What's the Point?

[wviperw]

I don't get it. What is the point of all this distributed computing stuff. As you can tell, I am new to this. I just don't get why people would be so in to this.

If I understand correctly, you download a program which calculates the next prime number or whatever. You run this thing mostly overnight. You join a team, such as Anandtech, and the team with the most calculations wins. Doesn't this just limit the life of your CPU?

What would be a reason why I would want to do this? For the joy of beating another team?

 

[pdo]

I doing it to get the most out of what I'm paying for and to give back to what this board has given me. When was the last time you have a CPU's going bad on you?

 

[Engineer]

Stats....Races....Beating the Borg..(hehe!)....AND beating /. and the DPC (other worldly teams!!!)

It's just like any other race......Just a bunch of guys and gals racing others and hoping to win the race and have fun along the way...!!!

Hang around awhile and read a few posts..... You'll see what I mean!!!



P.S. My referral is for RC5 only..But the others have similar races and fun

ROTFLMAO @ the post below...

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[Russ]

The point is to dominate, decimate, devastate, and destroy all who lay before you.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Shasta]

Some people enjoy watching the stats =)

You might be in this category, since I noticed you not only spec'd out your system, but even gave us two temperatures.

I just like to keep my cows busy, myself...and I like to change the message on my proxy, too.

 

[JimMc]

Beat the Commies!! And the Dutch (I swear their female swimmer is on HGH or something).

Check this link RC5 team Standings. TeamAnandTech is sandwiched between those godless reds and an even more sinister force, the Dutch Power Cows. I don't exactly know what's going on, but a country full of people wearing wooden shoes can't possibly have that many computers. There is national pride at stake, you gonna join or head for Canada?

BTW, it is a good measure of CPU stability, the stats are interesting and it's never a bad thing to learn something new. Give it a try.

 

[Engineer]

JimMc,

Team Anandtech prides itself of being a "Worldwide" team ....We have Dutch, Austrailians, English, and *gulp* Canadians + many more.....It's a Worldwide team pride thing

 

[MWalkden]

Some people enjoy the competitive side of it (in fact a great deal do) , but it isn't the only reason.

RC5-64 is an encryption scheme. The distributed net client downloads keys and processes them to unlock that encryption code (not exactly, you have to go to DNET for all the papers on it). It demonstrates the power of the encryption code by seeing how much computing power it takes to break the code (i.e. find the correct key). With 100red's of thousands of computers doing it, over a 1000 days, it's kind of impressive! The fact that a piece of software as simple as the client can be used to do this distributed effort is more amazing!

The project has quite a bit of statistics that are generated and many people like to work with those numbers (making predictions, etc.). It is set up by design (to attract folks) as a team environment. AnandTech sponsors one such team.

You'll find that almost everyone here feels they are showing support for Anand by contributing to this project. It's their way of saying 'Thanks" to Anand for all his years of excellent information of the products available to us all.

Yes, I suppose running a CPU at 100% continually may cause failure, but very few, if any, have experienced that sort of problem. I guess most of them figure they wouldn't have such great CPUs if it weren't for Anand.

We would love it if you joined (Maybe you already have, excuse me if so) You'll find there are very intelligent folks willing to give their time freely to help in just about anything. We have a multitude of operating system guru's, the GameBox, overclockers everywhere!

Hope this helps!


[Edit]Spelling, structure[/Edit]

 

[Russ]

The point is to defeat, crush and humiliate your enemies, and take their women.

Russ, NCNE

 

[wviperw]

Wow! 8 replies in only 20 minutes. I think I am going to try RC5. I downloaded it already. One thing I need to know is, do I need to be connected to the internet whenever I am running RC5? I ask this because I have a 26400 connection w/ a free internet service provider (juno). I wouldn't be able to be connected online overnight since juno disconnects me.

 

[Engineer]

<< The point is to defeat, crush and humiliate your enemies, and take their women. >>



Russ, you sound like Conan the Barbarian...

 

[Russ]

wviperw,

You can configure is to load up a nice chunk of feed for your cow to munch on while you're off line.

Russ, NCNE

 

[SSP]

[l]There is national pride at stake, you gonna join or head for Canada?[/l]

No point in coming up here. We're assimilating as fast as we can... Muahahahah

 

[sciencewhiz]

wviperw,

Russ has a preconfigured disk that will set you cracking. This will automatically download enough work for dialup connections.

Also we have a FAQ entitled What is distributed computing which should answer at least part of your first question.

 

[Wellcky]

It's an excuse to get out of homework!

 

[Pinball]

<< The point is to defeat, crush and humiliate your enemies, and take their women. >>

:Q I never heard of that last perk.. It'll be a busy day for 7of9 when we win

 

[SilverBack]

But Pinball, whats the use?
All you can do is oil the women
LOL

 

[KifArU]

JimMc:

No, she's not. We just have some great swimmers in the olympic team.

Paulson:

Come to The Netherlands, lots of nice women here.


Not all dutch are like the DPC-trolls coming here.

Thijs

 

[Engineer]

<< All you can do is oil the women >>



Da#nit, where did I put that can of WD-40......

LOL!!!

 

[MWalkden]

I'm liken' this point!

 

[Assimilator1]

wviperw

Another Distributed computing project is SETI@home ,this 1 downloads chunks of radio data which has been recorded by the Arecibo telescope &amp; then searches through this data to look for Alien signals.
Doing it as part of the team just makes it more fun with races &amp; stats as well as taking down other teams .
If your interested checkout my sigs .

BTW how long are you planning on keeping your cpu? Intels quoted average life span is 7 yrs! (not including overclocking of course) ,do you think you will still have it in 3 yrs ? let alone 7.

 

[Wolfie]

I like to do this to help AT and to give back what I have gotten from this board. I also do it to be with a &quot;family&quot; I didn't have. And this TEAM is more of a family then I have seen in over 5 years.....

Wolf

 

[NakaNaka]

<< The point is to dominate, decimate, devastate, and destroy all who lay before you >>



As you can tell, Russ is like our coach and motivational speaker guy HA!

RC5 is fun and I do it mostly for Stats and because if we win it gives a 1000 bucks to Anandtech which is nothing for everything he has given us in this great website and BBS ...

Also, the people that hang here at DC are a lot cooler than everyone else ... IMO

 

[blade47]

I thought I'd add to what everyone else said by saying the guys in the DCF are the best. If you have a question about overclocking, networking or just about anything, if you post it in here the guys will quickly help you out. Just try posting a networking question in another forum and then drop it in here and see which gets answered first.

These are some of the most helpful people I've seen anywhere on the net. So if anyone is looking for a good group of well meaning friendly people this is the place to be. This is the reason I joined Team Anand Tech.

BTW the stats aren't half bad either.