Is there a Shrapnel Games team for the World Community Grid?

[dumbluck]

Seems like it would be (relatively) cheap advertising to just have the server running work orders in the background. You could even do silly things like offer a small discount in the gamers front for team members who contribute X work hours for the team. That would basically be subsidizing your customers to increase the team's rank (and thus, exposure). They even provide widgets to display on your website. Just a thought.

World Community Grid (http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/)
I'm dumbluck74, and have donated (y:d:h:m:s) 1:081:14:15:12 of CPU time so far.

[Annette]

This is new to me. Are you on other teams?

[Gandalf Parker]

There are many programs using the same "share wasted CPU" concept.
Kudos for the effort. But this is not the one Id join.

[dumbluck]

I'm not on a team, Annette.

GP: Is there a reason you wouldn't join? On another Team/Don't like distributed computing/???

I vaguely recall that there was a Space Empires team for the SETI@home project.

[Fantomen]

I think it's a rather good idea. I'm on a team myself and you can get a fair amount of attention especially if your team scores high in workhours. I work as a film director and we got a fair amount of views for some of our short films that way, using our rendering stations for the grid when not busy.

[dumbluck]

I did a minor bit of research. World Community Grid is just one program that utilizes the BOINC distributed computing program. HERE (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php) is a useful page, in case Shrapnel wanted to promote something other than humanitarian causes.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive been a big supporter of distributed computing since its birth. Ive been a part of 3 very different projects involving DC. RC5 (cryptography), SETI (scanning space), and the Human Genome Project (genetics research). I have a 24 hour server at home which I donate spare cpu off of.

DC is a powerful concept with a strong future. And possibly a scary one (note the projects merging a million computers into one AI). But none of the programs so far allow for cloud sharing, so you have to pick just one project. This just isnt the one Id pick.

I mostly wanted to let Shrapnel know there were choices. Thanks for the BOINC page. Here are some others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects
http://www.distributedcomputing.info/projects.html
http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Computer_Science/Distributed_Computing/Projects/

[dumbluck]

GP: That's cool. I can't say I've been in it THAT long, nor do I have a server that it runs on. Just my desktop. :) However, you did pique my curiosity: what project would you suggest? I picked WCG cause it has that warm fuzzy feeling that I'm doing good for the world, but Shrapnel would obviously have a vested interest in things like AI development, and possibly some of the math projects that might tie into the computer industry. And then there is the marketing issue: They would want to have their team in a project that is likely to have potential customers in it...

On a side note, is it possible to run more than one DC application on a computer, or will the multiple programs fight over CPU cycles until one gets them all and the other get nothing?

[Gandalf Parker]

Im an Internet Native (indigenous peoples who were there when the area was "discovered", claimed, and renamed by others). So Ive been here since day one. And for a long time my job was to investigate everything that hit the net to research its ramifications and potentials for the CEOs of various companies (Internet providers, lawfirms, developers).

Im no longer in a position to advise Shrapnel in such matters. But I consider them friends and wouldnt want them to jump without knowing more about the territory (not that they do anyway). I just wanted the options out there.

Annette might go for a research charity. I would think Tim might look for things in the area of Strategics and Simulations. I think there are some that civilian companies can donate time to. Altho I think the area of Distributed Computing which overlaps to Distributed Marketing or even Distributed Distribution might be something they would look into also. Im retired and I tend not to pursue such serious subjects anymore.

As to the idea of multiple DC apps, they tend to be designed to kick in like screen savers, then instead of putting the computer to rest they use all the available CPU for the shared project. So all available resource would go to whichever one kicked in first. You might write something to rotate them daily so that you provide to multiple projects but they also might be writing files involved with the receipt/delivery of the data. It could really foul up the projects you want to help if you got that wrong. I wouldnt recommend trying it. But kudos for wanting to.

[Soyweiser]

Don't forget that the "wasted CPU" isn't free. It still has power costs and increased bandwith costs. Not much, but still.

[Gandalf Parker]

Definitely.
Thats why we have been mentioning mostly servers (machines already up and running 24/7). I used to willing to leave my home network up and running adding another 5 machines to the workload. But now that would be against my religion to even suggest it.

[Soyweiser]

But now that would be against my religion to even suggest it.

Gaianism? Goreism?

[Gandalf Parker]

Close. yes one of the basic tree-huggers :)

[Soyweiser]

Never pegged you as a religious type. I hope it's not wiccan or druidism. Serious discussions of these religions tend to trigger rather lengthy rants :). (Just as 99% of all the global warning denier arguments. Current Dutch politics and a large amount of other subjects :)).

Hi, I'm Soyweiser, and it has been 5 days since my last mayor rant. :)

[dumbluck]

hrm. not the kind of response I was expecting. :(

[Gandalf Parker]

In general, from what I have seen on direct computing sites, game sites dont tend to do well. And of the game sites, RPG tends to do better than strategy wargame sites.