Posts by robsmith

1) Message boards : Projects : Anything and Everything to do with (WCG) World Community Grid (Message 112674)
Posted 13 days ago by robsmith
Post:
Well.....
On their Face Plant page the headlines are:
The WCG website is currently down as the datacentre where our servers reside must perform an emergency reboot. This reboot only impacts the website, and will last about 30 minutes.

This was posted three hours ago (as I type), and that's a lot more than 30 minutes.........
2) Message boards : The Lounge : Massive questions about Einstein@home I was a member there for 12 years now I am a target (Message 112470)
Posted 6 Aug 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Well, that's one heck of a rant.
As a moderator on another forum (not one you've posted to in recent days) can I offer a bit of advise when wanting to start a discussion, or make a statement - don't dive in with a long rambling monologue, as this will attract moderators to it your discussion, and that may cause them to over-react and hide the post. So, introduce the subject in just a few lines and invite others to join in the discussion, and be put off by those that want to disagree with you, or that no one else wants to discuss with you. As things progress you can then bring in the rest of your monologue, one part at a time, giving people a chance to read and take in what you've said in the first part before introducing the second part, and so on. Keep these sections short, so people can read an understand them, and be prepared to answer questions about what you've said, don't just brush of questions.
Also avoid, early in the discussion, mention of subjects that are illegal in a lot of places - you mention one plant that is a trigger for moderators to hit on. And when you do introduce such subjects do so in a manner that is based on facts, and not just a wiki page.

On the subject of your post being hidden very soon after its posting, that can happen if a moderator just happens to be passing the forum and sees a long ramble, I don't think any BOINC based forum has an auto-hide feature. When a post is hidden the correct way to find out why is to read the hide notice, and if that doesn't help then there's normally an email address to get through to the forum admins or moderators, use that, be brief polite for obvious reasons (contrary to popular belief both admins and moderators are human....).
3) Message boards : Projects : Anything and Everything to do with (WCG) World Community Grid (Message 112388)
Posted 27 Jul 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Working OK this morning - getting transfers in both directions (for now).
4) Message boards : Questions and problems : Requesting work more often (Message 112316)
Posted 20 Jul 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Looking at the Gerasim project preferences page there is a setting for the maximum number of task (work units) one can get in a day the default is 20. It might be worth increasing this and see what happens.
5) Message boards : Questions and problems : No longer crunching (Message 112240)
Posted 4 Jul 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Glad to hear that progress is being made and your CPU is now acting as a room heater.
Many applications only update the time & progress indicators at somewhat extended intervals or at key points in the job, which can be very frustrating so don't worry too much about that.
Two things to look at, first how long has the task been running, and second what is the expected task duration as not all tasks have the same run time. For example CPDN is famed for its very long durations, so very low progress rate.
Generally if a task-CPU combination is wrong the task will fail with an error in the first few seconds of execution, not after some time, and from what you've said these tasks are no failing with an error, only taking a long time to show progress.
6) Message boards : Questions and problems : No longer crunching (Message 112238)
Posted 4 Jul 2023 by robsmith
Post:
The "aggression" or otherwise of a set of setting depends on the prime use of the computer.

If this is a work computer then most of them are about right as one doesn't want work being interrupted by other things. There are only a couple of settings that need to be reviewed:

Use at most xx% of CPU time, having this set to anything other than 100% can give some tasks problems as they don't like being interrupted frequently (the cycle time is a fraction of a second, and that can make some applications loose track of their data and their progress)

Max memory usage - 2Gb can be rather small these days, but it depends on how much RAM the computer has, I would suggest this figure being no less than 75% of the computer's RAM.

For a 24/7 cruncher the picture changes dramatically, with my opening comment being "Don't use any sort of laptop for 24/7 crunching, they just aren't designed for it".
7) Message boards : Questions and problems : Taska have estimated remaining over 8 years, deadline in the past -- is something wrong? (Message 112216)
Posted 30 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Add to your list WCG.

That could be your problem, you don't have and account in your name. This might happen if you "joined" via Science United or a similar account manager.
8) Message boards : The Lounge : Grumbles, Glory and All Your Off Topic Discussions (Message 112174)
Posted 27 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Toasters are brilliant for testing smoke alarms.
I've had far too many evacuations from hotels due to over enthusiastic toasters.....
(Or in the case of one hotel the same toaster three mornings in a row - prevented on day four by having breakfast just a bit earlier, it's great to hear the fire alarm going off while getting into the taxi on the way to work.)
9) Message boards : The Lounge : Grumbles, Glory and All Your Off Topic Discussions (Message 112170)
Posted 27 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Cough, cough.
If we take air as having a density of 1 (it makes life easier to do the comparison), then Carbon Monoxide has a density of 0.97. Thus Carbon Monoxide is very slightly less dense than air, so will slowly fill a room from the top. This obviously ignores any diffusion and turbulence affects. Thus it is generally better to have Carbon Monoxide sensors just slightly above head height

On the other hand Carbon Dioxide is more dense than air at about 1.5. So a Carbon Dioxide sensor needs to be near floor level.
10) Message boards : The Lounge : Don't know where it should go? Stick it here! (Message 112166)
Posted 27 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Always add a little bit so you can get a grasp on the lump of wood....
11) Message boards : Projects : Anything and Everything to do with (WCG) World Community Grid (Message 112148)
Posted 26 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
The whole message shows that this outage is NOT down to WCG but to the data centre it uses:

On July 25th, we will experience a system outage due to maintenance of the datacenter where the WCG servers reside. As a result of this outage, all systems will be down, including our website/forums and BOINC. Site director estimates they will need 2 days.
12) Message boards : The Lounge : Grumbles, Glory and All Your Off Topic Discussions (Message 112142)
Posted 26 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
One courier company really missed the point the other day. They sent me a text saying they couldn't give me the time slot for a delivery as they didn't have a mobile or landline number for me. Work that one out.....
13) Message boards : Projects : I'm looking for a project that respects checkpoints. (Message 112106)
Posted 23 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Yes, but he's he's doing it in the "main" global_prefs file, which can be over-written by applications unlike the over-ride file which takes precedence. Bit of belt and braces.

We are all forgetting that the value set by global_prefs is a minimum time period between an application doing a checkpoint, not an absolute value. If the application is in a critical point in its calculation a checkpoint may be skipped or extended.
14) Message boards : Projects : I'm looking for a project that respects checkpoints. (Message 112090)
Posted 21 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
You might find setting your checkpoint interval in global_prefs_override.xml will work better that using that set in global_prefs.xml , the latter can be written/over written by projects, while the former is under your control.
15) Message boards : Questions and problems : Denis & SiDock projects are down? (Message 112069)
Posted 16 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Pleased to say that SiDock is uploading, reporting and downloading tasks.
16) Message boards : Questions and problems : Denis & SiDock projects are down? (Message 112068)
Posted 16 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Denis appears to be back to good health with tasks uploading and reporting in the last few minutes.
I'll know more about SiDock in about an hour when a task completes, but the its home page is loading OK here.
17) Message boards : Questions and problems : What is the most cost-efficient form of compute to buy? (Message 112054)
Posted 11 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Don't get too hung up on cost per core because there are a lot more things that have to be taken into consideration - here's a few more things that come into play:
RAM - the more cores the more RAM you will need - somewhere between 1Gb and 4Gb per core;
SSD vs. HDD - you will need something (at least one)
GPUs - depending on the projects you are going to run a reasonable GPU can easily out perform a high core count
Then there's electricity - generally the bigger the core count, the more RAM and the more GPUs the more the computer will use
Then, if you live on a metered internet connection can become a consideration.

Then the mix of projects you run cuts in......
18) Message boards : Questions and problems : Remove a project to update (remove button is gray, no managers) (Message 112002)
Posted 3 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
It is nearly twenty years since SETI@Home stopped using the "classic" way of working and started to use the BOINC environment, so welcome to the brave new world of BOINC.....
19) Message boards : Questions and problems : Remove a project to update (remove button is gray, no managers) (Message 112001)
Posted 3 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
I assume you are seeing this message in the messages tab or window, which presents an abbreviated message - if you go the the advanced view, then tools/event log you get a new window, and be able to see the whole of the message - there wil be a lot of messages , but the one you are looking for is normally highlighted in red and looks something like:
03/06/2023 16:28:31 | World Community Grid | This project seems to have changed its URL.  When convenient, remove the project, then add http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/


As stated previously this is an invalid message and can be safely ignored.
20) Message boards : Questions and problems : Old SETI participant/ no BOINC account? (Message 111999)
Posted 3 Jun 2023 by robsmith
Post:
Further, since SETI@Home has essentially stopped (although the forums are still working), registering new accounts has been turned off. When SETI was active it was possible to link one "classic" account to one "SETI under BOINC" account. Sadly, this means you will not be able to link to your old "classic" account to a new account, and thus won't be able to easily see the fruits of your labours.


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