Survey on why you DC.
 

Hi All,
Forgive me for taking your time and bandwidth but I am conductinga small survey on what motivates people to DC and spend all this time/money/CPU cycles. I've posted this list on the Ars forums - since I am a member there - as well but I thought the GIMPS audience may have a slightly different perspective. So here goes.

PS: Why???? Coz I'm presenting a paper on Distributed Computing at a conference All your help will much appreciated!

Any other comments about DC will also be appreciated as will pointers to threads where this sort of stuff has been discussed before.

1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?

2) Why do you give resources - your computer power, your time and moolah - to the project(s)? Can you describe exactly why this is rewarding for you? Is it stats, glory, prize money, good of mankind, tacos or something else?

3) How did you choose particular projects? What factors influence this decision? Client? Stats? Objective? Your team in fight for a rank? People doing that project? Tacos?

4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?

5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How? Some before DC and after DC stories will be appreciated.

[Edit: Adding Q6 here as per cheesehead's suggestion]

6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general. And in particular do you think the mersenne forums have made GIMPSing more fun and if so how. Also, some info about people interaction would be appreciated. As in sense of community/purpose, friendships that have moved on to the non-DC realm as well etc.

giving a favour back...
 

Mornig Garo!
1. I'm DC 'cause I like to make a rational use of my PCs
2.I'm involved just in G.I.M.P.S.
3.G.I.M.P.S. has been my first contact with the Distr. Comp. universe. Then I've appreciate the spirit of this search and the readiness to help of George and the other People I met. I like the way the client is running (easy to use, efficient, transparent) and the way it is supported. When I joined in first half of 1998, G.I.M.P.S. was smaller than now. This fact and George's feedback made me feel like in a big family... It is important to me that the goals of G.I.M.P.S. are well defined too.
4. I think I'm neither an expert nor a beginner...
5. Well, joining G.I.M.P.S. gave me a lot of incitements to learn more about hw & sw. I met a lot of interestin people as well, first of all Luigi. We decided to keep the italian G.I.M.P.S. mirror up-to-date and to create a team to try to climb the Top Producers rank. So, we need a web site for that team now and this has been another stimulus to learn something about html. I'm sure these are stuff I won't ever done otherwise, 'cause I do not need'em for my work. Last but not least, reading and writing (trying to do it...) in english is a good way to improve my poor (as you may see) knowledge of your language.

Regards from Italy.
Guido

[quote]1. I'm DC 'cause I think it is usefull for G.I.M.P.S. Recent data about error rate made me wonder a bit. [/quote]

I [i]think[/i] DC in Garo's question stands for [i]Distributed Computing[/i] instead of [i]Double Checking[/i]

I think you're absolutely right! :surprised:ops:
I've just edited my first answer...
Regards

Re: Survey on why you DC.
 

[quote="garo"]
1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?
[/quote]
Only GIMPS. I was never interested in SETI (as I don't much believe in ETs). I tried Folding@home for a few days, but left.
[quote]
2) Why do you give resources - your computer power, your time and moolah - to the project(s)? Can you describe exactly why this is rewarding for you? Is it stats, glory, prize money, good of mankind, tacos or something else?
[/quote][list]x) it's at least somewhat useful - contributing to increase the knowledge of mankind - or something :)[/list:u][list]x) I find sitcom reruns pretty boring[/list:u][list]x) I have spare resources/clock cycles, might as well utilize them[/list:u][list]x) there's a slight chance of winning a prize - not better than the lottery, but more interesting, and it's not a waste even if I don't win[/list:u][list]x) nobody makes any money on this - I wouldn't spend resources making somebody else rich[/list:u]

[quote]
3) How did you choose particular projects? What factors influence this decision? Client? Stats? Objective? Your team in fight for a rank? People doing that project? Tacos?
[/quote]
I saw a list of DC projects somewhere (Nature?), and this one had prize money :) The reason I continue is 1) stats and 2) the forum. My goal is to be among the top 1000 before I quit - I'm currently ranked around 2500.
[quote]
4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?
[/quote]
Master degree computer science - knowledgeable? Definitely not an expert, outside a few very specialized areas.
[quote]
5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How? Some before DC and after DC stories will be appreciated.[/quote]
Actually yes, I've read up on modern processor architecture, DSP (digital signal processing), FFT and Wavelets, mostly starting from links in this forum. I've been working with programming (Java/Lisp), and my fairly rudimentary hardware knowledge was 10-15 years out of date.

1) None.
2) I've been interested in finding primes as long as I can remember. GIMPS is especially nice since it is a coordinated effort to find primes, so no one has to redo work that someone else already did. After an LL test has been performed, we know the status of that number, an no one has do prove that again (except for double checking). Finding a factor is the best, since then anyone can double check the result in a matter of seconds.
3) It's the only DC project around for finding Mersenne primes. ;) Also, you do all the work on a number yourself. At least it is important for me that I can identify exactly what I worked on. (E.g. M16352767, not just some work unit handed to me by a server.) And the client is really good, and flexible. You don't need to use primenet to get work. You can test whatever numbers you want, just to have fun! (Although then it's not DC anymore.) It also matters that the client is so highly optimised. You feel that you are not wasting your computers time.
4) Fairly good at non-graphical C programming in a SunOS environment.
5) I got a reason to learn how to order a PC in parts and put it together myself (but I might have done that anyway) and I have learnt a little about overclocking. (Still want to learn what those (four?) numbers for memory settings mean when people talk about overclocking.)

Patrik

Re: Survey on why you DC.
 

[quote="garo"]I'm presenting a paper on Distributed Computing at a conference [/quote]

Which conference?

[quote]1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?[/quote]

I've started DCing in 1996/97 with George's GIMPS.
Since then I tried many others: Colin's PiHex, for instance, Nuutti's N!+1, the 3x+1 project, SETI@Home, NFSNET, Jean-Charles' Sum of Equal Powers and finally I launched Fermatsearch.org site together with Leonid Durman's amazing program. Actually Guido and I are running the italian GIMPS mirror and started climbing up the Top 100 hill :-)

[quote]2) Why do you give resources - your computer power, your time and moolah - to the project(s)? Can you describe exactly why this is rewarding for you? Is it stats, glory, prize money, good of mankind, tacos or something else?[/quote]

I am a programmer who always loved maths; distributed computing gave me the opportunity to improve my skills in efficient programming *and* in Number Theory. As a side effect, I started producing sites and information to involve more and more people to the game. The knowledge I gained since then is now useful for both my job and my happiness...

[quote]3) How did you choose particular projects? What factors influence this decision? Client? Stats? Objective? Your team in fight for a rank? People doing that project? Tacos?[/quote]

I tried to keep my attention on math projects because I find the both intriguing and elegantly exposed in "algorithmical language".

[quote]4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?[/quote]

I may say I always know a bit less than I should... :)

[quote]5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How?[/quote]

As I told you before, DC is a challenge for me; it is obvious that if we like the game, then we have to learn how to efficiently compete, but I wouldn't say I am in DC to increase my technical knowledge. It is a fact that I'd never studied PHP and Perl scripts if I would not have been involved in Distributed Number Theory.

Luigi

There are other projects? :shock:

[quote="Xyzzy"]There are other projects? :shock:[/quote]
:D :D :D

Re: Survey on why you DC.
 

1) directly none indirectly folding at home ( i help them out with answers when ever i can)

2) Prize money

3) prize money

4) i wouldnt call my self an expert but i think i have a good base knowlege of most what goes on.

5) not directly i mean it increased my knowlege about dc projects and stuff like that but other than that no

Thanks folks for all your answers!!! Keep 'em coming. One more question.

6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general. And in particular do you think the mersenne forums have made GIMPSing more fun and if so how. Also, some info about people interaction would be appreciated. As in sense of community/purpose, friendships that have moved on to the non-DC realm as well etc.

[quote]6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general.[/quote]

In my opinion, forums are important in the sense that they help people interested in a project, but with little knowledge about it, and give a sense of competition between groups working together.

Luigi

Re: Survey on why you DC.
 

[quote="garo"]1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?[/quote]
None.
[quote="garo"]2) Why do you give resources - your computer power, your time and moolah - to the project(s)? Can you describe exactly why this is rewarding for you? Is it stats, glory, prize money, good of mankind, tacos or something else?[/quote]
I learned about DCing from an add-in to the google IE toolbar. It made sense to me to make use of potential CPU time that would otherwise go to waste. DCing is rewarding to me because of the potential to find world records, and also to add to the human knowledge of mathematics.
[quote="garo"]3) How did you choose particular projects? What factors influence this decision? Client? Stats? Objective? Your team in fight for a rank? People doing that project? Tacos?[/quote]
The google add-in DC project was related to biology, which I am not interested in at all. So I went to look for other projects, and stumbled upon GIMPS. I participate in GIMPS because math has always been one of my favorite hobbies (math a hobby? :shock: Yep :D ), and the potential of finding a world record is what, in my mind, separates GIMPS from other math DC projects, along with having such a user-friendly client. Also, it's fun to compare my stats to others in the project.
[quote="garo"]4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?[/quote]
I am a near expert in computer hardware (except for overclocking, which I don't do), and very knowledgeable in things such as word processing, and C++ programming. Oh, and I'm an expert at "hunt 'n' peck" :( .
[quote="garo"]5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How? Some before DC and after DC stories will be appreciated.[/quote]
DC has made me more aware of the technology in prime number algorithms, and also more aware of overclocking, though I still don't overclock.
[quote="garo"]6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general. And in particular do you think the mersenne forums have made GIMPSing more fun and if so how. Also, some info about people interaction would be appreciated. As in sense of community/purpose, friendships that have moved on to the non-DC realm as well etc.[/quote]
The Mersenne Forum is excellent! It's great to be able to interact with other people as deranged as I am :( . Seriously though, the forum keeps me up-to-date on the project more than any server generated report could, and the people in the Mersenne Forum are top-notch, far better than what you will find in most other forums.

1: I also do Distributed Folding at home, www.distributedfolding.org , because it makes the best use of a PC that is not on very often.
2: I like to make the best use of a limited resource, computing. As a Ph.D. chemist I never had enough computing power & am glad to help others.
3: The GIMPS client runs easily as a Windows service, and uses the least memory of those I have tried.
4: Expert.
5: I learned a lot about Windows services from running DC projects.

Mark

[quote]Which conference?[/quote]

It's a conference on online activism at USC/Annenberg this Thursday. I'm taking the tack of Dist. Comp as a form of online activism.

Re: Survey on why you DC.
 

[quote="garo"]1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?[/quote]
I was involded in SETI, but lost interest. Fun factor was missing. Screen saver terribly expensive CPU wise which offended my sense of efficiency (translation - people around me running seti thought the screen saver was more cool then doing actual computations).
[quote="garo"]2) Why do you give resources[/quote]
prime95 is highly efficient and optimized. That is attractive since it is related to my work.
[quote="garo"]3) How did you choose particular projects?[/quote]
I like prime numbers and after searching the net and reading a lot, I came across mersenne.org which as an efficient DC project was my initial interest.
[quote="garo"]4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?[/quote]
Expert. Used to write a lot of assembler to gain efficiency. This type of math in assembler is new territory for me to learn. And DC to learn (the server is of keen interest to me).
[quote="garo"]5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How? Some before DC and after DC stories will be appreciated.[/quote]
Yes. Have learned the basics of building a machine for this specific task that can scream. This is in contrast to what I do at work: building large server systems that scream. prime95 has helped me learn more about my servers at work too (sounds odd, but it has challenged some of my old assumptions about cache, processor affinity, etc. I am building/testing a OpenVMS system with 128GB of memory and how that will increase the speed of an application using RAMdisk, shadowing, clusters, etc. I could go on and on. I love this stuff.)
[quote="garo"]6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general. And in particular do you think the mersenne forums have made GIMPSing more fun and if so how. Also, some info about people interaction would be appreciated. As in sense of community/purpose, friendships that have moved on to the non-DC realm as well etc.[/quote]
The only way I know of to *really* get involved, meet people over the net, get answers to specifics, etc. Great people to interact with. Mersenneforum is one I recommend to my kids without fear of a post being tasteless.

survey
 

1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?

Only GIMPS.

2) Why do you give resources - your computer power, your time and moolah - to the project(s)? Can you describe exactly why this is rewarding for you? Is it stats, glory, prize money, good of mankind, tacos or something else?

It's fun, and very little work. And I wouldn't mind seeing my name on /the/ list - keep
your fingers crossed -)

3) How did you choose particular projects? What factors influence this decision? Client? Stats? Objective? Your team in fight for a rank? People doing that project? Tacos?

It was the only one around in 1998 when I joined GIMPS. Besides I've always had
some sort on interest in prime-numbers.

4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?

Expert. 20 years experience on mainframes & UNIX.

5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How? Some before DC and after DC stories will be appreciated.

No.

6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general. And in particular do you think the mersenne forums have made GIMPSing more fun and if so how. Also, some info about people interaction would be appreciated. As in sense of community/purpose, friendships that have moved on to the non-DC realm as well etc.

There is probably some use for forums such as this. I would /much/ prefer using a newsreader
or an email-=agent, but ....
To me personally, a forum hasn't changed anything.

"1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?"

I have tried two projects:Setiathome and cancer cure. They were not enough cool programs:)

"2) Why do you give resources - your computer power, your time and moolah - to the project(s)? Can you describe exactly why this is rewarding for you? Is it stats, glory, prize money, good of mankind, tacos or something else?"

-I think motivation is the best prize. I am a physics teacher and I am trying to learn mathematics so I could teach it too. I am really doing science in this project, that is a great think for motivation.

"3) How did you choose particular projects? What factors influence this decision? Client? Stats? Objective? Your team in fight for a rank? People doing that project? Tacos?"

Setiathome is too meaningless(I don't think they find anything) and cancer cure not enough abstract. I like mathematical stuff. This client is also very simple, I like it. No complicated screen savers etc. And of course, if I am very, very lucky I can get my name to the history on mathematics:)

"4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?"

-I consider myself as a good amateur programmer(but still just an amateur). I have also done commercial programming 1.5 years.

"5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How? Some before DC and after DC stories will be appreciated."

-Yes, I know better how this DC works in practice.

"6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general. And in particular do you think the mersenne forums have made GIMPSing more fun and if so how. Also, some info about people interaction would be appreciated. As in sense of community/purpose, friendships that have moved on to the non-DC realm as well etc."

-This forum is good if someone has problems, this forum also reminds me that there are real people doing this project, and my part is important.

Re: Survey on why you DC.
 

> 1) How many DC projects are you involved in - apart from GIMPS?

Currently, I have a few machines that are still working on RC5 or OGR (distributed.net) - I've been kinda slow to move the older slow stuff over to doing GIMPS factoring.

> 2) Why do you give resources - your computer power, your time and moolah - to the project(s)? Can you describe exactly why this is rewarding for you? Is it stats, glory, prize money, good of mankind, tacos or something else?

Partly the prize money (which is why my faster machines are all doing 30,000,000 digits), partly just sheer competativeness.

> 3) How did you choose particular projects? What factors influence this decision? Client? Stats? Objective? Your team in fight for a rank? People doing that project? Tacos?

I originally participated in distributed.net 'cause it was about the only thing around at the time that could run automated, and 'cause my primary online community had an actively-recruiting team. Once RC5-64 was completed, I started looking at other projects to do that supported ALL of the OSs I use - of which GIMPS is one of the VERY few - 'cause I was getting bored of RC5 and OGR after ballpark 5 years as a distributed.net participant.

4) How computer literate are you? Do you consider yourself an expert? Knowledgeable? A beginner?

Hardware guru, software varyable. I spent almost 10 years *professionally* as a hardware tech, and most of the last 3 years as a software tester.

> 5) Has distributed computing increased your knowledge of technology? How? Some before DC and after DC stories will be appreciated.

Not directly, but it's given me incentive to "keep up" with the current stuff - even if I don't stay on or close to the bleeding edge, the stuff that's there becomes the mainstream commonly in a year or two. Like the last 2 machines I've built - both Athlon Thoroughbreds, though running the XP1800+ due to price-performance and excellent overclockability with reliability.

> 6) How important do you think forums are to the activity of DC in general.

Not very, but it probably varies. I don't believe distributed.net HAS forums, and the forums at United.Devices seem to be a NEGATIVE for that group, given that the folks running that effort tend to not pay attention to or address complaints in the forums about their project in a timely mannor.

> And in particular do you think the mersenne forums have made GIMPSing more fun and if so how.

I'd class the GIMPS forum as a plus.


I've not met any other GIMPs folks - but given my long history of meeting folks I've talked to via BBSing and newsgroup and IRC, I suspect it's just a matter of time.