The only people I can think of that might be
likely to complain about credit being too high
most likely don't care about credit in the first place.

The only people I can think of that might be
likely to complain about credit being too high
most likely don't care about credit in the first place.

Honestly, I'd like for credit to be a reflection of something across all projects. What that "something" is really doesn't matter. At least you could postulate whether they were too high or low.

If credit did pretend to be a surrogate for some meaningful measure of anything; then you might find me "complaining" that credits were too high.

Dr. Anderson isn't stupid.

He had/has something in mind with CreditNew and I think whatever it was - the current solution must have been flawed from the start. This may be a case of being too brainy to see the simplest solution. I've known people like that and I'm sure you have, too.

Then he's got politics he's dealing-with. Different projects have differing amounts of resources to put to work to cope with credit issues, and I'm betting that a lot of BOINC projects don't have the manpower to cope with a change.

And how would you "enforce" this new policy?

So, Dr. Anderson isn't a fool, either.

Yes, this whole thing is frustrating. For me it's frustrating because I'd like for credit to stand for something / anything and I don't much care how much credit that means I get, just as long as I have a predictable unit of measure.

If I am unhappy now, it is only because there is no definitive information or explanation, nor a public attempt to ameliorate the situation.

For all any of us knows, Dr. Anderson could be laying awake in bed every night trying to work-out an insanely complicated solution to this problem.

There may be a really good analogy to this whole thing that just needs some working-out. I egotistically thought about taking it to a PhD in Mathematics I know to write the equations, then I thought I might solicit help getting it coded.

THEN I thought to myself: A) What are the odds that if we were able to do this and hand it to Dr. Anderson that it would be implemented, B) What are the odds that it could be implemented in a straight-forward manner by everyone who would have to cooperate, C) What are the odds that Dr. Anderson could get everyone who needed to change a little something here or there to do that (although I don't think what I had in mind would cause much of that), D) What are the odds that a PhD at Berkeley is going to lack the insight to do this himself if he wants-to, E) By implementing it across all projects there would be howls and threats and pouting at every single BOINC project and the man would never get a break from all of the protests.

So, I'm left back where I started.

I wish credit stood for something. I wish credits were therefore evenly accounted-for across projects. I wish someone in a position of authority would say something definitive about the situation so that all of this weeping and gnashing of teeth over something that really does not matter would go away.

I think the hope must be that if they are silent for long enough that people will get tired of complaining and accept the new reality.

And you know what? They will.

So how unwise or stupid does that make Dr. Anderson?

My attitude is that I might as well just go home and crunch. The headwinds are just too great and the seas too choppy, even if a one-line, simple, solution were available (and it isn't).

In my opinion, there's nothing to see here, people. I know that most of us here are analytical types and that's why we are drawn to this sort of endeavor. My experience of analytical types is they tend to be competitive as well.


I've been wrong before, so maybe I am this time and that's okay. I don't feel the need to always be right. Still, I don't see that Dr. A has a good way out of the current predicament.

Would anyone here really want Eric to just multiply all of our credits by 1,000,000 for no good reason? Would anyone here feel good about that or find that solution satisfying? Does anyone believe that if a perfect solution were found that there wouldn't be rebellion and dissent?

No?

Let's just give this subject a rest and crunch some radio-astronomical data and see if we can find something interesting.

What do you say, guys?

Please?

... A) What are the odds ....

I realy belive they are lot times less than the odds of realy find an ET signal...

I belive all the claims are not realy about Creditnew itself, is about why now the credit for a processed WU is about 50% (i have not the exact number) of the old ones, ok some could even understand the math (if that is possible) but certanly "bugs" our brains.

That´s way that worry us all, not the number of credits itself.

In the Human world (the one who us all lives), 2 weeks ago each WU receives 100 "meaninglees credits", now the same WU receives 50 "meaninglees credits" so we all feel "we loose something".

In the scientific world (the one Dr. A. lives) nothing was loose, all the avaiable number of WU are allready processed. Maybe a little slower, but the loose of few minutes means nothing on a multiyear project like SETI. And now they have a more scientific value due the added correlation search.

So why he or anyone else will move a finger to do nothing? From their side nothing happens. We are just another bunch of "maniaqs" who blames for anything.

BYe - I need to check my elephant trap... and drink some more beer before he apears...

[/quote]

---

Note: Data for last four days added and revised running average.


I’ve had a look at the data around v7 and v6 WUs and below is a quick observational analysis of my data.

Under v6, I was roughly averaging 100 credits per Work Unit (WU).
Under v7, it seems that the average is sitting around 75-80 credits per WU.
In looking at run-times and taking the outliers out, cpu run time was around 600-660 seconds (10-11 minutes) per WU for v6, and appears to be around 800-1100 seconds (13+ to 18+ minutes) for a v7 WU. CPU time seems to have gone up by a factor of 2-3 from 50-60 seconds for v6 to 90-180 seconds for v7.

So doing a quick Back of the Envelope (10.5/15.83=0.66) shows that from a WU processing/throughput capability, I can expect to do roughly 66% of the volume of WUs that I did before (for example, if I was doing 400 WUs per day under v6, I can now expect to do around 264 WUs per day under v7).

Looking at the impact on credit gives 0.66*0.775 = 0.514 or 51.4%. In essence I can expect that daily credit for v7 will drop to circa 51% of what I was getting under v6.

I am aware of the comments around “that the system needs time to settle down” and that “it thinks all the WUs coming back at the moment are easy, hence the low credit” however, if the system continues to perform as is, then I can expect to see no change from current trajectory.

To test the assumption, I have looked at credit per day for the last 20 days. Below is the data:


2013.05.16 – 244,130
2013.05.17 – 220,168
2013.05.18 – 231,098
2013.05.19 – 226,353
2013.05.20 – 224,723
2013.05.21 – 210,477
2013.05.22 - 0
2013.05.23 – 431,485
2013.05.24 – 229,312
2013.05.25 – 228,767
2013.05.26 – 239,021
2013.05.27 – 231,271
2013.05.28 – 231,050
2013.05.29 – 0
2013.05.30 – 392,635
2013.05.31 – 209,556
2013.06.01 – 123,072
2013.06.02 – 94,061
2013.06.03 – 102,333
2013.06.04 – 99,896
2013.06.05 - 65,653
2013.06.06 - 112,209
2013.06.07 - 102,538
2013.06.08 - 110,760
2013.06.09 - 89,757
2013.06.10 - 96,018
2013.06.11 - 111,653
2013.06.12 - 90,091
2013.06.13 - 119,848
2013.06.14 - 99,884
2013.06.15 - 104,561
2013.06.16 - 110,566



The average daily credit prior to migration was 221,878. Following migration on 1st June, the average daily credit is showing as 102,056 which is circa 46.0% of the previous daily average under v6.

I suspect that many are starting to see their RAC decline, but as RAC is a lagging indicator and is currently composed of v6 and v7 numbers, the end effect is being masked. As this mask evaporates and RAC asymptotes towards the underlying v7 values, I suspect that the grumblings in the forum may get louder.

Also, the average has come up slightly as "the system" has been sending me more "enhanced" wus to do. In looking at granted credit for these wus, they appear to be getting almost twice as much credit as a v7 wu.



Comment on comments

Whilst some are focusing just on credit, the issue is not about credit as such. It’s about recognition.

There are many distributed computing projects to which people contribute resources. The manner and means in which those projects recognise individual contribution is through a system that is based on and allocates credits. Some projects choose to recognise a person’s contribution more than other projects, thus they grant a higher credit rate per contribution for that project. In short, credits are effectively an indication of a person’s contribution to a project.

In the case of "the New Credit System" implemented by Seti, recognition of personal contribution has been reduced. At present, the indication is that recognition for effort is effectively half that of what it was prior to the new recognition system being employed.

---

The lack of interest in correcting a basic flaw in CreditNew within the Boinc Platform may be indicative of an even greater flaw within the Boinc Paradigm.

Boinc was meant to harvest unused CPU cycles.
With newer CPUs going into deep sleep, and GPUs using next to nothing unless taxed, there are no unused cycles to harvest.

Under the Boinc umbrella there are projects paying 100 times the rate that seti@home pays.

The only RAC worth anything is a RAC of 1.
Freedom to express your displeasure.

With newer CPUs going into deep sleep, and GPUs using next to nothing unless taxed, there are no unused cycles to harvest.

Even when people are using their systems, in most cases the CPU spends 95% of it's time doing nothing, and whith many of the current multi-core systems most cores would effectively go unused at all.
That aside, when people aren't using their system, then BOJNC can still run if they choose to run it. If they choose not to, they'll just save more power than they would have in the past.
Systems abilities to go into deeper power saving modes won't have any effect on whether people crunch or not.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

I think its also about what kind of equipment is being used to run Seti. I can only use my own machines as a for instance. My I7 920 running with HT on and a nvdia GTS 250 GPU and running lunatics opp apps was getting around 10,000 RAC before the roll out of V7

I wasnt getting any of the new V7 so i went to stock apps and currently that machine is below 5000 for RAC. So that was a big drop.

My other two machines both I7 3770's with HT on and each having a 550 Ti GPU and running stock apps, Have slowly been increasing in RAC. one is close to 10,000 the other is at over 7,000. ( the 7,000 machine hasnt been in service that long yet.)

So maybe its what kind of hardware we have as to how bad the RAC drops. One can only hope that Lunatics can finally get the OK to start making a unified op app again.

And before anyone says you can modify your app info files to run an opp app. I dont have the skill or the know how to do that.

---

[/quote]

Old James

You miss the point.
In 2004 cpus used pretty much the same power idle or full throttle.
Boinc was touted as harvesting a waste product, nop cycles.

Today data processing is so much more efficient.
People who let their computer run for 3 days to do an AP WU, when an GPU can do the same Wu in 1/2 an hour aren't doing science, but rather destroying the environment.

Boinc is an abomination encouraging inefficient processing.

A dedicated FPGA cluster with optimized programming could do all of seti@home's crunching at a small fraction of what the Boincseti@home energy footprint is.

Boinc isn't distributed computing it's distributed cost with no one minding the pennies.

You miss the point.
In 2004 cpus used pretty much the same power idle or full throttle.
Boinc was touted as harvesting a waste product, nop cycles.

You appear to miss the point- even back then, CPUs used less power when idle than when running at even a partial load.
Seti is about making use of computers while they are running in order to process it's work. The only difference between then & now is that system power saving when idle is much, much greater than it was back then.

Today data processing is so much more efficient.
People who let their computer run for 3 days to do an AP WU, when an GPU can do the same Wu in 1/2 an hour aren't doing science, but rather destroying the environment.

It may not be as effcient as using modern hardware, but they are still doing science. As for the effect on the environment, given the number of people involved in distributed computing and all the other things that people do which have a detrimental effect on the environment, distributed computing such as BOINC has an insignificant effect. Not even a drop in the ocean. So destorying the environment is just slightly over the top, and inaccurate.

A dedicated FPGA cluster with optimized programming could do all of seti@home's crunching at a small fraction of what the Boincseti@home energy footprint is.

If only the projects had the $$$$$$$$ in order to buy the time to make use of these wondrously efficient systems.

Boinc isn't distributed computing it's distributed cost with no one minding the pennies.

The crunchers mind the cost- if it costs too much, they stop doing it. Like most other volunteer projects- people donate what they can afford. If they can't afford it anymore, they stop.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

You miss the point.
In 2004 cpus used pretty much the same power idle or full throttle.
Boinc was touted as harvesting a waste product, nop cycles.

Today data processing is so much more efficient.
People who let their computer run for 3 days to do an AP WU, when an GPU can do the same Wu in 1/2 an hour aren't doing science, but rather destroying the environment.

Boinc is an abomination encouraging inefficient processing.

A dedicated FPGA cluster with optimized programming could do all of seti@home's crunching at a small fraction of what the Boincseti@home energy footprint is.

Boinc isn't distributed computing it's distributed cost with no one minding the pennies.

You miss the point! First you grouse about your RAC falling. Now you say BOINC is wastefull. Your computers are hidden so we cant see if you are running all GPU's.
According to the greenies running any kind of electronic device is destroying the enviroment.

---

[/quote]

Old James

One can only hope that Lunatics can finally get the OK to start making a unified op app again.

Not sure what you mean by that- i'm running the latest Lunatics optimised applications.
Lunatics optimised installer

---

Grant
Darwin NT

One can only hope that Lunatics can finally get the OK to start making a unified op app again.

Not sure what you mean by that- i'm running the latest Lunatics optimised applications.
Lunatics optimised installer

A unified version, that dosent require the user to do anything but download and check a few boxes.

---

[/quote]

Old James

That´s exactly what the new installer does.

---

One can only hope that Lunatics can finally get the OK to start making a unified op app again.

Not sure what you mean by that- i'm running the latest Lunatics optimised applications.
Lunatics optimised installer

A unified version, that dosent require the user to do anything but download and check a few boxes.

As Juan said, that's what it is & does.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

All you guys are right. I was looking for the word unifeid and thats why I thought that it was a manual install. Thtas what I get for thinking.

---

[/quote]

Old James

You miss the point.
In 2004 cpus used pretty much the same power idle or full throttle.
Boinc was touted as harvesting a waste product, nop cycles.

Today data processing is so much more efficient.
People who let their computer run for 3 days to do an AP WU, when an GPU can do the same Wu in 1/2 an hour aren't doing science, but rather destroying the environment.

Boinc is an abomination encouraging inefficient processing.

A dedicated FPGA cluster with optimized programming could do all of seti@home's crunching at a small fraction of what the Boincseti@home energy footprint is.

Boinc isn't distributed computing it's distributed cost with no one minding the pennies.

Neither Boinc nor seti was designed to run 24/7.
It is designed to use unused cycles while you are on your computer anyways.
What we are doing is nothing but our own decision.
Nothing we can blame boinc for IMHO.

---

With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Neither Boinc nor seti was designed to run 24/7.
It is designed to use unused cycles while you are on your computer anyways.
What we are doing is nothing but our own decision.
Nothing we can blame boinc for IMHO.

+1

Just to annoy someone...

Cheers.

A dedicated FPGA cluster with optimized programming could do all of seti@home's crunching at a small fraction of what the Boincseti@home energy footprint is.

Einstein@Home uses their own built Atlas cluster.
As per BM: Atlas currently has 6720 cores in 1680 nodes. Add 66 GPU nodes with 4 CPU cores and 4 NVIDIA Tesla cards (C1060 and C2050) each.

And they still need our help.

---

You don't have to run anything, just turn your computer off and save money. ;-)

Cheers.

10 years later we have GPUs, 8 core CPUs, 100 watt sleep mode, and 1000 watt gangbuster mode.

Making up numbers doesn't help your argument, i'd suggest you try using some actual power use values.

Boinc isn't harvesting spare cpu cycles, it's pushing distributed computing at horrific inefficiencies.

Can't argue with you there as you don't appear to understand what distributed computing is about.
Once again, the facts appear irrelevant to you.

Boinc really isn't about science, it's social.

You're confusing BOINC, with projects that use it.
BOINC isn't about science- it's about distributed computing.
For most people, it's about the project. For others the Credits. For some the social aspects would be important.

It used to be a running joke that the seti@home participants couldn't know if they were really doing calculations for the CIA.

Only amongst the clueless, paranoid & clinically disturbed.

I'm sure there are Boinc projects sending work out to witless crunchers, attracted by stellar credit returns, that amounts to nothing more than Bitcoin mining.

There probably are, but then it's a reflection of the people that choose those projects over others than any reflection of the BOINC framework.

Seti@home worked fine before Boinc.

And there is the most ignorant & ludicrous statement you have made so far. The problems with the original pre-BOINC project have been gone over many times in the past.

Tis truely the season for nutters.

---

Grant
Darwin NT