project hopping (as someone called it) even if the credits were exactly the same on each project. Being the competitors we are, we have to maintain and gain positions on all of our projects, which means we will be constantly shifting resources from one project to another. So your "project parity" is meaningless in that respect. As you can see in the stats, even though many of the heavy hitters on my team left SETI completely as a protest, we still maintain enough on the project to keep and lengthen our lead there and that is because of our competitive nature.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the "credit hounds" who left SETI during the protest some time back feel the same way. Project hopping is going to happen in spite of project parity and as long as competitors participate in the projects this will ALWAYS be true.

Spot on, Sarge. Well said!

No, not well said, he and Seti.USA are wrong about the complaint they had about credit reduction. They know that but just cannot face up to the fact.

Yes indeed, well said. My apologies, I wasn't referring to their problem. I should have highlighted the relevant section. I prefer to quote correctly rather than take it out of context.

I don't think any project has a problem with project hopping. They simply want to eliminate those who would choose a project based solely on pay alone.

How? With so many project hopping via POTM's, it won't be easy to determine!

---

How? With so many project hopping via POTM's, it won't be easy to determine!

That's the current predicament. One way to determine how is by keeping up with all the major teams out there, find out what their POTM is, and excluding them from the stats calculation (since, theoretically, they really haven't "left" the project in so much as they will be back eventually). That requires manpower, and SETI has so little of that. That doesn't mean SETI can't try to reach deep into their bag of goodies and try to reach out to past SETI crunchers trying to get some people back.