Slashdot Mirror
"Nightlife" Harnesses Idle Fedora Nodes For Research
A. B. VerHausen writes "If you've given up on SETI, now you can let your idle computer help with other kinds of scientific research. Red Hat employee Bryan Che started a project called Nightlife. He wants people to 'donate idle capacity from their own computers to an open, general-purpose Fedora-run grid for processing socially beneficial work and scientific research that requires access to large amounts of computing power.'" Che hopes to have more than a million Fedora nodes running as part of this project.
There is also folding at home http://folding.stanford.edu/ that might help someones life more than software ever will.
I am all for open source, but there are some better places to donate some spare cpu cycles
Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who live by the gun...
It's the not-so-idle electricty bill that'll turn up when I let people use my PC's spare cycles all the time.
That's why it's off, in stand by or auto throttling the processor. That's why letting people use your "idle" cycles is not as simple a charitable proposition as it sounds.
If they settled for Windows, the sheer volume of available machines would far outweight any (probably minor to begin with) advantages to using Linux.
\x72\x6D\x20\x2D\x72\x66
Err... I've read TFA and all I can see is that some guy would like to use spare Fedora cpu cycles for some sort of project but he doesn't know what and he's not really sure how. My immediate response is come back when you've got something concrete.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
how about calling it "red computing" to remind people of how much energy it'll cost them. On modern computers, you have roughly 20-100W difference between idle/working CPUs.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
So the windows zombies aren't good enough. You gotta ask Linux users huh...
so uh it is a Fedora-based computer-dating service designed to to use spare Fedora cycles to match *nix nerds with potential mates?
public void karmaWhore(String url){addSlashdotComment(fetchContent(url));}
BOINC
is a client that allows you to choose out of many projects like Folding@home or SETI. The client also runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS without problems.
There are many configuration options available to control the amount of CPU-power, cores, hard-disk space, RAM, the times it runs, how it should behave is someone else is using the system, etc. and the best is, anybody could set up a project that uses the client (although you'll probably have ahard time getting people to choose your project if it isn't something very interesting).
Check it out!
The Seti-at-home crowd, long ago, realized that it was more than Seti@home, thus created BOINC. So whats new here?
Test your net with Netalyzr
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/
"Use the idle time on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research. It's safe, secure, and easy"
And you can do it NOW. With almost ANY computer.
He's either not done his research or he's an idiot.
Since Mac OS 10.4 and later come with Xgrid already installed, it's very easy for your spare processor cycles to be donated to science. A few clicks in your System Preferences, and you're done.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Personally, I prefer World Community Grid. I've been a member of the Slashdot team there since 2005 sometime.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
I love Nightlife...I love to boogie.
Greedy capitalists, share your idle cycles! Power to the people!
Fpanels turn off the backlight after a period of inactivity, typically 15 minutes. They must to earn an energy star symbol.
Invenio via vel creo
A modern dual core processor can use about an extra 100 watts of energy when processing than when idle. This is from using a watt meter on a few computers of mine and checking it out. Shutting down or hibernating will save you 200-300 watts total I'm guessing. Personally I have a couple of services running on my computer all the time so I can't shut it down completely, plus I like being able to just turn on the monitor and start working/gaming/surfing. So if you are going to leave your computer running you can save 1 kilowatt-hour every ten hours just from the extra power pulled to do the processing versus having the CPU usage low. Prices vary, but if your CPU usage totals an extra 20 hours per day then that's an extra 2 kilowatt-hours per day or about 20 cents, totalling up to $75 or more a year in electricity bills. That also increases carbon emissions if your electricity comes from fossil fuels.
I use the newer 80+ rated PSUs and I don't oversize them like so many others do. My desktop machine AND a server that also has an 80+ PSU in it (and 10HDDs) together use just about 300Watts as measured by my Kill-a-Watt device. That's not an insignificant amount but that was also with all of my drives spun up - normally drives not in use goto sleep (unRAID).
:-)
The PSU ratings of those two machines together are probably somewhere right around a kilowatt and yet I use a fraction of that at full chat. My desktop has a 45nm C2D (E8400) clocked to 3.8Ghz, an 8800GTS (die shrunk too), a single HDD, multiple cooling fans.
My point is that just because a PSU is rated for something doesn't mean it's going to be using that even when you have fairly thirsty components onboard - using the rating is a bit misleading as it's a maximum output. The fact that I use highly efficient supplies helps a great deal, they don't cost much more. My power bill isn't insignificant mind you but these aren't the only two computers I run either
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Allow me to add Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Italy and Germany to the list of places where switched outlets are used. I've seen the switches primarily on high current outlets for major appliances, such as washers and dryers.
I'd postulate that the switch at EVERY outlet in the UK may be related to WW II air raids and blackouts.Invenio via vel creo
Most distrubuted applications claim to use wasted cycles...BUT...
:P)
I have yet to see SETI@HOME actually have a 'event' worth the trillions of cycles wasted on it. ( Stewert YOU MAKE BAD PASTA!
Folding@home is sure to make someone else very rich from their drug patent. Your doing someone elses research.
GIMPS and OGR are worthwhile because you cannot patent either primes, or goluomb rulers...You can? OK I Patent 2,3 and 11!
CPU Share might also be interesting, as it is a CPU market place were you can sell your idle resources for real money.
To all you people saying "why don't you just use BOINC"
Why indeed? Why not use BOTH. (As Condor can be configured to use BOINC when it's idle)
With BOINC data is PULLED from them to you when YOU request it. In grid computing with Condor data is PUSHED to you.
Big difference.
In a world of ever increasing fuel prices this "social" computing need is an obscene waste of electricity. Please, contribute to higher fuel prices by letting some social darwin correlate dumb things that don't belong together.
Here is the heat and energy considerations for running boinc. Boinc is a middleware for projects like seti@home and folding@home. According to that study the difference is roughly $3/month between idle and active computer usage.
I'd postulate that the switch at EVERY outlet in the UK may be related to WW II air raids and blackouts.
AFAIK the current switched square pin UK outlets date from well after WWII (late 1960's? early 70's?). Until then there were two types of round pin outlets (big and small, probably 3 and 5 amp?) and some of these did not have switches. My parents were still using a small round pin unswitched outlet to run an electric clock until a few years ago, and I guess there are still a few old houses using these (although you'd probably have to replace them if you wanted a mortgage on such a house).
Also, not *all* current square pin outlets have switches. Although rare, I've come across a few (I think my Grandmother's council flat had all unswitched outlets, probably to save a few pennies).
My point was not the differences in chocolate, it was the declaration of all American foo as "rubbish" and the subsequent high moderation...
Come to think of it, I have a very vague recollection of how vomit tastes like... Always having it fresh in memory must be an English thing ;-) Sorry, could not resist.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Spare cpu cycles are best used for spam. At some point even spam might achieve results....
SETI@Home was a prominent beacon for grid computing for the masses, which spawned BOINC, which is being used to simplify distribution and management of other 'useful' grid computing projects such as protein folding and climate change prediction cores. Significant enough event, IMHO.
I want my spare CPU Cycles, and I want them /NOW/!
And so on. It's a very specific project in a vast field of science, so please don't generalize.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I prefer Electric Sheep.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
BOINC does about 1200 TFLOPS (= 1,200,000,000 MFLOPS) atm.
=> BOINC probably burns around 20MW (assuming that the power used is directly proportional to the CPU time used even if it isn't 100%, which is wrong but an upper bound and probably not very far off).
1 KWh electricity = 0.43Kg CO2
=> BOINC generates 8.6 tons CO2 per hour or about 3100 tons/year (correct me if I'm wrong, I might be a few orders of magnitude off). That isn't very much compared to the 6b tons emitted by the USA anually, but still a waste...
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Looking at the Nightlife forums, the prevailing comment there is that this is a less sophisticated form of BOINC.
So the only reason to run Nightlife is if you want to re-invent BOINC for some reason...?
With the current state of knowledge about atmosphere dynamics, climate prediction models are just guesses (usually refined to give a predicted answer which will please the grant provider)
Remember the big BBC study, which was invalidated before it had finished? Climate Science is best characterised as misleading green propaganda, and is frequently fraudulent. Hockey Stick, anyone.
I would not let my PC be associated with this!
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]