LHC@home

I am wondering if we should have a couple of warnings about intermittent work. We keep getting complaints from people who object to the current work pattern on this project, and in some cases these complaints come from newcomers.

My suggestion is to add two warnings to the sign up process, in the "Rules and Policies" and actually on the sign up page.

In "Rules and Policies" a short section could be added near the top explaining that this project is only expected to have intermittent work for the forseeable future. Under the other projects section the point about using other projects to fill the gaps in LHC could be expanded to make it clear that this is expected to happen. That section could perhaps end with a comment like "If you do not join other projects as well, then your computer will be idle much of the time. If you want to join just one project then we suggest LHC is not for you".

On the sign up page, I'd suggest a comment like "This project only has intermittent work - please do not sign up expecting to be supplied work continuously. (See Rules and Policies)"

The fact that all the other projects do supply work 24/365 does seem to create an expectation that all projects should do this. While that expectation is unreasonable, it does exist and in my view it would be fair to everyone if it could be countered at the point where new folks come in the door.

River~~

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Good idea.

Hopefully this project will reduce the expectations on other projects that there should always be work. I know of at least two more projects that will likely have intermittant work patterns in testing phases now, BURP and Leiden classical. Work supply at BURP will be completely dependant on user submissions and is sporatic now, but I have hopes that it will be more regular by the time it goes public. Leiden currently has a mostly stable work supply but it is for testing purposes, once it goes public it will also mostly be based on user submissions for generating work.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

I is understood that you cannot supply WUs continuously but in not-so-far-away future there is tremendous amount of work expected.

What am I trying to suggest is not to use idle computer time capacity of BOINC participants only but also their programming skill. If you check SETI and Eistein projects, volunteers from BOINC community succeeded to optimize the code to speed the calculations 3 - 5 times keeping in their mind that calculations and results must be consistent with originally coded programs.

Possibly you may be also interested in "dusting-out" your code to make it similarly effective and "under your control".

I is understood that you cannot supply WUs continuously but in not-so-far-away future there is tremendous amount of work expected.

What am I trying to suggest is not to use idle computer time capacity of BOINC participants only but also their programming skill. If you check SETI and Eistein projects, volunteers from BOINC community succeeded to optimize the code to speed the calculations 3 - 5 times keeping in their mind that calculations and results must be consistent with originally coded programs.

Possibly you may be also interested in "dusting-out" your code to make it similarly effective and "under your control".

The use of optimised clients has been explored in these forums before. SixTrack is a benchmark application used for the optimisation of Fortran compilers. As such, its object code is already optimised by default. The requirement for extreme numerical accuracy means that an apparent optimisation of source code could introduce small differences in the numerical output between standard source code and any 'optimised' version. All this has been explored and rejected in the beta phase of the project running from September 2004.

In short, external development isn't going to happen.

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Gaspode the UnDressed
http://www.littlevale.co.uk

I knew that before I started LHC. It's not like me to do to much unpaid research. Are we sure it's not mentioned somewhere, like upstream links?

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Click here to join the #1 Aussie Alliance on LHC.

I knew that before I started LHC. It's not like me to do to much unpaid research. Are we sure it's not mentioned somewhere, like upstream links?

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I agree that it should be in the rules and procedures......

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I posted something not exactly rude but probably too OT and therefore have censored myself.

Sorry.

(Yes, I do have too much time on my hands and it's about time I went back to looking for a proper job. Anyone in Toulouse need a bilingual chartered accountant with a Windows 2003 MCSA ?)

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sQuonk
Plague of Mice
Intel Core i3-9100 CPU@3.60 GHz, but it's doing its bit just the same.