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IBM Grid Near 50,000 machines - Slashdot Users #13
another similar writes "IBM's World Community Grid is off to a roaring start. Since kicking off six weeks ago (original Slashdot story), the grid has grown to almost 36,000 users with almost 50,000 machines. Growth continues as more media coverage hits.
There is a team of Slashdot users - currently ranked 13th in points with only 79 members. If you have spare cycles, download the software, join us and crank for medicine. For those of you with dual processor systems, you'll have to use a homebrewed tool - beyond two is not supported yet. Alas, you also have to be running Redmond's finest. According to their FAQ, a Linux client is slated for development in 2005."
For those keeping track,
"IT IS ANTICIPATED EVENTUALLY THAT IBM WILL TRANSFER WORLD COMMUNITY GRID TO A NON-IBM OWNED WORLD COMMUNITY GRID ENTITY OR ANOTHER ENTITY"
This is from the license. Just something to watch for in the future if you like Big Blue (or don't like them) or are concerned about it.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Membercount has already doubled and we're at 8th place.
Woohoo!
Also, the Global Grid Exchange client runs in a secure Java sandbox, so there's no fear of being 0wned by malicious code.
It seems to run on WINE for me, but I've only ran it for maybe 3 minutes now. I'm using TransGaming's Cedega (formerly WineX) version of WINE to run it though, so I'm not quite sure if it works with plain WINE.
-b0lt
got sig?
Nay. I just tried it with the stock Wine in Debian Sid, no go. The installer complained about a lack of an MSI installer and exited.
No, you're wrong yet again. The editors have said on the record that somewhere around 70 percent of hits were from Windows machines.
Please, stop embarassing yourself further. It's getting painful to see how clueless you are.
Wouldn't work...
Points are calculated and awarded each time a work unit is completed and a result is successfully returned to World Community Grid Servers. Points are totaled across all machines aggregated under a specific World Community Grid Member.
Points are based upon the strength of your machine(s), measured against World Community Grid Comparison Device. First, the "strength" of your participating machine(s) is calculated by measuring the following parameters of your machine against World Community Grid Comparison Device:
spacer 1) CPU Power
The software periodically runs diagnostic tests to establish the processing power of your hardware configuration. These values are averaged and then divided by the CPU-Power value of World Community Grid Comparison Device. The averaged value is then multiplied by the run time used to complete the work unit and return the results to World Community Grid Servers.
2) Random Access Memory (RAM)
The software recognizes the amount of RAM in your hardware configuration. Each time the software starts, it detects any changes to the amount of installed RAM. This value is divided by the RAM value of World Community Grid Comparison Device. The result of this calculation is then multiplied by the run time used to complete the work unit and return the results to World Community Grid Servers.
3) Hard Disk Storage
On your preferences page, you set the megabytes of hard disk space allocated and available to World Community Grid projects. The lesser of the amount of hard drive space allocated and the amount of total space available on your hard drive partition, is divided by the Hard Disk Storage value of World Community Grid Comparison Device. The result of this calculation is then multiplied by the run time used to complete the work unit and return the results to World Community Grid Servers.
4) Effective Upstream Throughput
The software runs a diagnostic test on a regular basis that measures the upstream throughput of your hardware configuration, when communicating with World Community Grid Servers. These values are averaged, and the result is divided by the Effective Upstream Throughput value of World Community Grid Comparison Device. The result of this calculation is then multiplied by the run time used to complete the work unit and return the results to World Community Grid Servers.
The final values for all five parameters are weighted, totaled, and factored to generate a whole number of points greater than or equal to 1 for each result returned.
While any individual parameter can overachieve the corresponding parameter for World Community Grid Comparison Device by any level, no work unit completed by any machine will earn more than twice the total number of points World Community Grid Comparison Device would earn for that same work unit.
Note: The slightest variance in any of the five parameters coupled with the inherent differences across multiple applications and work units within one project will result in different point values being assigned per work unit completion.
Taco *has* effectivly posted the server logs. At least he has said in the past that something like 70% of front page hits were from windows. So if you are getting 85% linux then something else is must be at play.
Well, forty minutes after the post going live, Slashdot Users team member count has shot us into #1 position. Now we'll just need to see how long it's going to take to push Big Blue (x6), five members of the G8 and Norway below us in the point count. I'm guessing several weeks, but maybe this will get more bang for the buck than I had anticipated.
To clarify, since I've been poked several times in comments already - "Redmond's Finest" was intended to be dripping with sarcasm.... But most Slashdot users are likely wicked smart enough to have known that.... I did enjoy the quip about DOS 6.22... Bravo!
With respect to your options on teams, rather than Jews for Science, I would suggest considering girlsoflove.com, who's page states:
Web Cam girls and woman offering their machines when they are not online to help and give back to the world. If you put your machine to help this project and join our team, Send us and email and we will offer you Free time to come and chat with us. The Girls from GIRLSOFLOVE.COM We also provide web broadcasting web video chat conference applications We are from all over the world Montreal Quebec Toronto Vancouver Canada america usa france britain italia brazil mexico argentina asia
This could be fulfilling in, er, other ways, but obviously, being on the #1 team (in user count) and soon to be #1 in points, results, etc. is a lot cooler....
Thanks Slashdotters for taking things up another notch (or 20)!
Of course the reason for this is obvious right? windows dominated the planet not only in installed systems but in installed systems with cycles to spare. i.e. desktops. So dont cry your eyes out over it not being linux compatible. The excess linux bandwidth after you subtract our the servers is not going to be a lot. Console yourself that the TCO of linux is really a lot less when you figure that linux computers are already too busy to be bothered with Grid computing. :-)
Rosetta itself was written in fortran and only recently converted to C++. the C++ conversion was done using the incredibly well designed Objexx Library by stuart metzner and colleagues. This is a library that lets you write fortran code in C++. Before this people who tried to re-write this behemoth to C++ just died in the process. The objexx library let the whole thing be converted to C++ in one fell swoop. Now the program will slowly evolve from fortran style to C++ object orientation as it continues to grow. But in the meantime the code is productive. Nice Eh? The cool thing is that with a bit of optimization the code did not lose any appreciable speed in the conversion. So if you have legacy fortran you use for speed, consider converting it using Objexx. I was one of the people who argued for going to fortran95 not c++ because I feeared a speed loss; Iv'e become a convert
In any event the program is not like folding at home. That program tries to study in detail the picosecond evolution of single protien as it folds. Rosetta simply predicts the folded structure. Its actually quite fast at doing that. But it turns out it makes lots of different predictions. So you have to do it tens of thousands of times and then see which geometries of folded structures are favored statistically. Then you do the next protein. Eventually you work your way through the whole human genome.
also unlike folding at home the potential surface in rosetta is less physics based and more bayesian statistice. It has statistical potential for the probability of a peptide backbone structure occuring. And it has a probabilty for a sidechain amino acid sequence given a backbone structure. Multiply those together and bayes rule says the result is proportional to the probablity of a structrure given a sequence. You can read more about this here. Click on publications.
This statistical potential turns out to be so accurate that it can not only be used to predict the structure of proteins but it can be used in reverse to design a novel structured protein. Recently it was used to design a protein with a tolopology that had never previously existied in nature. This is rather an amazing results. Others had previously redesigned the sequences of existing topologies or perturbed those topologies or created some special case topologies. But Brian Kuklman in David Baker's lab actually started from a napkin sketch and designed a protein from scratch.
After you predict the structure of a protein, one thing you can do is ask if that structure is like another Protein you have seen before. You can compare the structure of a model to a real protein using a program known as MAMMOTH. While there are a variety of programs for comparing two proteins this one is particularly good for the case of comparing an inaccurate model to an experimentally known structure. If they match then you can assume the protiens may share a related function or evolutionary origin (or not!).
whihc brings us to what proteins are. Think of DNA as a disk drive that
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
65% Windows
23% Linux
10% Mac OS X
2% Everything else
User agents:
68% Firefox
11% MSIE
7% Safari
3% Opera
Firefox versions:
84% 1.0
10% 0.9.3 or older
6% 0.10.1
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Seems to work okay. The window stays on top all the time until you minimize it, and its not easy to restore it once its minimized. I have to right click a 1x8 pixel systray applet, and click "Open". But it does run.
I think it is non-profit... The World Community Grid is strictly a philanthropic project currently funded by IBM. The research results will be made freely available to the world. Check IBM's website for details... http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ibmgives/news/wcg.shtml "IBM's values state that we are committed to providing innovation that matters for our company and for the world. There is no better way for us to live those values than to join the World Computing Grid," said Stanley S. Litow, vice president of IBM Corporate Community Relations and president of the IBM International Foundation. "We're taking IBM's innovative on demand grid technology - the same technology we share with customers - and applying it to humanitarian issues about which the world cares. We look forward to working with our employees, customers and the public to execute this exciting vision."
I just realized what I did. I get it. Pr0n. Boink. BOINC.
ba-dum dum. I was refering to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)
Feel free to link me to a few sites that refuse to let people running Linux in based on the operating system alone.
It is one thing to say that IE's market dominance can follow from false user agent tags, but since so very few browsers in this particular sampling set report themselves as IE (or anything else that is commonly accepted by stupid websites) I highly doubt that anyone has gone out of their way to change the operating system given without changing the browser to one of the ones that will work on all websites.
To reiterate:
11% report themselves to be MSIE
65% report themselves to be on Windows
23% report themselves to be Linux
Conclusion: There are a lot more Windows users on Slashdot OR most Linux users change their user-agent tags in pointless ways. Or to phrase it this way; Either there are few Linux users or the many Linux users are stupid.