Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

This section is where you can post topics related to Challenges from other websites, such as Formula-BOINC, SETI-Germany and BOINCstats, as well as project challenges such as from WCG, PrimeGrid et al.

As a Team, we really want to engage as many team members with these challenges, as this gives us a great way of attracting more members to our Team...plus we get to show our strengths as a Team by (hopefully) doing well in each one.

PS: I have moved lots of topics into this section where they are relevant...as you can see, we've always been happy to take part in Challenges...and long may that continue ;-)
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bigsinky
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Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by bigsinky »

TRP-LLR workunits unit only. Richard in 6th place all by himself. Well done that man. I will give you a hand on a couple of my hosts.
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ChelseaOilman
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by ChelseaOilman »

I set the tasks to use 4 threads and they still take a long time to finish. I didn't turn off HT though.
bigsinky
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by bigsinky »

ChelseaOilman wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:55 am I set the tasks to use 4 threads and they still take a long time to finish. I didn't turn off HT though.
i have my i9 using 24 threads. about 90 mins per task. i also have the i7 using 12 threads. about 90 mins per task. how long are your tasks taking?
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bigsinky
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by bigsinky »

ChelseaOilman wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:55 am I set the tasks to use 4 threads and they still take a long time to finish. I didn't turn off HT though.
ahh now i see what you're doing. DOH!!!!!! im so stupid. multiple VMs. A lot of them seem to be paying for 3 droplet instances in TSC
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all

This Challenge has 2 days, 12 hours and 30 mins to go !!

So, here's a link to the stats for Individuals:

http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/2020 ... users.html

and here's the link for Teams:

http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/2020 ... teams.html


Current UBT-member stats as of Last update: 2020-07-29 07:30 UTC):

(464 individuals taking part from many teams):

Code: Select all

Rank	Name		Team		Score		Tasks
34	Homefarm	UK BOINC Team	2 146 389.39	    375
132	ChelseaOilman	UK BOINC Team	366 776.13	    67
248	TroubledBunny	UK BOINC Team	98 945.06	    17
266	bigsinky	UK BOINC Team	75 720.50	    15
313	UBT - Mikeejones UK BOINC Team	34 767.25	    6
321	Paul Griffin	UK BOINC Team	33 312.33	    6
Current Team stats (Top 30 out of 97) as of Last update: 2020-07-29 07:16 UTC):

Code: Select all

Rank	Name			Score		Tasks
1	Antarctic Crunchers	78 723 776.01	    13 808
2	Ural Federal University	32 047 523.31	    5 627
3	Czech National Team	31 112 044.66	    5 507
4	Aggie The Pew		30 576 919.90	    5 329
5	SETI.Germany		21 642 054.06	    3 794
6	TeAm AnandTech		18 726 852.28	    3 301
7	[H]ard|OCP		12 352 134.00	    2 169
8	AMD Users		11 384 505.27	    1 992
9	Ultimate Chaos		9 955 926.42	    1 757
10	USA			8 256 399.67	    1 450
11	BOINC@MIXI		6 660 805.92	    1 168
12	BOINC@AUSTRALIA		5 448 124.24	    959
13	Metal Archives		5 057 761.26	    888
14	Rechenkraft.net		4 747 724.18	    828
15	Sicituradastra.		3 963 916.52	    694
16	Team 2ch		3 754 513.54	    663
17	Crunching@EVGA		3 219 972.80	    564

18	UK BOINC Team		2 755 910.67	    486

19	BOINCstats		2 678 307.66	    482
20	Storm			2 623 219.68	    462
21	Ukraine			1 924 724.49	    341
22	Noobs Of Kryta [NOOB]	1 565 620.06	    275
23	The Knights Who Say Ni!	1 495 889.90	    266
24	Brony@Home		1 492 783.50	    263
25	Alien Prime Cult	1 461 215.71	    257
26	Russia			1 255 934.44	    226
27	Canada			1 082 305.54	    188
28	BOINC Confederation	1 071 808.37	    189
29	The Scottish Boinc Team	1 053 381.10	    184
30	Dutch Power Cows	1 006 899.40	    180

I am competing in this but all my hosts are offline, pending tonights announcement of the 13th Sprint project - and hopefully it might be PrimeGrid, so I can upload my results once the FB Sprint starts tomorrow night (and before THIS Challenge ends). If PG is NOT chosen, I'll maybe upload tonight and grab tasks from the relevant project.

regards
Tim
ChelseaOilman
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by ChelseaOilman »

Just saw this posted in the PG Discord server:
PrimeGrid Primes
BOT
Today at 4:25 AM
Tuesday July 28, 2020 18:06:47 UTC: 5492438839587*2^1290000-1 is an SGS prime (388,342 digits) found by Kellen and double-checked by bigsinky. https://www.primegrid.com/workunit.php?wuid=667869704
The only thing I hate about PG is being a double checker. Sorry to see you didn't find the prime 1st bigsinky.
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by homefarm »

UBT - Timbo wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:22 am Hi all

This Challenge has 2 days, 12 hours and 30 mins to go !!

So, here's a link to the stats for Individuals:

http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/2020 ... users.html

and here's the link for Teams:

http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/2020 ... teams.html


Current UBT-member stats as of Last update: 2020-07-29 07:30 UTC):

(464 individuals taking part from many teams):

Code: Select all

Rank	Name		Team		Score		Tasks
34	Homefarm	UK BOINC Team	2 146 389.39	    375
132	ChelseaOilman	UK BOINC Team	366 776.13	    67
248	TroubledBunny	UK BOINC Team	98 945.06	    17
266	bigsinky	UK BOINC Team	75 720.50	    15
313	UBT - Mikeejones UK BOINC Team	34 767.25	    6
321	Paul Griffin	UK BOINC Team	33 312.33	    6
Current Team stats (Top 30 out of 97) as of Last update: 2020-07-29 07:16 UTC):

Code: Select all

Rank	Name			Score		Tasks
1	Antarctic Crunchers	78 723 776.01	    13 808
2	Ural Federal University	32 047 523.31	    5 627
3	Czech National Team	31 112 044.66	    5 507
4	Aggie The Pew		30 576 919.90	    5 329
5	SETI.Germany		21 642 054.06	    3 794
6	TeAm AnandTech		18 726 852.28	    3 301
7	[H]ard|OCP		12 352 134.00	    2 169
8	AMD Users		11 384 505.27	    1 992
9	Ultimate Chaos		9 955 926.42	    1 757
10	USA			8 256 399.67	    1 450
11	BOINC@MIXI		6 660 805.92	    1 168
12	BOINC@AUSTRALIA		5 448 124.24	    959
13	Metal Archives		5 057 761.26	    888
14	Rechenkraft.net		4 747 724.18	    828
15	Sicituradastra.		3 963 916.52	    694
16	Team 2ch		3 754 513.54	    663
17	Crunching@EVGA		3 219 972.80	    564

18	UK BOINC Team		2 755 910.67	    486

19	BOINCstats		2 678 307.66	    482
20	Storm			2 623 219.68	    462
21	Ukraine			1 924 724.49	    341
22	Noobs Of Kryta [NOOB]	1 565 620.06	    275
23	The Knights Who Say Ni!	1 495 889.90	    266
24	Brony@Home		1 492 783.50	    263
25	Alien Prime Cult	1 461 215.71	    257
26	Russia			1 255 934.44	    226
27	Canada			1 082 305.54	    188
28	BOINC Confederation	1 071 808.37	    189
29	The Scottish Boinc Team	1 053 381.10	    184
30	Dutch Power Cows	1 006 899.40	    180

I am competing in this but all my hosts are offline, pending tonights announcement of the 13th Sprint project - and hopefully it might be PrimeGrid, so I can upload my results once the FB Sprint starts tomorrow night (and before THIS Challenge ends). If PG is NOT chosen, I'll maybe upload tonight and grab tasks from the relevant project.

regards
Tim
I didn't think of that Tim, what a great idea. I'm running GFN 19 again but could go back to PPS-SV for it's higher credits. That's if I can get a bunker going. The only downside is IF (big IF) you find a prime but miss first dibs.

Cheers
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all

As PrimeGrid wasnt chosen for the Sprint I uploaded my PG tasks, so here's the stats for UBT members on this Challenge as of Last update: 2020-07-30 08:46:30 UTC and with a total of 494 members crunching:

Code: Select all

Rank	Name		Team		Score		Tasks
35	Homefarm	UK BOINC Team	2 691 863.63	    469
148	ChelseaOilman	UK BOINC Team	366 776.13	    67
266	TroubledBunny	UK BOINC Team	104 641.30	    18
284	bigsinky	UK BOINC Team	75 720.50	    15
314	UBT - Timbo	UK BOINC Team	48 489.90	    8
340	UBT - Mikeejones UK BOINC Team	34 767.25	    6
345	Paul Griffin	UK BOINC Team	33 312.33	    6
441	Ben Atkins	UK BOINC Team	6 356.77	    	    1
444	Rimmer161	UK BOINC Team	6 346.75	    	    1
Team ranking as of Last update: 2020-07-30 08:45:52 UTC:

Code: Select all

Rank	Name			Score		Tasks
.
17	Crunching@EVGA		4 143 490.18	    722
18	Storm			3 478 398.59	    607
19	BOINCstats		3 441 951.88	    614
20	UK BOINC Team		3 368 274.58	    591
21	Ukraine			2 472 838.83	    435
.
Potentially UBT could gain one or two places...but I doubt we could get to 17th...have to wait and see at the end.

regards
Tim
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all

This Challenge ended last night so here are the final placings:

Teams

Code: Select all

Rank	Name			Score		Tasks
1	Antarctic Crunchers	125 316 232.17	    21 689
2	Czech National Team	54 238 424.44	    9 459
3	Aggie The Pew		53 517 543.73	    9 219
4	Ural Federal University	50 557 759.97	    8 754
5	SETI.Germany		35 052 092.98	    6 065
6	TeAm AnandTech		27 169 179.63	    4 745
7	[H]ard|OCP		19 485 653.25	    3 370
8	AMD Users		18 760 635.52	    3 248
9	Ultimate Chaos		14 342 405.23	    2 503
10	USA			13 532 430.70	    2 341
11	BOINC@MIXI		10 635 123.96	    1 843
12	BOINC@AUSTRALIA		8 834 023.70	    1 533
13	Rechenkraft.net		8 187 378.53	    1 412
14	Metal Archives		8 011 348.63	    1 386
15	Team 2ch		6 386 180.87	    1 113
16	Sicituradastra.		6 302 183.29	    1 088
17	Crunching@EVGA		5 310 258.26	    921
18	Storm			4 625 847.31	    802
19	BOINCstats		4 486 890.63	    792
20	UK BOINC Team		4 069 537.02	    708
21	Ukraine			3 250 456.17	    568

UBT finished in a quite acceptable 20th place, mainly due to Richard and Carls efforts, and far enough ahead of Ukraine to make it "comfortable".


UBT member positions (out of 545 members in total):

Code: Select all

Rank	Name		Team		Score		Tasks
34	Homefarm	UK BOINC Team	3 324 793.48	    574
172	ChelseaOilman	UK BOINC Team	366 776.13	    67
286	TroubledBunny	UK BOINC Team	104 641.30	    18
292	UBT - Timbo	UK BOINC Team	94 966.28	    16
309	bigsinky	UK BOINC Team	75 720.50	    15
361	UBT - Mikeejones UK BOINC Team	34 767.25	    6
368	Paul Griffin	UK BOINC Team	33 312.33	    6
442	Rimmer161	UK BOINC Team	16 188.65	    3
449	Ben Atkins	UK BOINC Team	12 781.17	    2
519	Sean		UK BOINC Team	5 589.92	    	    1
10 members completed tasks for this Challenge so well done to everyone who got involved.

regards
Tim
bigsinky
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by bigsinky »

i gave up on this when i found out most of AC just buy 3 droplet xeon VMs from TSC. I believe tng had over 500 going. from a personal point of view i would rather see actual computers owned by ppl take part. not just who has the deepest pockets wins. Someone i believe said that 2k a week running costs for some people. well heeled indeed. are they smart? probably. how much to run 1500 vcores a day? just my tuppence worth. rant over
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by Janos »

In reference to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6695 I'd be very interested in learning more about AC and TSC. Are you able to share some links?
"Happiness can be defined as: a geek with non-work related code to write, no distractions and no deadline." - Janos
bigsinky
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by bigsinky »

Janos

take a mosey on over to the primegrid discord channel. some interesting stuff. most of the antartic crunchers reside. i would also speak to ChelseaOilman as he might be able to shed a bit more light. i did 5 or 6 3 core droplets on TSC running SGS and PPSE workunits for Primegrid. about $50 worth. they didnt last long.

Thanks

Neil
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by UBT - Timbo »

bigsinky wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:13 am i gave up on this when i found out most of AC just buy 3 droplet xeon VMs from TSC. I believe tng had over 500 going. from a personal point of view i would rather see actual computers owned by ppl take part. not just who has the deepest pockets wins. Someone i believe said that 2k a week running costs for some people. well heeled indeed. are they smart? probably. how much to run 1500 vcores a day? just my tuppence worth. rant over
Hi Neil

Yup - that could be a big problem.

I guess there's (at least) 2 ways of looking at this:

On one side is the issue of using computing resources to help a project, in an altruistic way, esp if the project has specific scientific goals at it's heart. Obviously some current projects involved in researching Covid-19 is a case in point, where volunteer computing hardware is being used to help science for the benefit of all.

On the other side are the perhaps the aims of earning some short-term "paper milestones" where one's individual account or a team achieves a high ranking on a specific Challenge. In this case, one perhaps has to have a massive ego that needs "massaging" to make everyone believe in your "superiority".

Personally, I do BOINC for reason #1 and I have some (minor) goals that I'd like to achieve, simply because I hope it inspires others to help a specific project whilst also providing enough resources that the project can get some meaningful results from.

I cannot see the point of crunching BOINC for reason #2, UNLESS someone REALLY wants to help a specific project in a very big way, simply because they believe the project can do much better with their contribution. So, if team AC (Antarctic Crunchers) REALLY wanted to help PrimeGrid, then I would hope that they make it their #1 project and dedicate ALL their resources to it, rather than just selecting it for a short time period during a Challenge.

Ultimately, apart from the selfish people who join GridCoin, (so they can extract some financial rewards from their crunching) most people are in it for the science and for being part of an unselfish community where lots of us are "doing our bit".

But there will always be some who want their "5 seconds of fame in the spotlight" though I doubt anyone from outside BOINC will even notice AC earning 1st place on this Challenge...so pretty much a waste of their time and effort and perhaps their cash !!


re: Cloud computing for BOINC

Whether we 100% realise it or not, when we crunch data for BOINC it is costing each of us money - for the hardware, for the leccy to power it and for the time to actually "micro-manage" it.

So, if one were to put a price to this, one could imagine buying a decent mobo, CPU, RAM, hard drive, monitor, keyboard, mouse etc, plus internet access so, say £500-1000 for the hardware and £20/month for internet access.

For a newbie (who had no use of the PC other than for crunching), cloud computing might make financial sense, as for a similar cost, one could crunch data on the cloud for say £10/month for say 120 months.

ie PC cost = £500 + £20/month for say 36 months = £1220
OR cloud computing = £10/month for 10 YEARS = £1200

regards
Tim
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Janos wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:21 am In reference to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6695 I'd be very interested in learning more about AC and TSC. Are you able to share some links?
Hi

TSC is The Science Cloud, run by Rytis, an admin of PrimeGrid:

https://thescience.cloud/

More from Discord channel:

https://discord.com/channels/3574937524 ... 2717416498
TSC is a system to make it easy (point and click) to purchase cloud resources to run various BOINC projects. It's not for general purpose usage. It's just for running BOINC

Digital Ocean is a cloud provider. It (currently) provides the CPU resources you can rent from TSC

TSC is a "value added" layer on top of Digital Ocean, at least right now. TSC can use other providers too
regards
Tim
Janos
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by Janos »

Thanks Neil and Tim

Some strange pricing over there on TSC. The unit price per core scales in a weird way.
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by ChelseaOilman »

Janos wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:21 am In reference to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6695 I'd be very interested in learning more about AC and TSC. Are you able to share some links?
This thread here has some info: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6648

A link to the PrimeGrid Discord server if you need it: https://discord.gg/N2mCaQz
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by bigsinky »

Janos wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 2:24 pm Thanks Neil and Tim

Some strange pricing over there on TSC. The unit price per core scales in a weird way.

we know. most cost effective is the 3 droplet. i asked why the 6 droplet was x5 times the price. has to do with the memory and disc space associated with the 6 droplet instance. 2x 3 droplet way cheaper than a 6 droplet.
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by bigsinky »

UBT - Timbo wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 12:24 pm
bigsinky wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:13 am i gave up on this when i found out most of AC just buy 3 droplet xeon VMs from TSC. I believe tng had over 500 going. from a personal point of view i would rather see actual computers owned by ppl take part. not just who has the deepest pockets wins. Someone i believe said that 2k a week running costs for some people. well heeled indeed. are they smart? probably. how much to run 1500 vcores a day? just my tuppence worth. rant over
re: Cloud computing for BOINC

Whether we 100% realise it or not, when we crunch data for BOINC it is costing each of us money - for the hardware, for the leccy to power it and for the time to actually "micro-manage" it.

So, if one were to put a price to this, one could imagine buying a decent mobo, CPU, RAM, hard drive, monitor, keyboard, mouse etc, plus internet access so, say £500-1000 for the hardware and £20/month for internet access.

For a newbie (who had no use of the PC other than for crunching), cloud computing might make financial sense, as for a similar cost, one could crunch data on the cloud for say £10/month for say 120 months.

ie PC cost = £500 + £20/month for say 36 months = £1220
OR cloud computing = £10/month for 10 YEARS = £1200

regards
Tim
totally agree with you on the first point. to use cloud computing for things like the covid research is admirable. people paying for vm instances to process folding@home or WCG.

your second point about crunching boinc for other reasons (as you say to win challenges and have 15 mins of fame) hits home and is at the heart of the matter. i know some of you guys have spent what amounts to a small fortune on your rigs. you do this because its fun (most of the time) and there is a bit of banter etc etc. some of you have been at this a long time. yes the initial outlay and then the running costs are sometime prohibitive so cloud computing makes economical sense. you're just spending your money in a different way. i have no truck with that. if you want to blow $2.4K a week with 500 3 core instances im not going to stand in your way. i can think of better things to spend my money on. just think it runs against the spirit of boinc. you crunched using your own computer. thats how it started out 25 years ago. i know times change and the way we do things changes. people will say how its crunching with cloud computers any different from what your doing. Start the droplet. point it at the project you want. keep feeding it money. the end result is the same. projects get result. if i want to throw a load of money at it so what.

Im ranting again. something i feel exercised about as if you couldn't tell. I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill. just nieve i suppose.
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Re: Primegrid Kathryn Johnston Memorial

Post by UBT - Timbo »

bigsinky wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:48 pm totally agree with you on the first point. to use cloud computing for things like the covid research is admirable. people paying for vm instances to process folding@home or WCG.

your second point about crunching boinc for other reasons (as you say to win challenges and have 15 mins of fame) hits home and is at the heart of the matter. i know some of you guys have spent what amounts to a small fortune on your rigs. you do this because its fun (most of the time) and there is a bit of banter etc etc. some of you have been at this a long time. yes the initial outlay and then the running costs are sometime prohibitive so cloud computing makes economical sense. you're just spending your money in a different way. i have no truck with that. if you want to blow $2.4K a week with 500 3 core instances im not going to stand in your way. i can think of better things to spend my money on. just think it runs against the spirit of boinc. you crunched using your own computer. thats how it started out 25 years ago. i know times change and the way we do things changes. people will say how its crunching with cloud computers any different from what your doing. Start the droplet. point it at the project you want. keep feeding it money. the end result is the same. projects get result. if i want to throw a load of money at it so what.

Im ranting again. something i feel exercised about as if you couldn't tell. I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill. just nieve i suppose.
Hi Neil

Yup - it is what it is and, nowadays, people do have a choice as to hwo to spend their dosh and if they want to give cloud crunching a go, it's their money.

But I'm with you on the "old way" of crunching - setting up a personal host at home, getting it working and maybe tweaking it to perform better so as to benefit the projects more than it would if it were a "stock" computer. And it's great to have the banter too, esp when things go wrong and one needs advice on how to get it working again...or just trading "configuration" tweaks to get the most out of your CPU and/or GPU.

Ultimately though, one way or another, the projects do get a benefit out of whichever method of crunching is utilised...whether it's some one with a single host or someone else with a bigger bank balance who can afford to buy cloud resources.

But what seems unfair to me, is when individuals buy up cloud computing resources during Challenges/Sprints, as it means individuals with resources based at home cannot compete.

And the only way to stop cloud-based hosts is for the Challenge organisers to block any results from specific IP addresses...and if the organiser is the project themselves, then they won't do that as they will be blocking the very data that they want.

So, there's not a lot anyone can do to put this right, unless each project puts an absolute limit on the number of hosts each "personal " account can use (say a maximum of 3?). And maybe "corporate" accounts can have say up to 10 hosts. And "enterprise" accounts could have an unlimited number. That could be the way to level the playing field.

And then Challenges could be targetted at specific types of user accounts - which would make it fairer.

But I doubt any project would do that.

regards
Tim
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