Cellarnoise2 - post 3 ....

[cellarnoise2]

I don't mind a new place to b.s., but there must be some issues over at the Anand forums for this to exist?

Anyway, I have been getting back into geeky level of puters and I like the idea of health / cancer research. So I plan on adding puters slowly over time to the primarily health research end of things until I don't

Plus I recently trolled TTony over on the SetiGermany WCG challenge shoutbox page and got a few laughs at that.

I would appreciate what should not be said over on Anand, so I don't get into trouble...

[cellarnoise2]

Why does this site exist?

Are posts moderated before being posted? I thought I submitted a post, but don't see it...

Hope you are all safe and healthy!

This is a test

[cellarnoise2]

Sorry, I now see that this forum's posts are moderated before group moderation

Quote form enrollment. "In order to login you must be registered. Registering takes only a few moments but gives you increased capabilities. The board administrator may also grant additional permissions to registered users. Before you register please ensure you are familiar with our terms of use and related policies. Please ensure you read any forum rules as you navigate around the board."

I have now registered! When do I get my "increased capabilities"? Oh, these must be forum capabilities and not in the non-virtual world? I could have been a super hero in my own mind?!

I hope I don't get booted from the board before my first post is posted, but I am normally fairly well behaved...

[StefanR5R]

Hmm, I dunno, could be a default automatism. There is a distinction between new accounts and normal accounts, and I think the forum software moves accounts from the former to the latter group according to some criteria; I haven't looked for respective documentation yet.

One criticism of forums.anandtech.com which I heard is about the advertisements on the site. This doesn't bother me personally (yet), because my adblocker works reasonably there (so far). Other criticism is about the moderation there, but I haven't followed it closely. I rarely venture out of the DC subforum anyway.

Added in 15 minutes 59 seconds:
PS,
another point is that the original Distributed Subforum is just this: A single subforum, without further sub-sub-forums. Useful threads therefore vanish from the entry page quickly. Here we can add corners for how-to style threads and look them up easier.

[Skillz]

All new users are setup for post approval by a moderator which is basically anyone on the team can approve them. Once you're approved you'll automatically be put into a group that doesn't have moderation queue.

This forum exists because we have more control over organizing it. As well as being able to communicate where the public can't see it.

[10esseetony]

Plus I recently trolled TTony over on the SetiGermany WCG challenge shoutbox page and got a few laughs at that.

Why you little whipper snapper!

[cellarnoise2]

Well I like the hidden factor for competitions.

I don't like that there are not more controls in competitions.

It should not be that hard to make sure that new participants can't jump into new teams at the last minute? Well maybe it is.

I don't know how to prevent individuals from buying commercial cloud work units either.

These kinds of items make spending time on sprints or other competitions less enjoyable. Though like I said I don't have solutions.

I have read that some complain about bunkering, but I don't mind that within reason. I don't think you should be able to buy commercial bunkering though.

In the end I guess I don't care that much as I do enjoy contributing to causes that I think are worthy. I was starting to get into the competition side, but it is not as interesting now knowing that there are so many ways to game the system.

[Icecold]

There are plenty of other 'friendly competitions' as well where that's less of a concern whether it's within our own TeAm or with other teams. The recent Milkyway@home competition that was just between our own TeAm on the Anandtech forum would be a good example. I'm pretty much 100% certain nobody bought any cloud resources for that one.

The upcoming Folding@home race on the Anandtech forum would be another that is just a friendly competition. Sometimes those have included other teams as well. I've always gotten the feeling the Primegrid races that are between all teams and happen a bunch of times throughout the year are pretty 'friendly' as well and you have a chance of finding a very large prime number. If the more 'intense' competitions where teams are doing anything they can to win don't interest you, there's nothing that says you need to take part in those, just find whatever you enjoy and are comfortable with.

For what it's worth - cloud computing on any kind of scale to make a big difference is pretty expensive. There are a few ways to get it somewhat cheaper, but I would imagine it plays way less of a role in most of the competitions than you may think it would. Due to the expense it's probably only utilized by most teams on competitions that are deemed really important to win. I really don't think it's something that is being used every Formula BOINC sprint or anything like that.

I had gotten somewhat frustrated before with some of the gamesmanship that happens in the more 'intense' competitions, but the majority of it is stuff that is really hard to really do successfully, and as often as it can be done successfully it can also backfire, so I'm to the point where most of it doesn't bother me. It's not as easy to game the system as it may initially seem.

[Skillz]

Well I like the hidden factor for competitions.

I don't like that there are not more controls in competitions.

What kind of control do you want?

It should not be that hard to make sure that new participants can't jump into new teams at the last minute? Well maybe it is.

I disagree with this. These competitions between teams are supposed to help raise awareness on the Scientific work we are doing. By doing these it gives us someone to post on forums, message boards, social media, etc.. to show the teams battling it out and recruit new members. I can't count on both of my hands the number of people I've recruited to different BOINC projects just by posting/talking about these competitions on forums and getting them interested. Would be unfair to block new users (even if they're established users who may be MIA or whatever for a period of time) from joining in on the fun.

I don't know how to prevent individuals from buying commercial cloud work units either.

What is wrong with this? My money. I can spend it however I want. What's different than someone buying $10k worth of hardware they run 24/7 at home/work vs me buying $1000 worth of spot instances on GCP for a week? The science is getting done. Results are being processed. I can spend my money how I wish. Right? Not saying I am buying any cloud instances right now though.

These kinds of items make spending time on sprints or other competitions less enjoyable. Though like I said I don't have solutions.

The enjoyable part is watching how teams react during the competition. New users recruited? Someone sneakily drop a huge bunker on the last day? So much work getting done during the competition the project admins find out they've completed the work ahead of schedule

I have read that some complain about bunkering, but I don't mind that within reason. I don't think you should be able to buy commercial bunkering though.

Same as reply above. My money, I can spend it how I wish. You want to buy hardware to run it 24/7, I can buy it to run during competitions.

In the end I guess I don't care that much as I do enjoy contributing to causes that I think are worthy. I was starting to get into the competition side, but it is not as interesting now knowing that there are so many ways to game the system.

Not really "gaming" the system if the work is legit. Confusing your opponent and keeping them guessing our next move (or them doing it to us) can be fun. At the same time, you don't need to worry about that per se. Just configure your client(s) to run whatever project the competition is and let it run.

[StefanR5R]

I've always gotten the feeling the Primegrid races that are between all teams and happen a bunch of times throughout the year are pretty 'friendly' as well and you have a chance of finding a very large prime number.

In recent PrimeGrid challenges, there was always also at least one big University datacenter among the teams. But there are no commercial teams (anymore, by the project owners' request), so the rest of the competing teams are generally hobbyists. — I am mentioning this because some hobbyist participants in DC competitions can't stand it if competitors are commercially funded or publicly funded.

However, cloud computing has become a big thing in PrimeGrid challenges. At first, there were only one or at most two users who regularly found ways how to deploy mass quantities of gratis trial accounts in these challenges. But nowadays, there are always several users who use cloud computing, and partly in massive quantities. I am not inside PrimeGrid enough to know how they finance this; if they just have deep pockets or are able to have somebody else paying for them. Anyway; if you want to enjoy PrimeGrid challenges, then you need to expect and accept that cloud computing is used by your competitors.

[crashtech]

Hi @cellarnoise2, welcome!