[Scotttheking]

Are people still running it, or has it been abandoned in favor of climateprediction or something else?

[druber]

I'm still crunching away, though if I do sell my G4 tower I may drop off entirely. Has any of the "research" from any of these projects actually produced results? Has anyone compared the actual benefits achieved to the environmental impact of all the electricity burned on all these clocks cycles? Perhaps better if we don't know.

[mikkyo]

D2OL has a neat goal for all the work, but after more than a year and no results or breakthroughs, one has to wonder what all the results are getting them.
Plus their news page doesn't have a new press release since November 13, 2003.


I think the boinc platform is a good way to go in general for distributed computing with the ease of working on more than one project and switching focus to a particular project.
We could have been in the top 5 in D2OL but there was never enough interest to push us there.
There seems to be a lot more interest in the boinc projects and at least the Seti die-hards can crunch for Predictor or ClimatePrediction when the Seti servers are down now.

[druber]

And I did my bit on Seti a couple years ago, when 1000 WU was an accomplishment for 2 machines. Distributed computing in general is such a great idea. Thousands of people working on small bits together could really accomplish something, it's very engaging. But if nothing actually gets accomplished, then it's just a stats game. Which might be fun, but it's nothing like the potential. (Granted, I'd still like to pass jclark) Point me to a project that's yielding results beyond the stats and I'll sign up. Otherwise, it's just not worth paying for the juice.

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by druber:
Point me to a project that's yielding results beyond the stats and I'll sign up.

Folding at Home is. Distributed Folding too, but they shut down for a while. Not sure about others, as fah is my main focus.

[reader50]

Distributed Folding and Predictor are doing work that is more in the research area and less useful - so far. They are trying to dial in an inexpensive way to predict protein folding without needing months of expensive lab work. If they can do it, it will have very useful medical applications - a lot of drugs/treatments will cost less time and money to develop. So far, they have not finished working out the kinks, and participants in both projects are helping them to do so.

SETI is either doing some of the most important work in human history, or conning an amazing number of people into wasting electricity, depending on if you think they have a chance of finding anything.

Folding@home is publishing real results from their work, with a lot of medical companies and other research institutions interested.

RC5 is impressive on G4s and G5s because of AltiVec. Right now it's trying to crack 72-bit encryption when everyone is using 128-bit encryption. No comment.

D2OL ... it's hard to say. It sounds useful, but the project people don't post much of anything.

Climate looks useful too, but I need to look closer into how much they simulate. To be accurate, it needs to consider more than just the atmosphere. The simulations need to take land surface into account, plant/snow/ice coverage (or lack thereof), top-level and mid-level ocean currents, along with a few other odds and ends.

Lifemapper: I've yet to figure out what this is useful for. It appears to organize information that is already known. With the Mac client still in beta a year later, the point isn't too urgent. I need to prompt the project people for a Mac update.

[druber]

Here's a little update on sad little sister, D2OL. We're actually still holding at 8th place overall, which is pretty amazing, considering the move of our big crunchers to other projects. There are some much faster teams behind us, but Team MacNN has been accumulating scores for a long time. We'll see if these younger teams have the continued commitment to break the top ten.

After a 4 or 5 month chase, I've finally passed jclarkv, at least temporarily. I've only got two machines to crunch, and I'm trying to sell one (G4 1.25 MDD, PM me so if he cranks it up I won't have a chance. Between the two of us, we're comprising one third of our present output. Which would be cooler if that total was 25,000 WUs a day, not ~3,000.

This to say, we're not dead yet. We've also got some new members, notably jimhadd, 12 days on the team with 47 days of docking time. cwtnospam has been with us for a couple months and is creeping up on the Top 5. He's our biggest cruncher by weekly output, though an intercept date is a long way off. Just 9 active crunchers at this point, but we're doing our part.

Long live Team MacNN

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by druber:
Here's a little update on sad little sister, D2OL. We're actually still holding at 8th place overall, which is pretty amazing, considering the move of our big crunchers to other projects. There are some much faster teams behind us, but Team MacNN has been accumulating scores for a long time. We'll see if these younger teams have the continued commitment to break the top ten.
Long live Team MacNN

That's amazing. If only the D2OL project folks would publish some kind of information, some of us might have stuck with it. My short list of "useful" scientific projects is (in no particular order):

Folding@Home - Doing some serious research with great potential.
Predictor@Home - Much like dFold was, but I think they have a better and more refined approach. When they get back on-line, it could be a real good project.

Climate Prediction - Some strong possiblities, but like Reader50, I would like a little more background information.

Einstein@home - Currently in closed alpha with participation by invitation, but essentially looking for proof of gravity waves and to improve understanding of them. If you consider Einstein's Theory of Relativity important and like physics, this is the project for you. Some serious science, but dont' know what it will lead to. -- Should go public about the end of the year or first of next year. So far very smooth startup for a BOINC project, but they haven't been stressed yet. Also doing a good job of developing optimized apps for platforms. Linux and Windows are done. The "optimized" Mac client is being tested in-house now. --- Prospective Alpha/Beta testers can sign up here: http://www.physics2005.org/events/einsteinathome/ --- Remember this is testing, not a stable project. Project page here: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/

[druber]

There's actually a bit of news from the D2OL team here . Not a whole lot, but it's at least a sign of life. Sounds like they'll be working on the client soon, hoping to start in on it in January. Maybe not enough reason to re-join yet, but enough reason to keep crunching, I think.

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by druber:
There's actually a bit of news from the D2OL team .....

In fact there was more posted from Wolfgang on December 8th in another thread, which is the first word in many months from an actual project head. Drug development is a slow process, but the lack of communication has turned off a lot of folks. At least the following is something. In fact I think it is the first real report on results activity we have seen.

D2OL Update !!!!!!

Funding for a contract programmer to upgrade the D2OL systems software and client for improved statistics handling has been approved at a recent board meeting of The Rothberg Institute for Childhood Diseases. We are currently in the process of procuring the appropriate contract programmer and hope to get somebody started by Mid- to End of January!

Furthermore, 400 compounds, representing the top hits from the IBS library, will be tested in the laboratories of our collaborator Dr Rehka Panchal against the Anthrax bacterium. We hope to publish results as soon as February of 2005.

With the upcoming statistics upgrade we hope to bring you “season-based statistics” to allow new-comers to actively compete against the veterans of D2OL on a level playing field.

--------------------
Wolfgang Hinz - Senior Research Scientist Chemistry/Informatics
The Rothberg Insitute for Childhood Diseases
530 Whitfield Street
Guilford CT, 06437
www.childhooddiseases.org