I can't convince ANYONE to run any of these protein folding apps. I must be doing it wrong. Or maybe people just don't care about finding a cure for disease until it happens to them.


Even if I can't convince someone to run Rosetta@Home, I would encourage them to at least
run SETI@Home just for sake of making sure they understand the contributions of distributed computing . That gives me hope that I may be able to convince them later that Rosetta@Home is more important than SETI@Home.

I encountered one such argument where I was told he'd rather donate the money directly to Folding@Home than to pay the electricity bill to run it on his own computer. I'm looking to forming a reasonable argument against that.

I encountered another argument, that the CPU will run hotter. unfortunately this is somewhat true. Newer CPUs have SpeedStep that will reduce the voltage when not in use automatically. I'm not sure how to justify.

try giving them links like this http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-06-04-researchathome_x.htm

I can't convince ANYONE to run any of these protein folding apps. I must be doing it wrong. Or maybe people just don't care about finding a cure for disease until it happens to them.


Even if I can't convince someone to run Rosetta@Home, I would encourage them to at least
run SETI@Home just for sake of making sure they understand the contributions of distributed computing . That gives me hope that I may be able to convince them later that Rosetta@Home is more important than SETI@Home.

I encountered one such argument where I was told he'd rather donate the money directly to Folding@Home than to pay the electricity bill to run it on his own computer. I'm looking to forming a reasonable argument against that.

I encountered another argument, that the CPU will run hotter. unfortunately this is somewhat true. Newer CPUs have SpeedStep that will reduce the voltage when not in use automatically. I'm not sure how to justify.

...

I encountered one such argument where I was told he'd rather donate the money directly to Folding@Home than to pay the electricity bill to run it on his own computer. I'm looking to forming a reasonable argument against that.

I bought one of these to measure how much power the systems in my "crunch farm" are using.

The two dual core boxes (E2200s) draw 80 watts each, while the two Celeron systems draw 110 watts. These are scheduled to be replaced, I'm planning on building a couple of quad core boxes.

80 watts means a unit of electricity (one KWh) every 12 hours, or two units a day. Since I pay 13 cents / KWh, this works out to about a quarter a day for each of the dualies, and maybe 35 cents / day for each of the Celerons. Put this another way. If I turned off all four crunch systems, it wouldn't even pay for a daily latte from Starbucks.

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Join on in the discussion @ pbs.org! If these people aren't ideal targets for recruitment, I don't know who is!



http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=104552

Join on in the discussion @ pbs.org! If these people aren't ideal targets for recruitment, I don't know who is!



http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=104552

I attempted to register there so I could join the discussion, and got a 500 Internal Server Error. Maybe it's overloaded with people trying to join the discussion?

(deleted - duplicate)

Rosetta@home apparantly had problems with my reply above, and posted it 3 times.

I was finally able to register and join the discussion.

Before today, I think I persuaded 3 people to participate in BOINC projects, although for one of them, the BOINC project wasn't at Rosetta@home. That one has already created an account, although not at Rosetta@home.

Today, I wrote a short file about how to participate in such projects, with Rosetta@home and Foldit near the top of the list, printed 10 copies, and was able to hand out 7 of them at a place for getting flu shots. One person said she was thinking of running it on one of her computers, and telling a few relatives about it. Most of the others said they would pass it on to relatives better at running computers than they were, some of them already sick with conditions that BOINC projects intend to help.

Still, that's only a fraction of the people I have suggested BOINC projects to.

It seems to help if you give them the information, but don't ask for an immediate answer on whether they plan to do anything with it, but this means that there are likely to be people you persuade that never tell you so.

you could ask them to join your team if they join to see how their work units are doing and help them report any problems....i posted some copies about rosetta at local libraries some will let me use their community board and some wont

Before today, I think I persuaded 3 people to participate in BOINC projects, although for one of them, the BOINC project wasn't at Rosetta@home. That one has already created an account, although not at Rosetta@home.

Today, I wrote a short file about how to participate in such projects, with Rosetta@home and Foldit near the top of the list, printed 10 copies, and was able to hand out 7 of them at a place for getting flu shots. One person said she was thinking of running it on one of her computers, and telling a few relatives about it. Most of the others said they would pass it on to relatives better at running computers than they were, some of them already sick with conditions that BOINC projects intend to help.

Still, that's only a fraction of the people I have suggested BOINC projects to.

It seems to help if you give them the information, but don't ask for an immediate answer on whether they plan to do anything with it, but this means that there are likely to be people you persuade that never tell you so.

I no longer drive, so it's hard for me to get to a public library. I send the information mostly through newsgroups, or give it to people within walking distance. The mayor of this city was recently within walking distance, so I told her about BOINC projects. She gave me a way to find the email address for a local building with dozens of medical research groups, so I sent them some instructions. Occasionally, I find a suitable email address on the web, such as one for contacting a TV station, and send the information by email.

I've found a way to read newsgroups for biology researchers, so I occasionally get a suitable email address that way. I doubt that I can send anything to those newsgroups - that seems to be restricted to people at universities or colleges, working on biology research.

you could ask them to join your team if they join to see how their work units are doing and help them report any problems....i posted some copies about rosetta at local libraries some will let me use their community board and some wont

Before today, I think I persuaded 3 people to participate in BOINC projects, although for one of them, the BOINC project wasn't at Rosetta@home. That one has already created an account, although not at Rosetta@home.

Today, I wrote a short file about how to participate in such projects, with Rosetta@home and Foldit near the top of the list, printed 10 copies, and was able to hand out 7 of them at a place for getting flu shots. One person said she was thinking of running it on one of her computers, and telling a few relatives about it. Most of the others said they would pass it on to relatives better at running computers than they were, some of them already sick with conditions that BOINC projects intend to help.

Still, that's only a fraction of the people I have suggested BOINC projects to.

It seems to help if you give them the information, but don't ask for an immediate answer on whether they plan to do anything with it, but this means that there are likely to be people you persuade that never tell you so.

looks like your doing your part to let people know of rosetta it has been in a lot of news articles in the past...i know when i joined the tflops were at 29 ....that was a little over 2 years ago and now it looks like its in the high 70s hopfully we hit that 150 mark soon and put it to good use...

I no longer drive, so it's hard for me to get to a public library. I send the information mostly through newsgroups, or give it to people within walking distance. The mayor of this city was recently within walking distance, so I told her about BOINC projects. She gave me a way to find the email address for a local building with dozens of medical research groups, so I sent them some instructions. Occasionally, I find a suitable email address on the web, such as one for contacting a TV station, and send the information by email.

I've found a way to read newsgroups for biology researchers, so I occasionally get a suitable email address that way. I doubt that I can send anything to those newsgroups - that seems to be restricted to people at universities or colleges, working on biology research.

you could ask them to join your team if they join to see how their work units are doing and help them report any problems....i posted some copies about rosetta at local libraries some will let me use their community board and some wont

Before today, I think I persuaded 3 people to participate in BOINC projects, although for one of them, the BOINC project wasn't at Rosetta@home. That one has already created an account, although not at Rosetta@home.

Today, I wrote a short file about how to participate in such projects, with Rosetta@home and Foldit near the top of the list, printed 10 copies, and was able to hand out 7 of them at a place for getting flu shots. One person said she was thinking of running it on one of her computers, and telling a few relatives about it. Most of the others said they would pass it on to relatives better at running computers than they were, some of them already sick with conditions that BOINC projects intend to help.

Still, that's only a fraction of the people I have suggested BOINC projects to.

It seems to help if you give them the information, but don't ask for an immediate answer on whether they plan to do anything with it, but this means that there are likely to be people you persuade that never tell you so.

I think that trying to recruit individuals, is going to be harder than getting them to join a group with a common aim. Try to find a common theme among a number of people and start up a team for them. Let them compete in a friendly fashion for RAC and crunching position. This can be as individuals in a team, or teams V's teams.

People like seeing their names in print as cruncher of the month etc, friendly rivalry between teams is also good. Plus they are also crunching for a good cause as well. Most people get involved in DC by personal word of mouth and recommendation from friends.

Just my 4c worth....

I've convinced a few people to try, but I think most have given up after a while.

Now I just try to write about it on my personal blog once in a while (I've made a page about distributed computing that I link back to) and hope that this will inspire some people to try it. I've also started a new team for the Lifeboat Foundation (lifeboat.com) and we now have 15 members. Hard to know if they were already crunching before or if they joined because of the new team, though..

I'd really love to be able to recruit a big player, such as a university or a company, but I don't have the contacts for that right now.

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I've convinced a few people to try, but I think most have given up after a while.

Now I just try to write about it on my personal blog once in a while (I've made a page about distributed computing that I link back to) and hope that this will inspire some people to try it. I've also started a new team for the Lifeboat Foundation (lifeboat.com) and we now have 15 members. Hard to know if they were already crunching before or if they joined because of the new team, though..

I'd really love to be able to recruit a big player, such as a university or a company, but I don't have the contacts for that right now.

Did you go to a university that doesn't have a team yet? If so, they may be more likely to participate if you can persuade someone still there to start a team for that university.

Do you read newsgroups? If so, you may want to write something on which BOINC projects are trying to help a specific condition, and post it to a newsgroup for that condition. For example I've thought of mentioning the three projects I've found so far that are trying to help cancer researchers (Rosetta@home is one of them), looking through the 15 or so newsgroups, I've found related to cancer, and posting it to the ones that use English. So far, I haven't found time for this, though. Mentioning a team name related to cancer could help with that, especially if that team has been set up at all three projects.

I'd really love to be able to recruit a big player, such as a university or a company, but I don't have the contacts for that right now.

I've tried to get several major companies that I have worked for to try and I have been unsuccessful. Usually, the reason is security. So I started presenting the idea while simultaneously showing that it is safe. Now green initiatives get in the way. It would be really neat, though, because companies copy eachother all the time - they are very much trend followers. If you got one big company to roll it out, you'd be sure to get a few more. That would be huge.

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Do you think it would help the security concerns if the hosts all go through a proxy system that is local to the enterprise? That can audit all incoming and outgoing data? They could even run an exit program against all outgoing data to confirm nothing sensitive is going out. And in using the proxy, they would also be minimizing the internet bandwidth requirements of the hosts.

...just thinking out loud... best way to get them to trust BOINC is to get them to USE BOINC. What could one do with BOINC that a corporate environment might benefit from crunching against their own data? Does anyone know of any BOINC projects with a business, rather then scientific emphasis?

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Do you think it would help the security concerns if the hosts all go through a proxy system that is local to the enterprise? That can audit all incoming and outgoing data? They could even run an exit program against all outgoing data to confirm nothing sensitive is going out. And in using the proxy, they would also be minimizing the internet bandwidth requirements of the hosts.

...just thinking out loud... best way to get them to trust BOINC is to get them to USE BOINC. What could one do with BOINC that a corporate environment might benefit from crunching against their own data? Does anyone know of any BOINC projects with a business, rather then scientific emphasis?

The World Computing Grid is part of IBM, but neither making money for them nor officially non-profit yet.

Superlink@Technion doesn't state whether they're non-profit, and didn't respond to my request for such information, so there's a chance they are for profit.

Do you think it would help the security concerns if the hosts all go through a proxy system that is local to the enterprise? That can audit all incoming and outgoing data? They could even run an exit program against all outgoing data to confirm nothing sensitive is going out. And in using the proxy, they would also be minimizing the internet bandwidth requirements of the hosts.

...just thinking out loud... best way to get them to trust BOINC is to get them to USE BOINC. What could one do with BOINC that a corporate environment might benefit from crunching against their own data? Does anyone know of any BOINC projects with a business, rather then scientific emphasis?

I am sure there are many ways to prove it is safe. However, unless the firm's uptick in electricity becomes a charitable, tax-deductible contribution you won't get them to even try. Also, I think it would cost something to set it up in a large firm and get it to work right. Damn it would be cool, though. Next time I become good friends with a CEO of a 75k+ employee firm I will make sure we get our day in the sun.

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In the last few days, I found email addresses for about half a dozen blogs, charities or research groups related to cancer, and told all of them about the three BOINC projects I've found that are working on cancer research.

No word yet on which of them decided to do anything about it.