Change in BA requirements

Turned all my 4p rigs to -oneunit mode. Then they are all will be offline.
 
Grandpa_01 said:
What is the purpose of a strike, are people talking about a strike because of the lack of a better road map, we were told the last time that there was going to be an annual review and there may be adjustments, or something like that. I have a hard time going out on strike for something like that.
I do agree they could have done a much better job with a road map and they need a PR person, but I can not say I did not know this was coming, I just did not know when.
Within a relatively short amount of time all of todays bigadv machines will be unable to run bigadv. I know that and I am pretty sure most of us if not all of us know that. I would like to know when a close approximation of that day is though.
Anyway I would have a hard time voting to go out on strike because of that at this time, now if they do not fix there road mapping and PR problems soon that would be a reason I would do something like that.
I also would not run SMP at their current points value I would run Roseta@Home or Poem@home, (some other protein folding DC project) somewhere where I felt I had a comparative points value to equipment used.
Anyway that is my 2 cents worth on that subject.
Click to expand...
Well said Grandpa. I agree with everything you said other than the Roseta@Home/Poem@home bit. ;)
 
Nathan_P said:
Well, 10 days and much posting later, lots of good idea's and suggestions from lots of people finally extracted a response from PG :- https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=25411&start=405#p255302

To save you the bother of visiting FF i'll translate:-

Many thanks for the 28 page thread on the upcoming changes, everything suggested was a crock of bollocks and we are not listening, We are proceeding as planned.
Click to expand...

Haha, Kasson's post is amazing. His perspective on the complaints is demonstrated by his choice of words - he frames it as BA folders being the problem because they don't want SMP point efficiency, all while refusing to acknowledge that this whole thing is PG's fault. They were the ones who decided on massive point inflation for BA through ERB, enticing folders to donate thousands of dollars in hardware costs, and now he says the BA-SMP point problem is too "complicated". PG made this complicated, and now they want to wash their hands of it?

This is the problem with scientists; they just don't understand reality. They have no profit motive, because they just leech research grants from taxpayers and charitable organizations and corporate funding (or in PG's case, also directly from donors like us). They don't understand human behavior and incentives because they live in a fairytale research world, unlike real people doing real work who have real problems.

I've been lucky enough in life that I am able to donate to a lot of charities, and what really rubs me the wrong way about PG is that they treat their donors like dirt (not to mention that they condone their minions on FF to talk to donors as if they're dirt). I've spent a lot of money over the years supporting PG (slowly inching towards 100k WUs!), yet there are charities I've donated less money to that send me handwritten thank-you letters and Christmas cards and have representatives who I have direct phone numbers to call if I have any concerns. And to add insult to all this, we don't even get to count our donations to F@H as charitable contributions.

The way that PG has decided to handle this whole thing is making me regret setting up my 4P rigs late last year. I think my future contributing to F@H depends on me not reading FF ever. Every time I get on there and see the BS posted by PG and its minions, I feel like shutting my rigs down.
 
All true, some very good posts.

What the hell is up with PGs posts, they do not answer the questions. No clear answers at all.
Posts that you have to guess what the hell they are talking about. read between the lines.
Maybe it is clear in his head, but everyone else is confused.
 
It would be nice if they were honest and upfront to their supporters.

here is my guess at what is going on...

BA is for Prof Kasson and his influenza research. I suppose they expected to expand that wu class to other projects but it never happened.

VJ (head of PG) likes GPUs and has been pushing them as long as I have folded.

They have not retooled the SMP wu's over to GPUs ... GPU and BA is where the points are currently slanted.

We know that SMP are backlogged, bruce and 7im still think BA is overvalued this means their suggestions are based on hurting BA rather than helping SMP... They are clearly not economists...or have "common sense"

There is another underlying problem with SMP ... it has gotten devalued over time and new work units were never benchmarked causing the landscape of smp to be rough...
Trying to push BA to SMP is not fixing the problem but... well.... how many dimwitts does it take to get a fireworks show while changing a lightbulb...
 
I remember when I talked to proteener a few months ago he said that BigAdv was a giant clusterfuck and that Pande should never have started it. He said it would end badly for both Pande and folders.

He said BigAdv was made simply to satisfy politics inside Pande labs.
 
I'm not a bigadv folder, so maybe I'm missing something here, but why is everyone so upset?

This isn't cryptocurrency, the points you get have less value than reddit karma. Your machines will be doing the same amount of science, I assume at least. You just won't get as big of worthless point return from it. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but the idea behind folding is to do science. You will still be doing science.
 
spleenbegone said:
I'm not a bigadv folder, so maybe I'm missing something here, but why is everyone so upset?

This isn't cryptocurrency, the points you get have less value than reddit karma. Your machines will be doing the same amount of science, I assume at least. You just won't get as big of worthless point return from it. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but the idea behind folding is to do science. You will still be doing science.
Click to expand...

No they won't do the same amount of science.

These rigs are optimised for the simulations BigAdv WUs do.

Highly parallel multithreaded memory intensive work.

Running normal WU's would do less work.
 
spleenbegone said:
I'm not a bigadv folder, so maybe I'm missing something here, but why is everyone so upset?

This isn't cryptocurrency, the points you get have less value than reddit karma. Your machines will be doing the same amount of science, I assume at least. You just won't get as big of worthless point return from it. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but the idea behind folding is to do science. You will still be doing science.
Click to expand...

Some people are completive some are not, but the points system is designed to encourage the completive nature of us as humans, Ultimately the points are worthless as far as buying anything, but emotionally they are assigned a value by us as individuals and help motivate people to fold more.

So yes they do have a value whether real or imagined. :eek:
 
The more of this stuff that goes on, the more I dislike the community handlers over at PG. 7im is a massive douche and the lack of dialogue from PG is frankly insulting. I switched over to LTC mining on my F@H rigs for a little while just to see what I could get out of them.... well a few hundred $ and PG's asshole attitudes are a few good reasons to not be in any rush to come back.
 
spleenbegone said:
I'm not a bigadv folder, so maybe I'm missing something here, but why is everyone so upset?
Click to expand...

It doesn't have anything to do with BA folding or not, at least to me. My 4p rigs are 32-core, so they won't even be impacted by the current changes. What we are complaining about is the way that PG has handled the changes as well as how PG handles donor relations more generally.


spleenbegone said:
This isn't cryptocurrency, the points you get have less value than reddit karma. Your machines will be doing the same amount of science, I assume at least. You just won't get as big of worthless point return from it. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but the idea behind folding is to do science. You will still be doing science.
Click to expand...

I already addressed the "but you're still doing science!" argument in a post in a different thread on this forum, which I'll link: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1040494861&postcount=30

I will repost the relevant part of my post below.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The bottom line is that PG uses points as a proxy for how much scientific research donors are contributing to the project. That's how they provide not only an incentive for donors to fold in the first place, but also an incentive to fold as much as they can, in a certain manner, and for certain projects. This is a problem they created - a systemic problem caused by using points and compounded by substantial WU point inflation over time not to mention schemes like ERB.

PG, like other people on FF and even here, keep saying things like 'the points don't matter because it's about the science' or "work still needs to be done". Well, duh, of course it's about the science and the work. That's why we're contributing in the first place, because it's for a good cause. But at the end of each day, all that donors can actually see is how much PG tells us our work is valued (points) and how much it costs us to build our machines and keep them running ($). Why is it any surprise then that donors care about things like points/$? That's PG's doing, not ours. It is thus not only hypocritical but actually dishonest for PG to then turn around and tell us that we should ignore the incentive scheme they created.
 
Last edited:
I agree with you that reading FF is pretty demoralizing. Lots of crazy posts. They act like they never saw a problem that took more than a couple weeks to fix.

But PG never told us to ignore the points.

Points are good for a d/c project like FAH, but they are not life or death, and they shouldn't be treated as such.
 
Adak said:
But PG never told us to ignore the points.

Points are good for a d/c project like FAH, but they are not life or death, and they shouldn't be treated as such.
Click to expand...

I've probably already repeated myself too many times on this board discussing exactly how PG's actions are telling us to ignore points. You can feel free to review any of my past posts (including in the other thread I linked) and I'll be happy to discuss anything specific you have issues with.
 
Adak said:
But PG never told us to ignore the points.
Click to expand...
It depends whether you associate bruce and his buddies with PG.
If you do (like shrae, I believe), it was communicated a number of times.
If you don't (I believe they are just a bunch of loose cannons), it was never communicated.

Adak said:
Points are good for a d/c project like FAH, but they are not life or death, and they shouldn't be treated as such.
Click to expand...
It's just a matter of consequence. One can't create reward schemes aiming at increasing
participation in specific areas, then turn their backs and tell people to ignore the effects.
That's hypocrisy.

In other words:
"Vijay Pande, if points aren't to be an incentive, please remove stats pages and cease
rewarding the donors, effective IMMEDIATELY."

"Vijay Pande, If points are to be an incentive, get your fucking act together ASAP."

They can't have it both ways.
 
Last edited:
tear said:
It depends whether you associate bruce and his buddies with PG.
If you do (like shrae, I believe), it was communicated a number of times.
If you don't (I believe they are just a bunch of loose cannons), it was never communicated.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify my stance a bit:

  1. "Ignoring points" was certainly directly stated by PG's minions;
  2. I do in fact believe PG's minions speak for PG, since FF is the de facto official F@H communication venue, and PG condones their statements;
  3. nevertheless, PG's handling of the BA-SMP situation is indirectly telling us to ignore points (again, for many reasons I have stated in this thread and others - although tear very succinctly summed up my feelings in the post above).
Therefore, whether PG's minions really represent PG is irrelevant to my greater point.

Hope that makes sense.
 
shrae said:
Therefore, whether PG's minions really represent PG is irrelevant to my greater point.
Click to expand...
Net result is just the same, ain't it? :)
 
From that POV, you both are right.

Besides turning our computers into over-sized door stops, what can we do, or suggest to PG, to help fix the problem?

Let's take it for granted that FAH needs points for it's donors, and that we don't really want to "make him an offer he can't refuse". Hey, Hey! :p
 
Perhaps just that is needed to finally call this situation they created critical. "An offer he can't refuse."

From what I've read of the history there have been many offers, all refused. There has been much patience and as in all things patience wears thin.

I believe the lack of action on PG's part has in fact created the perfect storm this time around. The barbarians are at the gate and all PG can do now is to hope the hallowed walls of academia prove strong enough to withstand the siege.
 
You need to get them to listen and engage. Until then, it is a pointless endeavor.
 
Viper97 said:
Perhaps just that is needed to finally call this situation they created critical. "An offer he can't refuse."

From what I've read of the history there have been many offers, all refused. There has been much patience and as in all things patience wears thin.

I believe the lack of action on PG's part has in fact created the perfect storm this time around. The barbarians are at the gate and all PG can do now is to hope the hallowed walls of academia prove strong enough to withstand the siege.
Click to expand...

Devil's advocate: What if he isn't even reading the posts, nor cares? Chances are he got bored with the project and found something else shiny.
 
Viper97 said:
Perhaps just that is needed to finally call this situation they created critical. "An offer he can't refuse."

From what I've read of the history there have been many offers, all refused. There has been much patience and as in all things patience wears thin.

I believe the lack of action on PG's part has in fact created the perfect storm this time around. The barbarians are at the gate and all PG can do now is to hope the hallowed walls of academia prove strong enough to withstand the siege.
Click to expand...

Since Stanford was closed for two weeks over the holidays, it's very probable that they can't BEGIN to discuss the problems in detail, until yesterday or today.

Hopefully, they're working on it. Time will tell, but we need patience, as well. These kinds of problems won't be solved by dinner time, no matter how much you want that to happen.

@scotty8: "You need to get them to listen and engage. Until then, it is a pointless endeavor." -- Very true. Since Kasson responded, I'm sure the FF forum thread on this, is being read and re-read.

I don't believe a research project that you've worked on for a decade, is going to be easily replaced by the next shiny do-dah that sparkles in the sunlight.
 
Last edited:
You keep missing the point Adak... the discussion has been years in the making. It's in the forum itself. The point is and I hope I'm making it clear. We are in essence wasting our breath the end result will be as it was a year ago... and a year from now.

They will proceed as they see fit regardless of their mad dash to the cliff.
 
Viper97 said:
You keep missing the point Adak... the discussion has been years in the making. It's in the forum itself. The point is and I hope I'm making it clear. We are in essence wasting our breath the end result will be as it was a year ago... and a year from now.

They will proceed as they see fit regardless of their mad dash to the cliff.
Click to expand...


Ding!
 
Viper97 said:
You keep missing the point Adak... the discussion has been years in the making. It's in the forum itself. The point is and I hope I'm making it clear. We are in essence wasting our breath the end result will be as it was a year ago... and a year from now.

They will proceed as they see fit regardless of their mad dash to the cliff.
Click to expand...

I do see your point, and it is a valid point. However, it is not the only logical outcome. Just because you got water up your nose the first time you tried to swim, that doesn't mean you will always have that uncomfortable outcome.

Sure, we could quit FAH, but tell me how quitting FAH, would fix the problem? If PG is as stubborn as you believe they are, they won't change it just because a large majority of folding power, leaves the program.

I want a fixed FAH, not a crippled FAH.
 
These kinds of problems won't be solved by dinner time, no matter how much you want that to happen.
Click to expand...

Well, perhaps you only eat dinner every 6 to 8 years. ;)

I don't know why anyone gives them a pass on this.
GPU1 died in a similar ugly way.

While much of the debate was lost to forum re-launch...
You shouldn't need to relearn the existence of a continuously occurring problem every two years.

This is like a Congressman standing up and saying he has just learned about the national debt and needs more time to study this complex and protracted problem.:rolleyes:

The problem is not people demanding immediate action. The problem is that people have not demanded immediate action SOONER!!!!
 
Adak I really hate to say it, even if I have in jest but frankly if the top 10 folding teams just ceased production for 30 days we might get a message across. If we did 60 days we might even begin to worry them. If we did 90 days I'd be willing to bet they'd be suffering Sweedy Balls trying to explain why deadlines are being missed to their donors, er, corporate masters.

If FAH is indeed crippled it's because FAH made the decision to cut off their legs just to show us donors whose boss. Not vice-versa. Again they built this mousetrap and now they are caught in it.

Really now how many times must a toddler be told no, don't put your hand in that cookie jar before you reach out and whack it? Behavior problems need to be addressed... as does this problem.
 
Who will be unhappy if points for SMP increases to equal / or 10% below the BA? I do not know anyone I can think of? It does not costs PG other than an adjustment points. Can anyone sensibly explain to me why this can not be done?
 
-alias- said:
Who will be unhappy if points for SMP increases to equal / or 10% below the BA? I do not know anyone I can think of? It does not costs PG other than an adjustment points. Can anyone sensibly explain to me why this can not be done?
Click to expand...

Points inflation is already bad enough, any adjustment would need to be SMP up and BA down but that would make everybody howl. There is no easy way out of this although from reading troy's post he might be a person to suggest a revised scheme.

And its not just the points. Large parts of BA capable hardware are going to be pushed by the wayside, 3 times inside of 10 months, that's just plain stupid. It will put people off folding and it will put people off upgrading - I am certainly not spending vast amounts of cash until this has all settled down, I was going to upgrade one rig and possibly bring a 4th online. At this rate I will be down to 1 BA rig and 1 SMP rig by April (out of 5).
 
-alias- said:
Who will be unhappy if points for SMP increases to equal / or 10% below the BA? I do not know anyone I can think of? It does not costs PG other than an adjustment points. Can anyone sensibly explain to me why this can not be done?
Click to expand...

Yes, then the GPU donors will cry =pay for = work. GPUs are 10 to 20 times more powerful than a CPU we want = pay for = work. If a CPU can do it 10 x faster we want 10 x the PPD
So then they will boost the PPD for the GPU crowd.
Then the BA folders will not be happy, they can buy a 500$ GPU and get as many PPD as a 4P server costing thousands. And round and round we go.

We have been on this merry-go-round a couple years now.
 
We have been here for years because they never made a point system that worked.

They need to sit down and make a point system that is fair for all.
 
Spazturtle said:
I remember when I talked to proteener a few months ago he said that BigAdv was a giant clusterfuck and that Pande should never have started it. He said it would end badly for both Pande and folders.

He said BigAdv was made simply to satisfy politics inside Pande labs.
Click to expand...

The concept of bigadv is broken and has been since it was created.
(But I still enjoy having a bigadv machine)

bigadv is a nice though, as PG rewards people who acquire large machines dedicated for folding, but it's breaks with the concept of equal points for equal "science".

Ever since bigadv was introduced, PG has warned that bigadv is a moving performance target.
The problem with the above is that this forces PG to set an artificial performance requirement for being on the bigadv team, and every now and then PG have to change this requirement without having a really good reason for it.

when a machine dips below the requirement for bigadv the CPU cycles it donates suddenly becomes worth less for no real reason.

The concept of a donation being worth less because it does not come from a machine in the top 2% or 10% is basically stupid.

If PG wants people to fold different units and have trouble balancing the client for SMP/GPU/BIG, they should make the point system far more flexible and reward on a basis of "science" and actual need. With regular adjustments to the points given to each group, people will move depending on the PPW and investment cost.

Yes that was $0.02 from me.
 
Viper97 said:
Adak I really hate to say it, even if I have in jest but frankly if the top 10 folding teams just ceased production for 30 days we might get a message across. If we did 60 days we might even begin to worry them. If we did 90 days I'd be willing to bet they'd be suffering Sweedy Balls trying to explain why deadlines are being missed to their donors, er, corporate masters.

If FAH is indeed crippled it's because FAH made the decision to cut off their legs just to show us donors whose boss. Not vice-versa. Again they built this mousetrap and now they are caught in it.

Really now how many times must a toddler be told no, don't put your hand in that cookie jar before you reach out and whack it? Behavior problems need to be addressed... as does this problem.
Click to expand...

So your solution is to strike, for a month or three.

We know Vijay and PG have a points system problem. We can adjust the current system to fix this, or we can create a new points system we like, and give it to Vijay - see if he likes it as well.

But going on strike / vacation from folding, is not a good choice for me. I want to fix this/help fix it, not run away from it and hide.

IF ​


we stay calm,

12345678we stay in problem solving mode,

1234567812345678we can help PG get past this,

123456781234567812345678 and help ourselves,

12345678123456781234567812345678 at the same time we help FAH.

If Vijay tells us to stick it, we can always quit or strike, at that time.

 
You are apparently not listening................Vijay has told us to STICK IT.......many times.
 
Bill1024 said:
Yes, then the GPU donors will cry =pay for = work. GPUs are 10 to 20 times more powerful than a CPU we want = pay for = work. If a CPU can do it 10 x faster we want 10 x the PPD
So then they will boost the PPD for the GPU crowd.
Then the BA folders will not be happy, they can buy a 500$ GPU and get as many PPD as a 4P server costing thousands. And round and round we go.

We have been on this merry-go-round a couple years now.
Click to expand...

You most likely right, but I still do not agree!

A 4650 4P server costs way around. $ 5,000 and uses about 700W power from the wall. Such a rig produces at the best one million PPD with the P8104!

Let's compare with five pieces. GTX780 which each cost approx. $800, totaling to
$4,000 + 2 x MB, PSU, etc. and we are at about $ 5,000. These GPU use about 140W each net at load if I am not mistaken, + the watt the rigs using, so we're talking total watts for 2 rigs with 5 GPU are approx. 1000W. Overall providing the best around 1,150,000 PPD with Core 17 WUer.

2 x GPU rigs using total some more power then 1 x 4P 4650, but not much. I would think that the comparison is about right, so the GPU people should not have very much against it!

Edit: Corrected PPD for 5 x GPU.
 
Last edited:
looks like Bill lost another post :(

and all for getting ready to be flamed :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top