I've always thought that seti@home was kind of dumb, but folding@home seemed to be much more useful. From what little I understand about it, we're on the verge of a "protein folding revolution"...
I've always thought that seti@home was kind of dumb, but folding@home seemed to be much more useful. From what little I understand about it, we're on the verge of a "protein folding revolution" which is going to have major advancement in medical treatments.
Distributed computing is still around, but I think that cryptocurrency kind of took the wind out of it's sails. What is mining if it's not distributed computing?
Mining is DC. If somehow the SETI or Folding (or other) could have figured out the compensation. Its why folk mined with their "free" cycles - the possibility of reward. Rent your CPU could still...
Mining is DC. If somehow the SETI or Folding (or other) could have figured out the compensation. Its why folk mined with their "free" cycles - the possibility of reward.
Rent your CPU could still be a thing. But the payoff function needs to be figured out.
This was an interesting read. I think the researchers are correct that interest leans more towards projects where volunteers that can have direct involvement, or at least some tangible...
This was an interesting read. I think the researchers are correct that interest leans more towards projects where volunteers that can have direct involvement, or at least some tangible product/result that the volunteers can understand. Like, the results of SETI or Folding wouldn't be easily accessed or understood by the average person. Helping science advance is one thing, but ultimately I can see people losing interest once the novelty wears off. Giving them reason to be actively engaged beyond just donating their computer's power would change that.
The specific case to come to mind is Mangadex, which uses distributed computing to help alleviate bandwidth costs and stress. Volunteers' computers host cached images, so all the older manga chapters are basically pulled from other users instead of the servers. So ultimately, the end result is tangible, or as tangible as a website can be. Since all of the volunteers would be using Mangadex to read manga anyway... Well, I don't think they need to worry about interest waning.
That appeal obviously isn't as easily replicated with scientific research that, as stated earlier, isn't quite as tangible, though. And I'm not sure how to best incorporate user engagement. It sounds like Folding just needed the computer power, and I doubt some "membership-only newsletter" or similar exclusive content would have enough longterm appeal to be incentive. As the article noted, a lot of the research is ultimately just... Boring to normal people. They'd have to get pretty creative about any additional incentives.
As someone whose immediate thought was "Oh, like the Electric Sheep screensaver?" this article was a great read for me to learn more about Distributed Computing!
As someone whose immediate thought was "Oh, like the Electric Sheep screensaver?" this article was a great read for me to learn more about Distributed Computing!
I found projects like Minecraft@Home really interesting - basicially, using Folding but instead of solving complex protein folding, rather to find the seeds for various iconic, but unknown,...
I found projects like Minecraft@Home really interesting - basicially, using Folding but instead of solving complex protein folding, rather to find the seeds for various iconic, but unknown, Minecraft worlds (after a lot of pre-filtering was done using maths I barely understand, as searching the entire search space is a ludicrous effort). For example, the pack.png screen that has been in Minecraft since early Alpha.
As someone who lived through the SETI@home craze, I miss it. Everyone was hoping they'd be the one to find a signal, and when it ran it just looked really cool. Like your spare cycles were doing...
As someone who lived through the SETI@home craze, I miss it. Everyone was hoping they'd be the one to find a signal, and when it ran it just looked really cool. Like your spare cycles were doing something for the good of humanity.
Anyone else remember Folding@Home on the PS3? That thing was a beast when it came out. If I remember rightly the US Army even used a cluster of them as a supercomputer for a while
Anyone else remember Folding@Home on the PS3? That thing was a beast when it came out. If I remember rightly the US Army even used a cluster of them as a supercomputer for a while
I've always thought that seti@home was kind of dumb, but folding@home seemed to be much more useful. From what little I understand about it, we're on the verge of a "protein folding revolution" which is going to have major advancement in medical treatments.
Distributed computing is still around, but I think that cryptocurrency kind of took the wind out of it's sails. What is mining if it's not distributed computing?
Mining is DC. If somehow the SETI or Folding (or other) could have figured out the compensation. Its why folk mined with their "free" cycles - the possibility of reward.
Rent your CPU could still be a thing. But the payoff function needs to be figured out.
This was an interesting read. I think the researchers are correct that interest leans more towards projects where volunteers that can have direct involvement, or at least some tangible product/result that the volunteers can understand. Like, the results of SETI or Folding wouldn't be easily accessed or understood by the average person. Helping science advance is one thing, but ultimately I can see people losing interest once the novelty wears off. Giving them reason to be actively engaged beyond just donating their computer's power would change that.
The specific case to come to mind is Mangadex, which uses distributed computing to help alleviate bandwidth costs and stress. Volunteers' computers host cached images, so all the older manga chapters are basically pulled from other users instead of the servers. So ultimately, the end result is tangible, or as tangible as a website can be. Since all of the volunteers would be using Mangadex to read manga anyway... Well, I don't think they need to worry about interest waning.
That appeal obviously isn't as easily replicated with scientific research that, as stated earlier, isn't quite as tangible, though. And I'm not sure how to best incorporate user engagement. It sounds like Folding just needed the computer power, and I doubt some "membership-only newsletter" or similar exclusive content would have enough longterm appeal to be incentive. As the article noted, a lot of the research is ultimately just... Boring to normal people. They'd have to get pretty creative about any additional incentives.
As someone whose immediate thought was "Oh, like the Electric Sheep screensaver?" this article was a great read for me to learn more about Distributed Computing!
I found projects like Minecraft@Home really interesting - basicially, using Folding but instead of solving complex protein folding, rather to find the seeds for various iconic, but unknown, Minecraft worlds (after a lot of pre-filtering was done using maths I barely understand, as searching the entire search space is a ludicrous effort). For example, the pack.png screen that has been in Minecraft since early Alpha.
As someone who lived through the SETI@home craze, I miss it. Everyone was hoping they'd be the one to find a signal, and when it ran it just looked really cool. Like your spare cycles were doing something for the good of humanity.
Or maybe I just miss screen savers.
Anyone else remember Folding@Home on the PS3? That thing was a beast when it came out. If I remember rightly the US Army even used a cluster of them as a supercomputer for a while
I'm reminded of the teacher who installed Seti on a bunch of machines without permission (or with hazy permission) who got fired for doing so: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2766238/seti-home-in-spotlight-after-it-chief-loses-job.html
Or this worker who did the same: https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/09/1740239/worker-fired-for-running-seti-on-state-owned-pcs