How is everyone these days?

[Jeffers]

Seems fairly quiet in here these days...
My you, I'm as guilty as anyone, I hadn't been on in ages.
I was just looking through some of my old posts.
When I joined back in 2006, I had an AMD64 based PC and I thought it was great getting to 1,00 credits..
Now my current average credit is around 1.8 million and I should get to a billion credits this year.
How times change!
Anyway, in the getting on for 12 years I've been here I've reached retirement age, got the house paid for, and am generally having a nice life with grandchildren to go and visit and that sort of thing.
Must be getting old, nostalgia is setting in!

Cheers, Jeff

PS, really must get a sig sorted out, which is the easiest one to get set up?

[UBT - Mikee]

Hi

Seems like Timbo's Christmas email has dragged a few old crunchers out of the woods! Welcome back!

Mike

[Woodles]

Hi Jeff,

It can be a bit quiet at times, i blame those people that only pop in a couple of times a year It's a bit more active when there's a sprint or competition going.

Oh yes, I remember when the days when with careful project choice and micromanaging the workunits I could get 1,000 credits a day and PCs with more than a single core or clocked at more than 100 megahertz were specialised ones running in research labs somewhere!

That's the best thing about grandchildren, handing them back after you've visited.

Mark

The easiest signature that I've found is the Boincstats one. Go to your forum control panel, select Profile then Edit signature and add

Code: Select all

[img]https://boincstats.com/signature/-5/user/15234252724/sig.png[/img]

as the signature. Then go to Board preferences and select Edit posting defaults. Set Attach my signature by default: to "Yes".

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Jeff

Welcome back and Happy New Year

re: "quiet in here"
I think this is simply down to the fact that more people stay in contact via "social media" (ie Facebook, Instagram etc) whereas this forum has mainly stayed focused on BOINC, plus with a few other sections thrown in.

Plus, I think a lot of people got into BOINC and then gave up - so, although we have nearly 6,000 members, only about 5% or so are actually actively crunching these days...and out of those 200-300 members, not all of them are going to have a lot of "spare time" to visit us.

But we have a number of members who help keep the forum fresh and interesting and for the most part, it has served the team well for a long time now.

It's also interesting to note that BOINC UK have shut down their forum, due to lack of use. So, if anything, it's maybe more important to keep this one going, else there'll be nowhere else to go (except the individual project forums of course).

regards
Tim

[Jeffers]

I did notice that there's a Twitter account and such, but I don't really bother with that. I'll just have to remember to keep an eye at what's going on in here....

[UBT - Timbo]

I did notice that there's a Twitter account and such, but I don't really bother with that. I'll just have to remember to keep an eye at what's going on in here....

Hi Jeff

Yup - Mikee maintains the Twitter account and we have a Facebook page too...

But most of the "interaction" takes place on here...ultimately, it's down to which platform people prefer to use...and I'm guessing that most members are of an age where they find Twitter and Facebook a bit intimidating to use...

In the end, it's down to whether people are comfortable with whichever social media website they like/prefer.

regards
Tim

[Jeffers]

I do use Facebook, so I'll look for the group on there....

[UBT - Timbo]

I do use Facebook, so I'll look for the group on there....

Hi Jeff

It's here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ukboincteam/

regards
Tim

[Jeffers]

When I looked I found that I joined up years ago..... not much happening there though.
So I'm following on Twitter too.

[UBT - Timbo]

When I looked I found that I joined up years ago..... not much happening there though.
So I'm following on Twitter too.

Hi Jeff

Yup - the FB page is "quiet", mainly because I'm focussed more on keeping this forum ticking over.

But if new life is breathed into it, then that would be good....plus it can act as a "back up" should anything untowards happen on this forum.

regards
Tim

[Jeffers]

I'm aiming to pop in daily if I can, I've joined in some of the word games that are going on, they're quite fun.
Also I'm trying to get my head round the Formula-Boinc stuff, see if I can help there. It looks a bit daunting at first glance, but I'm sure I'll work it out.
Thinking of adding BURP and Moo! to my projects, is that the way to go?

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Jeff

Excellent stuff...I'm sure that hgblade and woodles will enjoy interacting with you on the word puzzles...I tried it for a while and enjoyed it, but, due to work being busier at this time of year, I've not had as much freetime to keep involved.

re: Formula-BOINC

This is simply a competition, sent up the the French team "L'Alliance Francophile" and it is based on earning "points" just like a Grand Prix...and with individual "Sprints" based on selected projects, on the same weekends as the F1 races.

So, for each project that is selected for the Formula-BOINC Championship, the more credits we earn, over the course of the full calendar year, so the more chance we have of beating other teams in our League (we're in League 1). And if we are in the Top 10 of each project, we are awarded points for attaining a specific placing...25 pts for 1st place, 18 for 2nd etc.

Our task, of course is to choose the projects where we have the best chance of earning more BOINC credits than other teams...so the more "firepower" we have at our disposal from various members, the higher up the rankings we will get

With regards to specific projects:

On CPU, there are plenty to choose from - I've started on some of the lesser projects, as more of the bigger teams tend to focus on the bigger projects. BURP is a good choice, BUT the tasks are quite rare, so you might also want to pick another couple of projects and set your "Resource share" on these projects to "0" (via your account preferences, on each of the specific projects websites) - BOINC Manager will then regard these as "back up projects" and will only download tasks if your main project (say BURP) runs out of work...and this then means you are always crunching for at least one of your chosen CPU projects.

On the GPU side, we did really well on the Moo! project last year, so that might well be our "main focus"...but we did pretty well on Collatz too, and that earns you more BOINC credits than the same sort of time spent crunching on Moo!

Hope this helps

regards
Tim

[Jeffers]

I'm now retired so of course I have no free time at all, I'm always messing about with something!
I enjoy all sorts of games and play quite a bit of Scrabble on Facebook. The Forum word games are quite entertaining, even though participation seems to be mostly the same few players. They don't seem to mind me butting in....
Projects wise, I already run Collatz and it's my biggest credit earner. Can't see Burp on the Boinc manager list of available projects, so I assume I'll have to find their web site and look at it there. I do like to run projects that I think are worthwhile rather than just chasing credits. Got to justify the electricity consumption by telling the wife I'm benefiting humanity!

[UBT - Mikee]

Hi

I've found the quickest way to get to various projects is to use the 'Status Scheduler' at BOINCStats https://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/team/list/ . Half way down the left hand side - click on the name and it will take you to the project site.

Mike

[Woodles]

.... The Forum word games are quite entertaining, even though participation seems to be mostly the same few players. They don't seem to mind me butting in....

Hi Jeff,

Not in the slightest, the more the merrier

Projects wise, I already run Collatz and it's my biggest credit earner. Can't see Burp on the Boinc manager list of available projects, so I assume I'll have to find their web site and look at it there. I do like to run projects that I think are worthwhile rather than just chasing credits. Got to justify the electricity consumption by telling the wife I'm benefiting humanity!

You can add BURP by using "http://burp.renderfarming.net/" .... but it doesn't have any work at the moment. Be warned as well that some of the tasks need large amounts of memory.

Welcome to Formula Boinc, it can be addictive

Mark

[Jeffers]

I've added BURP and (of course!) set UK Boinc Team as my team
I've 16GB of memory so hopefully that won't be an issue.
Let's see how it goes when they get some work....