Join the BOINC Team for Segway Enthusiasts

[Stan671]

I have created a series of BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) teams for Segway Enthusiasts that particiapte in SETI@Home and other projects.

If you participate in any of the BOINC projects, think about moving over to our team. If you don't know what this is, then follow the home links and start participating - it's all for a good cause.

The team name in each of the following projects is called, "Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC", but each project has a different team ID, given below:

SETI@Home http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
Teamid = 124839
Team Stats: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=124839

Einstein@Home http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/
Teamid = 5748
Team stats: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/team_display.php?teamid=5748

Rosetta@Home http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/
Teamid = 2428
Team stats: http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/team_display.php?teamid=2428

LHC@Home http://lhcathome.cern.ch/
Teamid = 2134
Team stats: http://lhcathome.cern.ch/team_display.php?teamid=2134

After you join the project, then join our team by using the Teamid or searching for teams with Segway in the name.

If anyone is part of another project without a Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC team yet, Email me and I will set one up right away.

Now ... let's get to those work units!

[Stan671]

We have two people that have joined the Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC teams. Thanks to Jacky for joining the SETI@home team and to KonaSam for joining the Rosetta@home team for us. We thank you for the work units.

Here is a brief description of the four different projects that the Segway Enthusiast group BOINC teams are working on. Each of these screen saver programs has a really cool display to show you what it is doing.

SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

Einstein@Home is a program that uses your computer's idle time to search for spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors. Einstein@Home is a World Year of Physics 2005 project supported by the American Physical Society (APS) and by a number of international organizations.

Rosetta@home needs your help to determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases. By running the Rosetta program on your computer while you don't need it you will help us speed up and extend our research in ways we couldn't possibly attempt without your help. You will also be helping our efforts at designing new proteins to fight diseases such as HIV, Malaria, Cancer, and Alzheimer's.

LHC@home is a screen-saver program that uses your computer's idle time to simulate particles traveling in CERN's new accelerator. The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator which is being built at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

[Desert_Seg]

Stan,

I've attempted to join the Rosetta team but am unsure if it happened. Please let me know if you see me there!

Steven

[Stan671]

Yes, Steven, you have joined the Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC team for the Rosetta@home project. We now have three there. Thanks.

We've got plenty of room for more team members!!

[yosgof]

Stan,

How much CPU does the BOINC software use?
What provisions should be made to deploy it on a machine behind a firewall?
Are you absolutely sure there are no back doors that will open my machine and the whole network to abuse?

[Stan671]

The BOINC client runs at the lowest priority a process can run at, so it will always be preempted by other programs. The effect is that the BOINC client replaces the System Idle process on your computer.

There is no impact on the operation of the computer or the speed of other processes. However, since the BOINC client uses all UNUSED CPU time, your processor will run at 100% usage all of the time. This looks like the BOINC is preventing other stuff from running, but it is not.

The only thing you really need to worry about is if you have insufficent cooling in your computer. Since the CPU is running at 100% load at all times, it can generate quite a bit of heat.

I don't know the technical details, but the BOINC manager was cleared through my firewall to send out to the Internet without any problem. I have a bunch of machines at work running this with no problems. There are no ports opened for access from the outside. I have not heard of any issues with BOINC clients causing any security problems.

The Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC teams certainly appreciate any help, but please don't do anything that you are uncomfortable with.

BTW, they have Linux, Mac, and Solaris clients.

[pam]

Stan, I'm trying to download and can't seem to do it. Have any ideas why?? I've reloaded and gone to the various mirrored servers, but I end up with one little green block in the download process area, and it never shows that I've downloaded more than the first little bit.


Later: Well, heck, I just had to click popups ok in order to get it to work.
Pam

[Stan671]

Pam, I'm glad you are going to give it a try.

For the stats on the Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC team across all projects is available on the Knight Who Say Ni (KWSN) site: http://stats.kwsn.net/team.php?proj=all&teamid=54081 (http://stats.kwsn.net/team.php?proj=all&teamid=54081)

We have three members so far and hopefully, Pam will be another soon.

It is interesting to look at the screen saver display for the Rosetta project and watch as it tries to fold molecules and find the optimal configuration.

The Einstein project screen saver graphic is a rotating globe of the star patterns in the sky as the algorithm searches for the telltale signs of a pulsar.

[pam]

If I can do my little bit for science, I'm happy. I was a member of seti at home for years. But I sorta got discombobulated when I changed to my new laptop, so I'm glad to go into a new direction.

[Stan671]

Excellent ... we have four people in the teams now.

Total
Name Country Projects Credit

Stanley Dobrowski United States SETI, 82000
Rosetta,
Einstein,
LHC

KonaSam United States SETI, 432
Rosetta

Desert_Seg United Arab Emirates Rosetta 221

Pam United States Rosetta 56
OK, now let's some more volunteers!

[Desert_Seg]

Stan,

Had to kill BOINC this morning. It wouldn't release control of my PC and after 40 minutes of aggravation I just shut it down.

I'm sure it is because I Beta test lots of software and there might be some likely some conflicts. I'm still doing some testing to find out why this happened but for now I'm going quiet.

It sure was funny to see BOINC grab more and more memory and starve my other apps....just when I wanted to work!

Steven

[Stan671]

I don't know what that could be, Steven. I have several BOINC clients running simultanously on more than a dozen computers, some with multiprocessors, and have not had a problem.

If you feel there is a problem with it on your computers, them please don't do anything that messes up your computer or even makes you worry. This is supposed to be a fun thing for your computer to do in it's spare time. If the project becomes any kind of a burden, then you should drop it.

There are soome options in the client setttings to have it stay in memory or not. Perhaps that will help.

[Desert_Seg]

Stan,

I'm a glutton for punishment. I love trying to figure this kind of stuff out :-)

BOINC wasn't grabbing a lot of memory but it appeared to keep grabbing and releasing about 2MB of memory, and it looked as if there were two versions of BOINC manager running.

However, after more research, the culprits appear to be Firefox and MSO 12 (I had Outlook, Office, and Excel all running).

Anyway, I was running again that evening and since then I've had no problems.

Steven

[Stan671]

Welcome to the newest member of the Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC Team: Ian from New Zealand.

For the latest Team Stats:
http://stats.kwsn.net/team.php?proj=all&teamid=54081 (http://stats.kwsn.net/team.php?proj=all&teamid=54081)

[yosgof]

The team could benefit from more members. Please join.

[Stan671]

We now have 6 participants on the Segway Enthusiasts Group BOINC Team:

[culs]

I joined the Rosetta group and am glad to put my computers to work for a good cause.

[Stan671]

Our little Segway Enthusiast Group of BOINC workers has grown to include 8 members with computers doing work for the following @Home projects: SETI, Einstein, Rosetta, Predictor, and LHC.

For Team stats:
http://stats.kwsn.net/team.php?proj=all&teamid=54081

For a graph of our daily production:
http://stats.kwsn.net/graphs/team_hist_graphs.php?proj=all&teamid=54081&pmode=dp

For a graph of our Recent Average Credits:
http://stats.kwsn.net/graphs/team_hist_graphs.php?proj=all&teamid=54081&pmode=r

Everyone is invited to particicpate in any of the 5 @Home distributed computer projects we are doing right now. Just join the team called "Segway Enthusiast Group BOINC". Or jump ship from the team you currently work for and join us. And if you are working some other project, just let me know and I can expand our team to include your favorite project.

[Tanner]

I've joined the SETI@Home team, but it appears I must get some points to show up. :E

-Tanner

[pam]

Two things... I think this really belongs in Science and Technology, since it's not REALLY about the HT.

and the other - well, heck! Since my ebay account got hacked and someone tried to use my paypal account to make over 6k worth of payments to a dude in Indonesia, I've stopped leaving my computer on and hooked up to the internet all day. It's really showing in my time. <sigh>

Pam

[Stan671]

Tanner: welcome to the club. Once you have some work units done, then you will be visible on radar.

Pam: OMG, getting hacked like that must have been a booger.:(

[pam]

Stan, it really was! :p Everything was boogered up for a month or so until I got it straightened out. :)
Pam

[Sharkie]

Oh great, now I suppose we're going to see an article on Red Key about how "boogered" is the word of the day at SegChat!

<GRIN>

Jim