UK BOINC Team Forum

Just popped in to say hello !!

I know I've not been around for some time, mainly due to a change in my personal circumstances.....

However, I'm on course to be back to my normal healthy state by spring/summer 2010....

I'll post a better update in a few days times.


So, for now I'll just wish you all a HAPPY CRUNCHING NEW YEAR

Tim

Great to see you online again Tim.

All the best, and have a happy new year.  :D

UBT - Rick Horn wrote:Great to see you online again Tim.

All the best, and have a happy new year.  :D

Rick just beat me to it, Tim!!

Look forward to welcoming you fully back as soon as.

Happy New Year!

It's great to see you posting again Tim, let's hope 2010 brings good things for all of us.  :)

Happy New Year!  :occasion7:

UBT - Founder wrote:
I know I've not been around for some time, manly due to a change in my personal circumstances.....

Ooer - that looks very drastic and cryptic! If it is a "manly" change .... (insert your own witty comment here!)

Anyway, great to see you back - you've been missed!

Mike

Hi Tim great news and good to see you back on the forum if only to say Hi!.
Looking forward to 2010 and even more crunching.

Happy new year

Mark

Great to see you back, Tim. Hope all is going well for you.

great to see you back on here tim ...
all the best to you and yours for the new year





b.

Good to hear from you, Tim. I hope 2010 brings you a fruitful change of fortunes!

good to see you around the place again Tim
all the best for the new year

Hi all,

Thanks for your kind words.....and sorry for the "manly" typo - corrected now

I've been a bit too busy this last 7 weeks, as without warning, my mum died in mid-Jan, plus I've had to spend some time getting my VAT and Self-Assessment submitted online, which has eaten into my "free time" quite a bit...

But the accounts have been done and I'll receive the Grant of probate soon enough.

Otherwise, things are looking up - so, I'll hopefully be back on a more regular basis soon....

If any probs or issues, then please PM me.....I know I'll have a lot of catching up to do, (in due course) both from a crunching POV as well as news etc, so, we'll see how I fare.

all the best
Tim

A bit of an update for y'all.

From end March to end May 2010, I've undergone radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer, which thankfully has been caught at a very early stage, and I've been very lucky, living in Cambridge and as such have been treated on a new fangled Tomotherapy machine, at Addenbrookes which is the countries leading cancer treatment centre.

These machines cost a few million quid, but they basically give you a daily scan of the affected area and then the machine adjusts itself to take account of the position of the specific organ that needs radiotherapy....as our internal organs move about on a day to day basis - ok, not by much, but enough to mean that some cancerous bits might be missed with a conventional r/t machine.


I'm now awaiting a blood test (to be taken in mid-July), the results of which I'll be told in early August.

I am expecting to be given the "all clear" at that time.....and hence I will then be an "ex-cancer patient".....

Other issues, such as moving house and not having access to broadband for a while, have meant that I've not been crunching at all for some time....but I'm hoping to restart soon....once I can build myself a nice new PC........

regards
Tim

I have to say Tim that it's good to know that your doctors have caught the cancer at such an early stage, and that you are getting the best treatment available. Still, I'm sure we will all be thinking of you when you get those results in August.

As for the crunching, well I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you see the amount of work that even a modest system, albeit one with a powerful graphics card, is capable of these days.

James.

Hi Tim

Good to hear from you Tim and good to hear that you're on your way to winning your battle.

Don't worry about the team/forum etc, look after #1

take care
John

Joshrandom wrote:I have to say Tim that it's good to know that your doctors have caught the cancer at such an early stage, and that you are getting the best treatment available. Still, I'm sure we will all be thinking of you when you get those results in August.

I actually went to see the GP concerning a completely unrelated (and quite minor) matter and it was just down to her saying that I'm a "certain age" and that it would be a good idea to have an overall check concerning diabetes, cholesterol, etc.

I've just so glad that this check also included a PSA test - which affects a significant number of men and is a good indicator that cancer may be present in your prostate.

So, if you are late 40's early 50's and haven't had a recent blood test to check your PSA level, then PLEASE go and do it......cancer can be treated if caught early enough and BEFORE it has had a chance to spread....

Temujin wrote:Good to hear from you Tim and good to hear that you're on your way to winning your battle.

Hi John,

I'm quietly confident that all will be well.......but it'll certainly be a cause for celebration in early August, assuming I get the all clear.....

Temujin wrote:Don't worry about the team/forum etc, look after #1

take care
John

I was sure that the team/forum could manage for a while without me.....but even so, I'm more than happy to re-involve myself in UBT a little over the coming months, as my life starts to settle down again after a good few months of uncertainty.

regards
Tim

That's how they caught my stage 2 diabetes, blood tests for a completely unrelated illness. Despite all the complaints, we still have the best social health service in the world!

melter65 wrote:That's how they caught my stage 2 diabetes, blood tests for a completely unrelated illness. Despite all the complaints, we still have the best social health service in the world!

They found my type 2 diabetes in the exact same way.
I have also had tens of thousands of pounds worth of brain surgery some years ago, so I am a big fan of the NHS!

Hi all,

Just a quick update.

I had an email from Rick the other day to sign UBT up to the WCG 6th Birthday challenge which starts on the 16th....so, we're involved in that now....so I hope you'll all do your best to help, if you can.

On a personal level, my radiotherapy treatment finished at the end of May and I came off the hormone treatment at end of June....I've had one PSA test since then and the results were really good......my next results will be given to me in early December, and I'm hoping that the PSA will have dropped significantly again......

I've been trying to catch up on a load of stuff over the last 3 or so months - I awarded myself some time off work while it was "quiet" and of course now, it's getting busier so I've got lots to do......but I have restarted crunching but some projects seem to be still having issues SETI, being one of them....!! So, my numbers won't be going up that quick....

I'm thinking that I've been away from this forum for a bit too long....so, I'll try to slowly ingratiate myself back into the swing of things....

Keep crunching and I'll pop back soon enough......I can feel a need to start cracking the whip as some crunchers seem to be slacking a bit....yours truly included...!!!

regards
Tim

Good to hear from you, Tim - and particularly good to hear you're doing well.

I'm sure we all look forward to seeing you around more regularly once you're back up to it!

Great news on the test results Tim, and here's hoping that the next lot are even better. :thumbleft:

James.

Great to hear from you Tim and good luck with the upcoming results

take care mate
John

Hello Tim

A quick follow up:

Things are now fairly stable for me, from a health point of view.

I've not been given the all-clear as the radiotherapy doesn't kill the cancer cells - it just stops them from dividing and multiplying.....so, I've got to wait for the cancer cells to just die off (which can take a while) and hope that they have managed to irradiate all of the cancer cells.

So, as things stand, my PSA is dropping nicely and maybe by next year, it'll be low enough that I won't need testing quite so often - I'm on a 3 month cycle at the moment, with my next blood test due to be taken at the end of this month.

As far as the UBT side goes, I'll be re-starting a bit of BOINC fairly soon, although my ageing 3Ghz Pentium 4 did do a bit of SETI recently (until their server crashed) - and I've not had any other suitable hardware to use for a while, as some of my PC's were getting a bit long in the tooth so they've been mothballed for now....

I've also recently moved house and now have a half decent broadband connection, so I can start thinking about how best to use some of my spare time to re-engage myself with UBT....

So, keep on crunching muckers and I'll be back soon enough

regards
Tim
(PS I, like many others, was upset by the sad loss of Lis Sladen recently....and I'll be retaining my avatar in tribute to such a fine lady.....RIP Sarah-Jane)

Excellent news Tim, fingers and toes crossed it remains that way over the last rounds.   :toothy7:

Regards
Zy

Good to hear from you Tim  :D

Sounds like good news, Tim. It'll be good to see you around again as soon as you're able!

Nice to hear from you Tim..

All the best ...



b.

Good to hear from you Tim, sounds like things are on the up

take care
John

Good to see you posting in the forum again Tim.

Best wishes,

James.

Great to see you back. Hope the news continues to be good  :D

Welcome back sah! Excellent to see you on the forum again  :D

Hope all is well, and continues to improve  :)

Good news on the health front Tim.
I look forward to seeing you on the forum on a regular basis.

Best wishes.
Rick.

Hiya Tim TC m8 and get back on here soon .
:notworthy:  :notworthy:  :notworthy:  :notworthy:  :notworthy:

Hi all,

Thanks for the msg's.....

I've had a lot of work to do recently, so I'll be getting back up to speed on BOINC over the coming weeks.

And having been out of the loop for a while, can anyone suggest a worthy project to kick-start my new crunching campaign ??

Ideally something with short-ish run times and readily available (and plentiful) work units.....

Feel free to reply here or to PM me

regards
Tim

Welcome again, Tim. These days Rosetta has flexibility in run times. Within your preferences you can select preferred run time from 1 hour up to 1 day per work unit. I've only used the deafault of 4 hours, but they've been pretty consistent around that time.

Hope that helps.

Aqua have re-invented themselves from what they were way back, and are now very productive doing development work on Quantum Computers.  Some of it is a bit leading edge and takes time to settle down (new ROQ WUs a case in point - they are ok now though).

To suit your request, I would suggest "D-Wave's Fokker-Planck Simulation : Multi-Threaded" at Aqua.  Usually lots around (24,156 at time of this post) and they usually keep it well loaded - although a nudge has been known to refill it.

Credits for it are slightly above average, and its multi-threaded so it will use all cores you have available.

Regards
Zy

I would  recommend Primaboinca. It has a steady stream of work, and gives generous credit, with short run times, (less than 2 hours for a fixed 200 credits.)

Jeez - where does the time go...?

Back in June I thought I'd have the time to re-acquaint myself with BOINC, get a PC up and running and re-start crunching.....

It's now mid-October and I've not got started yet....just too many things to get done.....

Oh well, I'm sure I can get something crunching fairly soon now - thanks for the suggestions - I'll see what I can do to start adding more to the teams highly creditable total....

regards
Tim

PS On the health side, things are looking very promising now - the last 2-3 blood tests have all been "as expected", so with a bit of luck, all will be well.....and no doubt I'll get run over by a bus next week...

Nice to hear from you again Tim, especially about your improving health.
Hope you`ll be crunching again soon.

Rick.

.....and no doubt I'll get run over by a bus next week...  

Definitely on the mend ....  good to see

Regards
Zy

It's always great to see you on the forum again Tim, especially when you have (buses allowing) such good news to share.  :occasion5:

Oh, and as for the crunching, well I'm sure you'll get to that elusive first million mark eventually.  ;)

James.

Good to see you around again Tim :thumbup:
Keep an eye out for those damned buses

Joshrandom wrote:It's always great to see you on the forum again Tim, especially when you have (buses allowing) such good news to share.  :occasion5:

Oh, and as for the crunching, well I'm sure you'll get to that elusive first million mark eventually.  ;)

James.

Hi James

That "elusive" first million is within my grasp....I can just feel that it is just a few thousand credits away....and perhaps, just perhaps, I'll get there fairly soon....

regards
Tim

Temujin wrote:Good to see you around again Tim :thumbup:
Keep an eye out for those damned buses

Hi John,

Thanks for the message - I'll tell you what - I'm gonna do my best to avoid them....but seeing as I don't use them (because most of the time, I use private transport) so they've got their work cut out to get me

The best chance they have to run me over is if they decide to chase after me down the pavement, when I'm on my way to the post office....

regards
Tim

UBT - Rick Horn wrote:Nice to hear from you again Tim, especially about your improving health.
Hope you`ll be crunching again soon.

Rick.

Hi Rick,

Yup - am up and running again on one PC at the mo - my old reliable workhorse dual-core Pentium 4 (3Ghz)....it's crunched most of my WU's over the last 6+ years

I'll have to sort out my quad-core that's been in bits for the last 2+ years.....it might be old tech (only an Intel Q6600), but it can crank them out with the best of them....

Just a shame my laptop isn't good enough to add anything.....it's only a Intel dual-core running at 1.5GHz - but like most lappies, it gets a bit too warm if "pushed" so, I daren't use it for BOINC.

regards,
Tim

hehehehehehe

The Quad core is now up and running - updated to the latest BOINC Manager and sometimes cranking out 5 WU's at a time (as the cheapie graphics card it has, an ATI 4350 - all I could afford back then - is supported as a GPU by Collatz Conjecture )

I'll get to my 1st million pretty soon I reckon...but I'll be in "non-crunching" mode from Thursday until next Monday as I'll be away in (hopefully) sunny Manchester...

regards

Tim