106
If you have spare computing power, consider donating some of that to a distributed computing project
(boinc.berkeley.edu)
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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What do you mean by "spare"? Modern CPUs scale their electricity usage according to utilisation.
One would assume they mean sitting around, doing nothing. Some would rather use some electricity to support a good cause than have the computing power sit there idle.
That makes sense. Thank you.
would rather use some electricity to support a good cause than have the computing power sit there idle.
That's not "spare" though. That's my point.
I mean yeah, but no. It is spare capacity, so it's spare in one way.
I have hundreds of gigaflops of computing power sitting idle 80% of the time, I just don't think the taxpayers would appreciate the power bill if I put it all to use like that. But at home I can spare a few cycles on my solar power sipping Proxmox cluster.
I have a spare room in my house sat idle 80% of the time. I could easily install a few racks of servers in there and have some gigaflops of computing power to contribute.
But actually, being "idle" isn't the same thing as "spare" because it would cost a lot of money to install racks of servers, just as it costs money to run computations on an otherwise idle computer.
So I mean no, but no. It's only spare capacity in a stupid, convoluted way that's disconnected from common sense and common usage of the word.
But you managed to brag about having hundreds of gigaflops of taxpayer-funded computing at your fingertips so good for you, you go for that validation from strangers on the Internet.
Idle computing capacity that installed, online, but is not being used all the time is exactly what I thought the OP was talking about and calling spare. They said computing power to spare, not space or equipment. I don't understand your argument about installing equipment, that to me isn't what OP was talking about. 🤷♀️ Kinda like the spare capacity that CompuServe had from their time sharing service that they used to bring their online service to the masses at night.
Sorry you didn't appreciate my reply. I was trying to explain my point with real examples from my experience. I don't need your validation. I kinda regret trying to make you see both sides now. But whatever, you do you.
I use a VPS. They don't charge based on CPU utilization so I run Folding@Home on it.
Please only do this on plans with a dedicated vCPU that isn't shared with other users.
For now, until economics catches up with you :-) Enjoy it while it lasts I suppose.
I’ve participated in their SETI and cancer research projects in the past. It’s a good cause, and I don’t mind making a donation.
I did think the BOINC project was shut down, though. Good to know it’s still going.
My very cursory understanding is that SETI was shutting down, but BOINC (so folding etc) should still be going.
That’s really good to know. Thanks!
Now I know this is being done with encryption, but an open tunnel direct to your non dmz-ed system, is just begging to be hacked, and it will be, without a shadow of doubt.
In what sense is this "opening a direct tunnel?"
I don't think you really understand what's going on here; or otherwise, I don't.
I've used BOINC without issue for over a decade.
As far as I know, the BOINC client just pulls down new data for processing when each batch of work is done. There's no pushing and no open tunnel or port. The software risk would be malicious code in a particular project (e.g. if it said it was folding proteins but actually mined bitcoins). I hope there's some vetting of project code.
The other risk is hardware (especially CPU and RAM) running its lifetime down more quickly because of the continual heavier usage.