Folding @ Home

[narf poit chez BOOM]

organic computers? somehow, that doesn't sound good.

[deccan]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Actually... the rate of increase will slow down tremendously.

Apparently the industry consensus is that Moore's law will hold true for at least another decade.

Less is Moore

I like this quote:

For one thing, the improvement of chips now faces serious technical challenges. The more densely transistors are packed, the hotter they get. Intel's chips will soon reach the energy density (meaning watts per square centimetre) of a nuclear reactor. Most people do not want a small nuclear reactor on their laps: it will not cause computers to melt down, but laptops have already inflicted nasty burns.

[Thermodyne]

Moore�s Law is already in some jeopardy. Intel has run into leakage problems with the new P4 chip �Prescott�. The transistors are so numerous and packed so tightly in the stretched silicon that they leak more current than the chip actually uses. Over 110 watts for the first production yield. These have been written off and the design team has gone back to work on reducing the leakage. An ominous sign is that Intel has begun to talk publicly about SOI metal hybrid chips for the desktop. These would solve the 90nano leakage problems, but add a very high premium to the price of a CPU. In the past, this technology was seen as only being economical for MilTech applications. For Moore�s Law to continue there will need to be a move away from silicon. Carbon seems to be the front runner at this time.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Intel's chips will soon reach the energy density (meaning watts per square centimetre) of a nuclear reactor.

[Thermodyne]

Nothing like a nice hot Laptop to warm your hands on a cold fall morning

[rdouglass]

Thermo,

Currently giving spare cycles to SETI@home project. I have almost 25K WU's! (Used to see you there - you zoomed by my stats then dissapeared about a year ago from submitting new WU's).

Can you tell me why I should switch? Not looking to start anything - just looking to see if this one is better.

In fact, I think that any machine that has any idle time at all (while it's powered on) should run some kind of "public service" process. It doesn't cost the CPU owner anything (in the vast majority of cases) and helps out good causes...

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
Regarding trust: How many programs do run on your PC? All of them use your CPU and most of them don't offer you the source code and yet you run them. The risk that such a large project will to something terrible with your PC is rather low IMHO.

Yes, the risk is actually pretty low - most programmers produce code that is extremely difficult to exploit, and most organizations don't do stuff to your machine that you aren't willing to deal with. And then there is Microsoft, Gator, and numerous others. Yeah, it's a pretty low-risk, but the risk is there.

Oh, and at the moment? I've got about 34 running processes.

[ November 11, 2003, 07:12: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[deccan]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
Yes, the risk is actually pretty low - most programmers produce code that is extremely difficult to exploit, and most organizations don't do stuff to your machine that you aren't willing to deal with. And then there is Microsoft, Gator, and numerous others. Yeah, it's a pretty low-risk, but the risk is there.

With something like Folding@home, I'd say that the risk is less that they'd try to do something nasty on purpose, than with any bugs in their program that they'd inadvertently missed, particularly since it's the kind of program that's built to automatically send chunks of data back and forth across the internet without user intervention.

[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by rdouglass:
Thermo,

Currently giving spare cycles to SETI@home project. I have almost 25K WU's! (Used to see you there - you zoomed by my stats then dissapeared about a year ago from submitting new WU's).

Can you tell me why I should switch? Not looking to start anything - just looking to see if this one is better.

In fact, I think that any machine that has any idle time at all (while it's powered on) should run some kind of "public service" process. It doesn't cost the CPU owner anything (in the vast majority of cases) and helps out good causes...

Hey rdouglass, it�s been a while since I was chasing you down I set a goal of 10K units in seti and when I got there I quit. Well, I ran over a little. Actually, it was too easy and I got bored. Folding is a little harder, but not a lot. Four weeks has gotten me into the top 4% using the same systems I was using on seti.

As to why I started folding, it was because of the other people on the team. I net/know most of them and it was kind of sporty at first. No challengers of late. As to why you should join, there is no good reason. Both projects are raw science and distributed computing is more or less the same everywhere. One thing you won�t see with folding is the problems, cheats, and other BS. If you did join up, then perhaps you could give me a run for my money Better hurry, FX51 goes on line this weekend.

[ November 13, 2003, 18:07: Message edited by: Thermodyne ]

[rdouglass]

Hmmm...I have a Dual 3.06 GHz Xeon server on order that isn't due to go Online until Feb.

I wonder how many folding units I can do in 2 mos. with that. I might try it...