Worthy project search; all DCers should read and respond

[Allerio]

Does anyone else feel as I do in the opinion that most all of our DC projects are not truly worth our time? Surely things like rc5, ogr, and seti are good DC candidates, but what is the true value of the results? I know what the claims of rc5 and ogr are, and I'm not challenging those. I also agree that the discovery of extra terrestrial life would be a great discovery. But realisically, are these projects the best ways to spend our cpu cycles?

IMO, a much better project is the think project for UD, and I am currently running that on systems with the commercial projects of UD disabled. Curing cancer, or making an attempt at it, seems like a much more worthy project. Still though, 1 project is not enough. I think everyone here, as the esteemed TA members who are top-ranked competitors in nearly every major DC project running, should think of some projects that could be 1) practically made into a DC project i.e. computationally intensive,and 2) would make a significant contribution to the "greater good."

I'm a computer engineering college student, comp enthusiast(nerd), and a hopeful upcoming comp tycoon, and I am definitely looking in this direction as my life cause. We have so much power bottled up in millions of these boxes that sit under our desks. United they can do great things, and I think we should utilize this power as best we can.

Sorry for being kinda spacey and "out-there", but I would really appreciate some posts with ideas, or comments about this kind of thing. Thanks a bunch.

AA

 

[BurntKooshie]

OGR has many real-world benefits. Some include the optimal spacing for telescopes in space, so we'd use the least amount of material for the best results. I belive it also has applications in x-ray cryptography...or something complex that I don't understand. RC5? Yeah, it's basically useless I still have computers running it though. I want the project OVER!

There are real applications in the UD clients too, (cancer research), as you mentioned.

 

[MereMortal]

I would guess that most people do not share your opinion. Many have invested large amounts of time and energy on projects that started well before the UD project was a glimmer in some programmer's eye--and they would like to see these projects to completion.

Now as to the worthiness of a project. There are a number of criteria to consider, of which you only mentioned one. Some of the other issues involved are interesting project topic, project feedback, length of the project, feasibility of completion, and cost.

Participating in a project that the benefits the 'greater good' sounds noble. The reality of the matter is that people pay for their computers, pay to run them, and will participate in projects that they find interesting. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In the end, there is no guarantee that projects like the UD project will produce a significant contribution to humanity. And if it doesn't produce, you can use the project to pave the road to hell.

So find a project you like, and roll with it!

 

[CurtOien]

If we find ETI, they may give us the rest of the answers.

 

[Robor]

I think your motives are good but they are not new. This exact discussion has been gone over time and time again. The problem is most people, myself included, are already involved in DC projects and they don't want to change. I've been doing SETI@Home for over 2 years now and I'm not going to switch. Plus I feel the project is worthy as it benefits the scientific community and it's fun competition.

Here's some questions I have for the UD project... Does UD have several clients to cover different OS's in both GUI and command line? Can you queue "work units" for the client and use a proxy? Can the UD client be hidden? Can it be run as a service under NT/2000? Are individual and team statistics available? Is there team competition like SETI, RC5, OGR, etc? Until the answer to all of those questions is "yes" the UD project will never get the support of dedicated (hard core) DC participants.

And the number one problem I have with UD is (and correct me if I'm wrong) the client is set by default to be used for commercial projects. If the UD project really wanted to cure cancer it would devote 100% of the CPU time to that effort. This is not the case...

Rob

 

[rc5]

UD stinks.

 

[Poof]

I think the issue comes down to having a choice of running different "categories" of distributed computing projects based on your interest... Whether it be Cryptography/Computing (RC5), Math/Physics (OGR), Math/Statistics (PRIME), Astronomy/Physics (SETI), Chemical/Biological/Medical (UD, F@H, G@H), etc., all were put together with a goal in mind and all have real-world usefulness and impact on some aspect of our society, in those particular fields.

The fact that the research is being done in a distributed manner was mainly due to a Project having a question needing to be answered and being unable to book time on a super-computer to get that answer.

 

[Allerio]

Hey, I think you guys got me way wrong here. I'm not busting on any of the current projects like seti, ogr, or rc5. I think any DC project is excellent because it utilizes the power of the things we already have. And I know this is a discussion that has gone on time and time again... but that's not the point. It still needs to be discussed. I want to hear ideas for new projects... Thas all. Things that you guys think would make a good project. I was using Think from UD as an idea for a good project. I also agree that its wrong for UD to run commercial, and that's why I turned comemrcial off. I forgot F@H, but I also think that is a great idea. The knowledge gained from that project can be used to make great technological advances i.e. nanotechnology. This kinda stuff. I just want to hear other peoples ideas...