hdo96815
join:2004-06-28
Honolulu, HI | selling cpu cycles...
i heard about it... i just dont see people doing it, is it just a concept... cuz i think it doesnt make much sense economically |
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Logan 5
Technical Difficulties - Please Stand By
Premium,MVM
join:2001-05-25
The WasteLAN
 ·Pacific Bell - SBC
edit:
November 26th, @10:38PM
|  It's real enough....or at least it WAS.
It happened a while back with Seti@home....Certain people outside of the US with large amounts of machines at their disposal were "selling time" by charging a fee for those machines to crunch for people, giving them a HUGE production boost and a rapid rise in the ranks.
Thankfully UC Berkeley (the creators of the S@H project) stepped in and quickly put a stop to that.
Morality & ethics aside, it does not benefit the science in anyway by selling time beccause the work is still being processed regardless of who is doing it..
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2004-2006 Chief of Operations & BoD member for The Crunchenstein Project |
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GeorgeCr
Funny it worked last time
Premium
join:2003-07-18
Sheffield,UK
clubs: 
 ·BlueYonder Interne..
|  said by Logan 5  :It happened a while back with Seti@home....Certain people outside of the US with large amounts of machines at their disposal were "selling time" by charging a fee for those machines to crunch for people, giving them a HUGE production boost and a rapid rise in the ranks. Thankfully UC Berkeley (the creators of the S@H project) stepped in and quickly put a stop to that. I don't get it. So long as the work gets done, what does it matter whether the computers are owned or rented? If stats are only counted for owned machines, then that really does benefit the wealthy, as you have to own a lot of machines and be able to afford to run them all.
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Team Ecology | Climate Prediction | SETI |
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Logan 5
Technical Difficulties - Please Stand By
Premium,MVM
join:2001-05-25
The WasteLAN
·Pacific Bell - SBC
edit:
November 27th, @11:22AM
| reply to hdo96815
Ethics and morals George, these people selling CPU Cycles are IMHO no different then those who won an XBOX 360 from the Mountain Dew contest and sold it on EBAY for $1000.....
It's the idea that some would:
1) Choose to profit from such an activity by selling their PC's cycles
and
2) Choose to profit from such an activity by buying PC cycles for gaining standing in the stats with little or no regard for the science. They didn't earn the credits, they purchased them.....
SURE , the work get's done, but if someone is truly that lazy to purchase standing & recognition and they are not doing it to better the science then WTF business do they have of participating if they do not beleive in the work that's being done??
Ex... For the cost of renting 100 PC's it would probably be cheaper to buy the barebones parts and make a Crunchenstein type of blade based system....
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2004-2006 Chief of Operations & BoD member for The Crunchenstein Project |
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GeorgeCr
Funny it worked last time
Premium
join:2003-07-18
Sheffield,UK
clubs:
·BlueYonder Interne..
| I can understand the point about not profiting from selling CPU cycles, but I don't see the difference between renting PCs to gain credit vs. buying PCs to get credit. In both cases the person pays to get credit. Since the credit is for work done, does it really matter about the person's motivation?
--
Team Ecology | Climate Prediction | SETI |
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playbl162
Beat It Bill
Premium
join:2000-08-05
Stuart, FL
clubs:
| reply to hdo96815
I'm sensitive to many ethic and moral issues. If, someone wants to sell the cpu cycles and that speeds up the process for a cure or a medicine to be found, I don't see anything wrong with it.
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A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost. |
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Logan 5
Technical Difficulties - Please Stand By
Premium,MVM
join:2001-05-25
The WasteLAN
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to GeorgeCr
George:
Guess we'll agree to disagree on this then. The whole concept of anyone paying for stats without actually doing anything to earn them just seems like cheating somehow or at the very least...sleazy.
If they didn't buy them they'd have never had them otherwise so it's an unfair advantage to those of us who have crunched every WU, Cobblestone or folded protein under our name(s) we've ever downloaded. I've earned my stats and whatever comes along with having them.
If someone offered me a chance to use 100 machines for a month, even for free, I'd say....no. Maybe it's me but I just wouldn't do it as there's no sense of accomplishment as doing it that way is taking the 'easy/lazy' way out.
I can go to sleep at night with a large amount of pride knowing that every BOINC WU I've ever crunched has, was and always will be 100% mine. How many of the buyers and sellers of CPU Cycles can say the same thing??
--
2004-2006 Chief of Operations & BoD member for The Crunchenstein Project |
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Logan 5
Technical Difficulties - Please Stand By
Premium,MVM
join:2001-05-25
The WasteLAN
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to playbl162
said by playbl162 :I'm sensitive to many ethic and moral issues. If, someone wants to sell the cpu cycles and that speeds up the process for a cure or a medicine to be found, I don't see anything wrong with it. How is it speeding anything up?? The science is still getting done at the same speed, the only difference is that the buyer of the extra production gets a stat boost that they'd never otherwise and that's not fair to all of us who have spent vast amounts of time and effort for years and earned each and every credit and what comes along with them.
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2004-2006 Chief of Operations & BoD member for The Crunchenstein Project |
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playbl162
Beat It Bill
Premium
join:2000-08-05
Stuart, FL
clubs:
| reply to hdo96815
However, Logan, my friend, I could care less about stats and points. Results returned, help Scientists find answers. If, someone purchases 100 machines for 30 days of work and it's dedicated to a legitimate program, it's better than those machines sitting idle.
Logan, I mean no disrespect. I understand and respect your way of looking at this.
--
A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost. |
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grobinette
Premium,MVM
join:2001-01-27
Springfield, VA
clubs:
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to hdo96815
Now you are talking two different things. Paying for the cpu power to buy higher rankings in the stats is totally different than paying for them to accomplish work.
There may be companies, researchers, whoever out there that would pay for the CPU power to get a project done and I don't see anything wrong with that. If a large corporation wants to make a decision to crunch a particular project on their PC's and they can make a little money selling CPU time, that is also a valid choice.
But, I'm with you on individuals paying for the boost in stats, it is akin to the guys who can load projects up on corporate computers that they control but don't own, and they can call the stats their own. There should be a separate stats category for that type of crunching.
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TD ECO |
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Logan 5
Technical Difficulties - Please Stand By
Premium,MVM
join:2001-05-25
The WasteLAN
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to playbl162
said by playbl162 :However, Logan, my friend, I could care less about stats and points. Results returned, help Scientists find answers. If, someone purchases 100 machines for 30 days of work and it's dedicated to a legitimate program, it's better than those machines sitting idle. Logan, I mean no disrespect. I understand and respect your way of looking at this. As long as there could be a way if people wanted to purchase time/machines philanthropically of preventing them from gaining false stats, then I agree with you 1000% that the science should come first and foremost.
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2004-2006 Chief of Operations & BoD member for The Crunchenstein Project |
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Logan 5
Technical Difficulties - Please Stand By
Premium,MVM
join:2001-05-25
The WasteLAN
·Pacific Bell - SBC
edit:
November 27th, @02:18PM
| reply to grobinette
said by grobinette :There may be companies, researchers, whoever out there that would pay for the CPU power to get a project done and I don't see anything wrong with that. If a large corporation wants to make a decision to crunch a particular project on their PC's and they can make a little money selling CPU time, that is also a valid choice. I agree with ya... see above. However we all know unfortunately that for every 5 people that have honest intentions of helping the science by buying cycles, there are going to be 1 or 2 that have less honorable motives for doing it and THATS where I probably have the biggest problem with the concept of buying/selling cycles....it's just too easy and anonymous to abuse it....
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2004-2006 Chief of Operations & BoD member for The Crunchenstein Project |
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scarney
Bbr Team Discovery - Bbr Team Rc5
Premium
join:2001-02-18
Madison, WI
clubs: | reply to hdo96815
i wish i had an xbox to sell on ebay for a grand.. |
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FutureMon
OW My Eyes
Premium,ExMod 2002-05
join:2000-10-05
Colorado Springs, CO
clubs:
edit:
November 28th, @08:09PM
| reply to Logan 5
Yeah there's really multiple points to this question.
1) buying already crunched credits - which berkeley stopped doing via "merging accounts" at request.
2) buying the use of a computer's time - to do whatever you want with it, and in this case it's to run Seti (or any DC project for that matter).
The reasoning behind door number 2 could also have multiples:
a) to gain stats for your personal embellishment.
b) to increase the probability that you would be "the one" to find an actual signal. (Or in the case of other projects, the cure, or the crack, or whatever.
There are various morals surrounding each of the above, and any one person could have differing views on what they deem is okay versus what is not.
BBR, as a general rule, does not condone the purchasing of already crunched work units. However, it has in the past seen it's members "share" their power for various causes. Sometimes "payback" occurs, and sometimes none is required. It's up to those making the deal.
- FM
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DCExec Member, Member of 'StarFire Seven' & Undisputed BBR Karaoke Champion! |
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