[OneMacGuy]

I am thinking about starting to transition to a new project. I would like some feedback where I can be best utilized.

I do not want ANYTHING to do with SETI or anything related to SETI. I want to help with something real, not looking for little green men! Climate looks interesting, Einstein does not. Where else should I look?

[beadman]

Have you read the science update for Einstein? It's <a href="http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/PartialS3Results/">here</a>. If you switched a lot of your farm over to Einstein, with the new optimized clients Bruce and Bernd wrote you'd be contributing greatly to the team's push for leadership in Einstein.

beadman

[Shaktai]

Originally Posted by OneMacGuy

Climate looks interesting, Einstein does not. Where else should I look?

There is always Predictor@Home where your farm could help hold #1 spot while others crunch Einstein. Also, a brand new beta project with a Mac Client, Rosetta@Home which is described as:

Rosetta@home is a scientific research project that uses internet-connected computers to predict and design protein structures, and protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions. Our goal is to develop methods that accurately predict and design protein structures and complexes, an endeavor that may ultimately help researchers develop cures for human diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, and malaria.

More information is available in their forums. It is similar to Folding and Predictor@Home in terms of benefit. Probably closer to Predictor in approach, but different. Ran out of the University of Washingtion and is non-profit. Of course, being BETA it is not completely stable yet, though I have had no problems with it. The Mac app currently requires OS 10.4.x minimum, though they are working on making it 10.3.x compatible.

Predictor, Climate and Rosetta are all BOINC based, so you could consider actually running Predictor, Climate and Rosetta at the same time, until you got a feel for what you really liked. BOINC allows adjusting Resource share differently by project. Climate has been having some problems on Macs with the GUI, thought the CLI version seems to run okay. All have Windows and Linux clients as well.

UPDATE: More info on Rosetta:
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/rah_research.php
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/rah_about.php

[OneMacGuy]

Originally Posted by beadman

Have you read the science update for Einstein? It's <a href="http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/PartialS3Results/">here</a>. If you switched a lot of your farm over to Einstein, with the new optimized clients Bruce and Bernd wrote you'd be contributing greatly to the team's push for leadership in Einstein.

beadman

Einstein is a little too close to SETI for me. It costs a lot of money and time to run these farms and I have to be able to believe that maybe we will all gain something from it. I see nothing to be gained from studying quasars so far away that no one living today or for the next several hundred years will ever see them in person, As for SETI, just a complete waste of resources, no little green men, and if there were, why would we assume that they would evolve like us and use radio wave communication?

I like the disease and weather research topics, some real good to be had there, if we can figure out how all of that stuff REALLY works! So much potential!!!

I did download the boinc project manager for predictor, it is pretty confusing at first glance. I did not see any place to register as being part of a team, where do you do that? I have a new dual athlon MP1800 box I need to install a DC client on. Will the boinc client utilize both CPU's? Probably be a goodplace to start, at least it has tons (4GB) of ram and some real fast 10000 RPM SCSI drives. It used to be a server, now a farm boxen.

[Shaktai]

Originally Posted by OneMacGuy

I like the disease and weather research topics, some real good to be had there, if we can figure out how all of that stuff REALLY works! So much potential!!!

I did download the boinc project manager for predictor, it is pretty confusing at first glance. I did not see any place to register as being part of a team, where do you do that? I have a new dual athlon MP1800 box I need to install a DC client on. Will the boinc client utilize both CPU's? Probably be a goodplace to start, at least it has tons (4GB) of ram and some real fast 10000 RPM SCSI drives. It used to be a server, now a farm boxen.

I'll agree that Life science and climate projects are likely to show results much sooner.

Preferences, including joining a team are actually controlled from your account page on the Predictor website. You can have as many as three different prefence settings, but if you just use the default, then anytime preferences are changed, they will apply to all machines on the next update.

1.) Go to Predictor homepage.
2.) click on "Your Account".
3.) Log in, if you aren't already.
4.) Scroll about 3/4 of the way down. Right under "Pending Credit" you should see an option to join a team.
5.) Join Team MacNN.

You can use that same page, to set resources sharing, should you decide to join more then one project. Right now I think Predictor might not be giving out work due to maintenence next week. (7 day deadline). You could also join climate or Rosetta in the meantime, and when predictor is back up next week you will automatically get work.

You can expect that there will be more Life Science projects in the future. BOINC is a different beast, but not difficult once your get used to it, and very flexible.

[ulenz]

OneMacGuy:
To detect gravitational waves would be a further important step towards our understanding of the basic structure of universe itsself. The black holes in the centre of each galaxy are the most powerful thing in the universe we have discovered yet. And if we would be able to produce artificial gravitation, this would be a revolution for the technical development of mankind.

[OneMacGuy]

Thanx, Shaktai! I will be setting some up tomorrow and we'll see how the transition goes.