Paul D. Buck +1. :)

---

The Search for Extra Terrestrial KItties!!

Surely the 'weak' computers will be dropped once they cant keep up with the deadline for each workunit, isn't this already a limit to how slow a pc you can use?

Also how gutted would we all be if a 200Mz PII found the proof only to have the result trashed cos someone thought their pc wasn't l33t enough?


P.s Well baited with the topic title :)

---

Bambi

Now, imagine your self as a newbie trying to get this thing up and running. Having troubles and you come to the boards and ask questions. The most typical first reaction comes from someone that blasts the idiot for asking in the wrong place and that he should have searched out the answer that the "expert" already knows

Have to say i disagree.
The most typical reaction is to try & answer the question. If it was asked in the wrong place then pointing out the best place to ask is being helpful, isn't it?
And as for searching- is it unreasonable to expect people to at least look at the first half dozen thread titles before they ask their question? Certainly when people post a cryptically titled thread then having another thread asking the same question isn't unreasonable, but when there are already 5 threads with "No work" somewhere in the title in the first 12 there's no need for a 6th.

It would if the answer were not often on the order of "YOu idiot, you posted in the wrong forum." ... and if I do not know what something is called, or what the problem is, how in the world am I going to be able to tell from the title of a thread where *MY* problem is discussed. And that is the point. The type of person I am discussing has little idea of what the issues is much less how to look for a solution in a meaningful way.

The attitude, if you are not 100% for us, you are not welcome, nor is your opinion. One of the reasons I have left SaH for the most part. But this is the type of off-putting that typifies the poor social network we have.

And this is by design. The developers and projects make no particular bones about it, though they mostly use code word type language, but Participants are a nuisance and all they want from us is our computing power and wish that our icky personalities, wishes, hope, questions, and desires would just vanish into the mists.

A somewhat harsh statement, but it's understandable that they'd rather be programming, developing proposals etc? Wouldn't you rather do your work than have to deal with other people's problems? Especially when many of those problems are of their own making?

Yes, the started to us BOINC, and thus fell afoul of the problem inherent in the lack of design, no usability engineering, etc. If your project's stated goal is to harness idle computers and get the average person involved then that too requires attention. And that is the problem. And the point that you miss. There is no lack of people who want to help, or who try to help... what there is is a lack of interest in harnessing those resources. At one point in my life I spent upwards to 18 hours a day documenting BOINC ... and all that labor was essentially for nothing... instead of one Wiki we have at least three that I know of, none maintained, none up to date ...

As far as programming, if you have been watching the developers lists you might have noticed that I, and others have offered solutions, some pretty major, mine I admit pretty minor ... guess how many are actually used? Try almost none ... I could go on, but it is somewhat pointless I suppose ...

All of this makes these forums just like all the others i've been on over the years on line. While things certainly have gotten heated & worked up on occasions, overall these really are very quiet & restrained as online forums tend to go.

Well, if all you are used to are bar-room brawls this might be sedate ... but have you really, really, taken a step back and looked at some of the discourse? How rapidly that it descends? The fact that it is worse elsewhere is no recommendation, and that too is a point you miss...

The end result is that we have a community, but it is a very dysfunctional one. And few want to invest the time to make things better.

That was one of the poor decisions, not to establish a vibrant and healthy community environment.

If you feel this is a poor community (have to say find it one of the better ones online), what would you consider a good one? And how would you develop & sustain it with the resources available?

Again, you miss my point, the community is not restricted to the forums on SaH, or even inclusive of the projects... the community is all of us, and these forums, and all the other tools and connections. Yes, at times it can be supportive, but much of the time it is not ... and the fact that so many don't even see the problem is part of the problem ...

And I do what I can, where I can ... I even offered my opinion here... some might consider that helpful. I look for bugs, run alpha projects, answer questions when and where I can ...

The next issue was the question of updates and I think that this is a more important issue than it is given credit for,...

And the reason for this decision? That corporate entities would not like it.

I was under the impression it was mostly a security one- updating the science application is one thing, but having the program update itself without intervention is another. Look at the lather people get into over Windows & Anti Virus updates when they happen (or don't happen) automatically.
Certainly a system of notification would be good, but i wouldn't want the updates to be done automatically.

I did not say have the system force the updates on people. But, there are other options. In my windows systems the level is set to warn and I go and look at the updates when needs be and install the ones *I* elect. But, I resent the fact that I HAVE to use the worlds least secure browser to do so. I cannot use Firefox or Safari if that were my choice. On the other hand we do not have to, and possibly should not, support people using outdated software. It is a choice opted for by projects and I am not sure that it is a good one.

Anyway, the Joe Six-Pack type is more likely to have a low end system than a geek like me, and he or she is actually the person we really should be looking for. And we should have been working harder to make BOINC welcoming of their efforts and our ability to support them to make them the most efficient as we can... I will ask the question in another way, why has it taken 5 plus years to start an effort to come up with an "installer" that will allow me to configure my system optimally with the latest and best optimized applications?

Because the average person with a mid range to low end system is the type to install a program with it's default settings, and then just let it do it's thing. Hence the time spent working on the user interface (to simplify it) and not put the effort into making the installation of optimized applications a no brainer. Ease of optimized application installation would be down the bottom of my list of priorities.

Circular argument. Low end guys are too stupid to install opt applications because we don't provide a tool that would allow them to use these applications. So let us not provide the tool so they can be more efficient because they would need a tool to help them to do this task.

I have no beef with the original question, I think it is a valid one and one worthy of consideration. Again, my thesis is that there is no consideration about the engineering of the BOINC System which is more than just the software called BOINC. The fact that the "developers" hide in their holes and code is a nice excuse for not addressing issues. But that is all that it is, an excuse. Dr. Anderson flies all over the world giving speeches about BOINC and misses the whole point of selling a product ... it has to be something that people want... take a cold hard look at the system as a whole ... what is in it for an adopter ...

I know why I am here, and why most of you are here ... but how many of us have gotten someone else to adopt and embrace BOINC?

PhonAcq asked a good question... I think it is not the right question because is missed the real nub ... and that is why I wrote as I did.

On a technical level, most of the issues with the database are self-inflicted. And again the question is would it be better for the database if we dropped some of the dead weight. During BOINC Beta I pointed out these scalability issues to Dr. Anderson and was patted on the head and told to go away, my advice was neither wanted, desired, nor would be considered. The joke is that what I did for a living at the time, and had for nearly a decade, was design database systems. And I was a specialist ... not a generalist ... but that goes back to something I have said many times in the past ... we do not treasure our people, our contributors, wether it be one task per week, or documentation, help desk ... I could go on, and on ... and I have ... again ...

Had we implemented a scalable design for the databases, much of these issues with how many users and queries and what not would be moot because the database would not be the issue. Sadly, the design of BOINC as it relates to the database violates all the rules of relational database design and how to get the most effective use out of the database engine.

My apologies for the length of this post (again) ...

I know some get really mad when I write so much ...

I know some get really mad when I write so much ...

Let them get mad. They can skip your post if they don't want to read it.

I find it interesting.

BTW, thanks for your service Paul.

Rob

---

I know some get really mad when I write so much ...

Let them get mad. They can skip your post if they don't want to read it.

Once I had a guy contact me to find out which projects I might post in, just so he could avoid me. Then, and now, I find that sad because if he really, really did not like me that much, why not just put me on ignore?

. . . 'When should Seti jettison the weak?'
says: 'Ask Paul D Buck HIS Opinion' . . .

I think the debate is about the wrong questions...

In the BOINC Beta test we debated the central issues that are relevant here. And the decisions made, *I* think the wrong choices were made. Firstly this is not, in my opinion, a simple lets get rid of the weak question. But how best to mobilize the available resources. So, the first step is to analyze the starting predicates. And that is that BOINC was intended to capture the idle computing resources of the mass of available systems out there. This distinctly implies that the point is to garner the support of the typical "Joe Six-Pack" or "everyman" in the world to the advancement of science.

We have failed dismally. If you look at the numbers we have managed to get 1.6 million some people to try BOINC, of that we have a nominal population of 250,000 to 500,000 attached and running at any given time. What we have is a collective of, primarily, techno-geeks. Obstacles in the way of the adoption of BOINC by the less technically savvy abound. Most of these issues have been well hashed out over time but the central and telling point is that we have not come up with a compelling social system that cherishes the contributions of all.

Bear with me. Some time ago, as an example, I became unaffiliated with BOINC Synergy. It took over a week before anyone noticed and only one person from the team contacted me and asked why. Now, if it were a vibrant team where there was a dynamic social interaction you would have thought that this would have been noticed and, well, something done about it.

Now, imagine your self as a newbie trying to get this thing up and running. Having troubles and you come to the boards and ask questions. The most typical first reaction comes from someone that blasts the idiot for asking in the wrong place and that he should have searched out the answer that the "expert" already knows ... having himself learned only last week ... When I was writing the UBW I had a small network of people that I worked with on a daily basis and we collaborated where they did daily patrol of boards looking for those questions and trying to be the first responder. If they could not answer I was second level support and most of the time we got people going. But we constantly fought those that had as a first reaction the tendency to heap scorn and abuse on the non-wary.

But, as a non-conformist eventually I found that my welcome here at SaH is very thin. Just recently there was a funding drive and I got into a little bit of tepid water because I had the temerity to ask a real mild question that was against the conventional wisdom. The attitude, if you are not 100% for us, you are not welcome, nor is your opinion. One of the reasons I have left SaH for the most part. But this is the type of off-putting that typifies the poor social network we have.

And this is by design. The developers and projects make no particular bones about it, though they mostly use code word type language, but Participants are a nuisance and all they want from us is our computing power and wish that our icky personalities, wishes, hope, questions, and desires would just vanish into the mists. The end result is that we have a community, but it is a very dysfunctional one. And few want to invest the time to make things better.

That was one of the poor decisions, not to establish a vibrant and healthy community environment. The next issue was the question of updates and I think that this is a more important issue than it is given credit for, but the question was why not have a automatic update system, or at least an update warning system? And the ability to certify trusted third party applications to make them part of the delivery system. Right now, one of the reasons that these "low-end" systems are not that functional is that the version of BOINC running and the applications selected are not likely to be the best of the best. So, we have slow systems running software grossly out of date.

And the reason for this decision? That corporate entities would not like it. Well, if we were making inroads into corporate systems I think that our user base would be a lot bigger and we would have a huge number of systems. So we opted to be attractive to an audience that is plainly not interested.

Anyway, the Joe Six-Pack type is more likely to have a low end system than a geek like me, and he or she is actually the person we really should be looking for. And we should have been working harder to make BOINC welcoming of their efforts and our ability to support them to make them the most efficient as we can... I will ask the question in another way, why has it taken 5 plus years to start an effort to come up with an "installer" that will allow me to configure my system optimally with the latest and best optimized applications?

Were we up to the tasks we would have established ways and means of gathering these people, cherishing their contribution, helping them to make the most of the available tools, and most importantly advancing the cause. Personally, I think the failure is ours, not theirs... but, then again, my opinion is rarely in line with established conventional wisdom ...

Oops, another long answer, sure to raise the ire again ...

.... and while I'm a member of this vibrant community, I think that Pauls' basic thesis is wrong -- and the reason is straight from human nature.

Zimmerman's law states that "nobody notices when things go right" and that seems to be amplified dramatically by the internet.

We (and I'm including myself) have a tendency to say "thank you" when someone helps -- but we say it to that one person. When someone impedes our progress, or does something we don't like, we tend to tell everyone.

We use the internet to tell 100,000 of our closest friends how we've been wronged, or how stupid someone is, or just plain mean.

We talk about (to quote Paul) "software that is grossly out of date" and we never point out how that software is producing results.

As a result, we have a forum that is loaded with complaints. We have much criticism of the project and how it operates, and how it is managed, and if I looked in here as a potential participant, I would not download BOINC.

Paul (and others) have pointed out that only a small fraction of the machines out there with assigned host ids are running, and again, as part of the general "doom, gloom and mismanagement" theme, the common explanation is "they were alienated by the stupidity."

The truth is, we don't know why. It seems to me that BOINC should hide fairly effectively, but maybe, just maybe, the participants expect to see something (live television from Usa Minor beta?) and it isn't very entertaining. Maybe they see the CPU meter pegged because BOINC isn't the idle task?

I do know that we, the BOINC enthusiasts, can sit here and talk about it all day, and we'll never figure it out -- we're the wrong ones to ask, we're a self-selected sample of users who are so dedicated we put up with the doom, gloom and sometimes abuse from our fellow forum members.

But all of this is to be expected. We lament that the 950,000-odd participants (according to BOINCstats) are not all still participating, and we do not celebrate the 140,000 who are -- many of the with more than one machine.

(As an aside, how many of us have at least two different accounts? I do, but only one of them is crunching.)

We see the SETI@Home servers having problems, and we ignore the fact that hundreds of thousands of hosts are happily crunching away, and the work will be returned when the servers are back up.

As bad as the critics would like you to believe that SETI@Home is critically broken and badly mismanaged, valid work is done, returned, validated and credit granted nearly every day.

---

. . . To those that may not know: Paul D. Buck has worked 'extensively' for this entire Project and many other Projects

< he contributes quite a wealth of information to the BOINC development [boinc_dev], BOINC project administrators [BOINC_project], BOINC_Help [BOINC Help Volunteers] mailing lists

and he has been doing so without a need for Thank You's or otherwise - he Contributes an expansive wealth of knowledge & intelligence to the Projects

[initially he'd learned from the Military Training he received] and spends a good portion of his personal time to said Projects



With a 'Certain Pride' - To Paul & All others that Contribute to the Projects -

Thank Each of You for your Time & Consideration you have given to the Projects and to Berkeley as well . . .



With Respect, joanne & richard

[We are Proud to be a part of this community]

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

.... and while I'm a member of this vibrant community, I think that Pauls' basic thesis is wrong -- and the reason is straight from human nature.

Zimmerman's law states that "nobody notices when things go right" and that seems to be amplified dramatically by the internet.

We (and I'm including myself) have a tendency to say "thank you" when someone helps -- but we say it to that one person. When someone impedes our progress, or does something we don't like, we tend to tell everyone.

We use the internet to tell 100,000 of our closest friends how we've been wronged, or how stupid someone is, or just plain mean.

Which is pretty much my point exactly. If a person has a problem and does not get help they leave with a bad impression and that gets communicated to a vastly larger number of people than the success stories. The "Yeah I tried BOINC and it stunk" story is more compelling than "Yeah it works". And that is the issue we ignore at our peril. BAD experiences are more vivid. Which is why more effort should go into trying to make things better.

And, by-the-way, maybe we need a "success story" forum... this is not my area of expertise, it is a PR or marketing kind of thing, but, that is also my point, we don't harness the expertise in our community and put them to work to make things better.

Roadblocks are raised instead.

We talk about (to quote Paul) "software that is grossly out of date" and we never point out how that software is producing results.

As a result, we have a forum that is loaded with complaints. We have much criticism of the project and how it operates, and how it is managed, and if I looked in here as a potential participant, I would not download BOINC.

Paul (and others) have pointed out that only a small fraction of the machines out there with assigned host ids are running, and again, as part of the general "doom, gloom and mismanagement" theme, the common explanation is "they were alienated by the stupidity."

I raised the point about out of date software because some of those old versions have issues which can have significant negative impacts on the servers because of flaws. Thus we all pay for the negligence of others. I, and others, over time have suggested that maybe dropping those users might not be such a bad idea.

As to the other point, yes, as a pessimist and as a systems engineer I tend to accentuate the negative in the sense that I focus on the issues that impede progress and comment less on that that does go right. Pessimists are supposed to have only happy surprises which sadly has not been my experience. My experience is that when I have been surprised it is because I have not been gloomy enough.

As to what is going right? Well, one of the long standing complaints is that projects do not make their results and inner workings of their projects open to the participants in meaningful ways. Were they to do so, as we have asked for repeatedly, then the success stories would be self evident and publicly available. Here as SaH AP and NTPKR have been on the "Coming soon" schedule for years, finally AP is here ... and the other is still in development. But where are the other results, if any, from the project? No where ... other projects, mostly the same.

Again, we are far afield from the original question, but alienation by the stupidity of the community as a whole is not something I pulled out of my ear, but intelligence gathered from people that communicate with me privately. And from posting in forums and PM messages. Granted, another self-selected set of data points... but I don't get people telling me they are leaving BOINC because they are happy ... they quit BOINC, or specific projects because they have problems or are alienated.

The truth is, we don't know why. It seems to me that BOINC should hide fairly effectively, but maybe, just maybe, the participants expect to see something (live television from Usa Minor beta?) and it isn't very entertaining. Maybe they see the CPU meter pegged because BOINC isn't the idle task?

I do know that we, the BOINC enthusiasts, can sit here and talk about it all day, and we'll never figure it out -- we're the wrong ones to ask, we're a self-selected sample of users who are so dedicated we put up with the doom, gloom and sometimes abuse from our fellow forum members.

I agree we are the wrong ones to ask. Again and again we have asked that a feature be added to BOINC so that we could start to gather statistical data on why people detach, or reset projects... because we don't know ... but we are not even making the attempt to find out why customers are not satisfied. This is another example in a long list of examples where excellent suggestions are set aside and or ignored.

But all of this is to be expected. We lament that the 950,000-odd participants (according to BOINCstats) are not all still participating, and we do not celebrate the 140,000 who are -- many of the with more than one machine.

(As an aside, how many of us have at least two different accounts? I do, but only one of them is crunching.)

We see the SETI@Home servers having problems, and we ignore the fact that hundreds of thousands of hosts are happily crunching away, and the work will be returned when the servers are back up.

As bad as the critics would like you to believe that SETI@Home is critically broken and badly mismanaged, valid work is done, returned, validated and credit granted nearly every day.

I am not speaking, and have not been speaking about SaH, except where I explicitly state so, but am talking about the entire universe of BOINC. I think in many cases the atmosphere here at SaH is worse on average ... but that is me ... others have already disagreed.

Yes we are doing work, and yes progress is being made ... but are we anywhere near where we want to be?

This paper by Dr. Anderson is worth reading in it entirety. It is a shame Dr. Anderson has forgotten much of what he wrote. But I will quote the most relevant (to our discussion) portion:

BOINC’s general goal is to advance the public re-
source computing paradigm: to encourage the creation of
many projects, and to encourage a large fraction of the
world’s computer owners to participate in one or more
projects. Specific goals include:

Reduce the barriers of entry to public-resource com-
puting. BOINC allows a research scientist with moderate
computer skills to create and operate a large public-resource
computing project with about a week of initial work and an
hour per week of maintenance. The server for a BOINC-
based project can consist of a single machine configured
with common open-source software (Linux, Apache, PHP,
MySQL, Python).

Share resources among autonomous projects.
BOINC-based projects are autonomous. Projects are not
centrally authorized or registered. Each project operates
its own servers and stands completely on its own. Never-
theless, PC owners can seamlessly participate in multiple
projects, and can assign to each project a ”resource share”
determining how scarce resource (such as CPU and disk
space) are divided among projects. If most participants
register with multiple projects, then overall resource uti-
lization is improved: while one project is closed for repairs,
other projects temporarily inherit its computing power. On
a particular computer, the CPU might work for one project
while the network is transferring files for another.

Support diverse applications. BOINC accommodates
a wide range of applications; it provides flexible and scal-
able mechanism for distributing data, and its scheduling al-
gorithms intelligently match requirements with resources.
Existing applications in common languages (C, C++, FOR-
TRAN) can run as BOINC applications with little or no
modification. An application can consist of several files
(e.g. multiple programs and a coordinating script). New
versions of applications can be deployed with no participant
involvement.

Reward participants. Public-resource computing
projects must provide ”incentives” in order to attract and
retain participants. The primary incentive for many par-
ticipants is credit: a numeric measure of how much com-
putation they have contributed. BOINC provides a credit-
accounting system that reflects usage of multiple resource
types (CPU, network, disk), is common across multiple
projects, and is highly resistant to ”cheating” (attempts to
gain undeserved credit). BOINC also makes it easy for
projects to add visualization graphics to their applications,
which can provide screensaver graphics.

And this is what *I* have been speaking to, the advancement of BOINC, and not just the advancement of SaH which is only part of the universe of BOINC.

And I could spend more time pointing to where I feel that we have fallen short of those goals. But I will only address the simplest one and that is the first. Are we truly lowering the barriers? Not if you watch the mail lists where new project after new project posts in many cases the same questions over and over again. I spent 6 days recently trying to get a build environment set up following the directions in the Trac Wiki (successful on the Mac, not at all on the WIndows platform) to find out that most of the directions have never been tested and proven to work.

How does any of that advance that first goal? The answer, it doesn't...

Ok. To be say something that really hasnt been said.

Ive noticed on the boards, when someone asks for help, they recieve it, just not in a way that they tend to understand. Ive seen people light people up because the person asking for help asked a question, got it answered, didnt like the answer and the next reaction tends to be ' to hell with you and Seti!'

Keep in mind there are posts about ' hey can you help' they get help and are bouncing off the walls happy as a result.

I personally have been hesitant to help answer questions ( with my limited knowledge base) for fear of getting my head chopped off, by the person asking for help.

Math wise, theres what? 400k seti users, and 2k posters. Im thinking the 400k users cant be all wrong, can they? Only the vocal get noticed. My biggest issue with the vocal minority is that they're trying to run things for the quiet majority. If it aint broke, dont fix it.

Sincerely,
Daysteppr

---

I am no beginner but certainly no expert. What I am is tremendously grateful for is the handful of people who have answered occasional questions and helped with problems I have had in the past.

I have also been shocked by some of the rude answers that some people have had following simple questions as well as by those who have no patience after having problems with BOINC and/or S@H. It takes all sorts and the patient get there in the end.

A little patience on all sides is often all it takes. When people who are not experts have a problem, real or perceived, they will frequently panic. This is a natural reaction and one which deserves to be recognised. So what if a 10th thread starts to seek an answer? The old ones may all be buried a mile deep and the header may not apparently be quite what is being sought. If you know how to answer the query, then please do so. Some problems may still remain, so please, again, hold the questioner's hand until he gets there.

Result? A happy BOINC community all round.

I do, however, think a FAQ should be built. Maybe it exists already (see the depths of my personal ignorance?). But when seeking help by clicking The "unofficial" BOINC wiki link on the front "Help" page it does not exactly help to get a message such as

"Directory Listing Denied
This Virtual Directory does not allow contents to be listed."

Please recognise that a panic stricken BOINCer will not find that helpful! The WIKI pages may still exist somewhere but results like that do not get the worried off on the best foot! The alternative of the Questions and Answers pages now confront our panicer with hundreds of pages and thousands and thousands of threads. Seeking out exactly the right one is NOT easy.

Everyone has to start at the very beginning and every starter is a non-expert. Well down the line many an ordinary user will still get problems real or perceived. That is when we seek the Genie in the BOINC bottle. Please be patient with us! I am a very low grade user who more than grateful to the likes of Paul D. Buck. Long may the like continue.

---

And I could spend more time pointing to where I feel that we have fallen short of those goals. But I will only address the simplest one and that is the first. Are we truly lowering the barriers? Not if you watch the mail lists where new project after new project posts in many cases the same questions over and over again.

Relative to what had to be done before any middleware existed, you bet the barriers are lower!

BOINC is much better than the "screen saver" we had with classic, and it is far better having multiple stand-alone projects, each re-inventing the wheel when it comes to assigning and transporting work, reporting results, etc.

Are things as good as they could be? No.

Is Distributed Computing in a better place because of BOINC? Yes.

Do I think progress is being made? Yes.

Are they doing everything I'd do if BOINC was my project? Of course not, nor would I expect them to.

---

The Unofficial BOINC Wiki is actually at http://www.boinc-wiki.info/Main_Page

But I must admit I only found it by accident.

The Unofficial BOINC Wiki is actually at http://www.boinc-wiki.info/Main_Page

But I must admit I only found it by accident.

One of the distinguishing features of the UBW over all rivals was that we were dillegently documenting every error message we could lay our grubby mitts on.

Another suggestion was that you be able to click on a message (or help icon) and goto the web page describing the message... and the manager tabs take you to the specific page for each tab ... and the web pages to the description of each page ...

I know, bad ideas all ...

Another suggestion was that you be able to click on a message (or help icon) and goto the web page describing the message... and the manager tabs take you to the specific page for each tab ... and the web pages to the description of each page ...

I know, bad ideas all ...

Why a bad idea?
Not feasible for the project staff might be a more accurate way of expressing it. Like many things it'd be nice, but other things take priority.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

> relevancies: since this is the Tenth Year Anniversary of this Project


. . . Posted 9 Feb 2006 - Message boards : Cafe SETI : Participant's Rights and Responsibilities - Discussion



. . . Posted 30 Mar 2008 - Message boards : SETI@home Science : . . . the Politics of Rights regarding Participation


> Thanking Each of You for Your Time & Consideration . . .

[plenty of work to be done over the neXt ten years - it'll be quite exciting - of THAT i am quite sure!!!]

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

"
Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
"
(C) Plato

Comprehensive answer on thread's topic IMHO ;)

. . . would anybody like to Participate in a 'Think Tank' regarding Said Quoted Issue [below] and other Issues as well [Pm or call - to All those that have the number]

. . . my P4's just fine - does the work - no wingmen have to wait in most cases

NOTE: i have a DuoCore2 System [HP] that used to crunch like the devil

- though there is the ERROR 1714 ISSUE that should have some brainiacs working on the Solution to THAT said Problem . . .

please - don't attempt to explain what can be done regarding this Issue

UNLESS you have something NEW see the following INFO's below

and something that hasn't EVER been attempted / tried previously

- we [Microsoft, HP, Computer Associates + Intel] have tried every trick in the book [see Google / SETI search for that which i refer to

- there is a phenomenal amount of information regarding this ISSUE]


[i deal with a self-termed system in use - TriloBytes of Data on the P4]


Thank You very much . . . njoy your weekend ;)

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

"
Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
"
(C) Plato

Comprehensive answer on thread's topic IMHO ;)

Well said, and points to a core issue that is endmic these days, that originates outside these forums, but nontheless affects their operation. Ego is a natural human condition. Taken to excess, it is not. Much of what drives the more "sledgehammer" type of post is just that, ego. Its not going to go away, its a factor that will always be there. However by taking tenents such as the one Raistmer pulled out, as a guiding principle, the number and veracity of such sledgehammer posts declines rapidly.

It will only do so by example of others, some BOINC Project boards are not a mine of tension, and a pleasure to go to discuss or help - in my personal opinion CPDN & GPUGRID are two of those. It became the "Culture" of the boards not to act in such a sledgehammer manner, and take the ego elsewhere, not wanted here etc. Mostly that happened not by "telling" people, but by ignoring such silly sledgehammers, leading by example, and gaining unspoken kudos by acting like the Plato quote. Such methods always reduce the ego driven driven as they have no audience to play to. End result is sensible discussion and everyone moves forward, because no one holds back or feels on the defensive.

The relevane to the Op? Well, the silent majority are silent for many reasons, a very strong one however is they cant be bothered dealing with the silly sledgehammer, and I for one have every sympathy with that view - lifes too short and too busy to waste time doing that. The latter is the reality, no matter the theory. If we want a vibrant community that contributes willingly and helps each other, we first have to fix the Culture, and in that I am fore-square behind Paul D's sentiments, I believe he hit the nail on the head.

The "what do we do to fix technical problem XXX" discussions will then become a genuine reality, as those who have real expertese but better things to do than spend 80% of time fighting sledgehammers, will contribute more.

The average human being if asked for "help" from a perfect stranger, let alone a fellow member of a community, is vertualy always guaranteed to say/think "sure, how can I help?". When we get to that stage without fear of someone piling it attempting to look wonderful and contributing little in reality - and ego is by in large dropped from the Culture - then we will get the active help of people like Paul & Richard, who, unlike Paul & Richard, stay away.

The principle behind the Plato quote is a good start down that road.

Regards
Zy

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