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1) Message boards : News : BOINC in Retrospect
Message 110095 Posted 13 Oct 2022 by d_dub |
My minutes to hours old account is doesn't describe me well. I was at a community college in the 90's and got them to install Seti@home on their lab PC's. Since then the 'work' done and watching screen savers and such has benefited me tremendously, both in new subjects to talk about with friends, and in self satisfaction that I 'contributed.' I am very poor and was living out of my car through college but still have most of my PC's I've built and cherish them with regular dust cleaning, upgrading to Linux (When the next windows OS cost frustrates me), then my PC's retire to live out their days chugging away on finding health solutions, aliens, or astronomy things. (Seti/Boinc), I wrote down passwords on papers, long ago, or emailed back to myself (thus the young account), I once set up one computer to chug away on bitcoin mining, never again, for personal reasons I won't do that, ever again, but it answered what all that fuss was about. Back to this community though, I did have to draw that parallel over the years to tell people what my PC's were doing - compared to bitcoin mining... Anyways... I was just surfing newegg for ~$100 lenovo's I could just put a new ball bearing fan in then plop up in my upstairs in summer or downstairs in winter, and chug away on the next projects when I found Dave's retrospective (Never knew his name - same as mine!). Feeling a bit emotional here, melancholy . I've told others about Seti, later Boinc, sometimes more than I talk about my kid. Now I'm hesitant to snatch up a half dozen more computational PC's for the next installment... Change is the only inevitability. But still, I am human and feel. I must add my bit, to the whole pull and push right now between science, and (popularity, public relations, religiousness, etc), sometimes smacks right in my face while I'm trying to earn a paycheck. I've had three coworkers (a big office), in the last decade come to my desk to, I guess, convert me to their religion?... because I had flyers up asking for their old PC's (I'd give them their HDD on the spot), and how I'd set them up in my retirement home for PC's chugging away on things like SETI, and solving for cancer solutions, etc. I'd put in SSD's, ball-bearing fans, more RAM, then install Debian (back then), Ubuntu now.... These three different jokers, (they didn't talk to each other as far as I know), were trying to 'teach' me that the earth was 5,000 years old or some such, while I was (then) a seismic structural engineer... My mind would whirl up to speed, about conservation of momentum and energy in tectonic plates, then I'd see that these people just were doing as they were told, trying to push the limits of persuasion, eye contact, tone of voice, like their preachers... whatever... adding to their flock. Well, obviously I wasn't going to convert them back to science, anymore than they'd 'teach' me how old the earth was, and why Seti was rubbish (TO THEM - NOT ME). But this whole science vs. popular society is a real problem. I still work there (have for ~17 years), and will retire soon (but not soon enough), but everyone (who isn't a close friend, scientist, engineer), seems to just be bent on converting everyone to their thinking, or just plain trying to get free engineering out of me... something like that. I never talk about anything but work, at work, anymore. Geez! Anywho, sorry to make this about me. Back to Seti, and Boinc, I hope they continue, and keep doing the great work they do, but how they can, facing money, and popular pulls, seems tough. I'll probably still buy a half dozen (total of $600-700), (I've only got about 10 working now, a few off, need cleaning), others are doing other monitoring for me. I sometimes install Linux (Debian, or Ubuntu + open office), and give them to very needy families who just need to get online, I toss in a keyboard and mouse if I have them, and they're as poor as I once was. I'll point my home farm of PC's to that IBM, world community grid was it? They seem like the best long term bet, for plenty of work to do. Thanks for reading, Thanks to Dave, and all the developers, maintainers, and contributors, and I hope this tool keeps doing, contributing, inspiring, and is around for our kids, and their kids, to talk about, in some form (that music offshoot sounds cool), or many forms, or some form. Be well you all. |
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