texinga

Punchy
Here's a few random thoughts:

• if texinga loses his barrel when it's cold, then we might all see a blue moon

Oh bro...if you only knew how flimsy those straps really are and at my age I probably wouldn't even notice that my moon was showing. 
 
Thanks for making me laugh this evening, it has been a long day...

If your moon is showing in this cold... its no wonder its blue!

planetclown
It's sad when you take a step back and read this thread.  
 
I still do believe FAH has some of the most potential out of all the DC projects out there.  But the repeated disrespect of many of their biggest and longest-running donors' time, money and conviction by both project management and associated forums is definitely disheartening to say the least.  While crunching with BOINC provides a way to redirect resources and continue the fight, I hope FAH can still turn things around for the sake of the science and betterment of humanity.

While I will become a Late Fall Winter Early Spring Folder and Cruncher this year I will still stay the course on both.
I will keep my 4P Folding and 2P Crunching year around and maybe One GPU Rig.
Not sure what my 4P will do once BigAdv is turned off at the end of the year. SMP or WCG
I plan (Hope) to retire this year and paying $1000.00 a month in the Summer will no longer be in a budget that I can afford.
Winter is between $450 and $500 but my gas is low due to my new heaters that are running.
I still hope to see a cure for MS in my lifetime.

My problem with this Tex is that this 'problem' as you know has existed for years and nothing has been done about it.
 
I suspect that it's a concern now because things are not looking so rosy for VJ and his band of mad scientists.  It's that 'tipping point' that is such a popular way to describe cause and effect that we have now reached.  There is undoubtedly some concern but frankly I don't think enough to warrant action at this point.  Perhaps if the FLOPS begin to suddenly decrease and they have no other avenue or explanation for the decreasing participation to place blame then they might take action.
 
For now it's good they are listening but I wonder why it took so long?  Surely this ruckus hasn't been the first if we comb the FF looking for all those links others have pointed to lately.
 
Why now?  Fear.
 
It's falling apart and they know it.  Word is getting out.  The two top teams are beyond upset and hit the road to other projects.
 
Tear has ceased all development of FAH improvement projects as a result of this.  Others as you know have shut down and moved to BOINC.
 
The only way this mess will be fixed is if the issues are addressed and the 'old crew school' die off and are forgotten and new folding blood comes in.  About two generations by my quick calculations. 
 
This may be a matter of too little too late.  Not by we donors but by the recipients of our donation.
 
They bite the hand that feeds them and in doing so may soon face starvation unless they learn to hunt again.

Interesting tidbit:
I received a follow up to the folding@home survey sent out by the research student from England a while back.  She had further questions for people that fit in the category of hardware enthusiasts and overclockers.  After sending my responses she was especially interested in the area of communication with Pande Group and replied that many donors expressed my same concerns (just like all of us in this thread).  PG says "it's not a problem", yet PhD students are researching why we donate and have taken notice to the issue of "communication" (or lack thereof).

Just so you know Tex... I'm not faulting your effort.  I'm faulting the lack of effort on PG's behalf over the years and pondering why now the interest.
 
Didn't seem like they much cared to listen and according to Opolis post there is much agreement between us and those researching us that communications have been an issue.
 
 

Viper97
Just so you know Tex... I'm not faulting your effort.  I'm faulting the lack of effort on PG's behalf over the years and pondering why now the interest.
 
Didn't seem like they much cared to listen and according to Opolis post there is much agreement between us and those researching us that communications have been an issue.

I do know that bro and knew where you are coming from.

the main problem is VJ
 
the reason too many jobs - how can you be
 
1. Mentor for graduate students helping them and guiding them in their studies (that means knowing their research too)
2. Professor for undergraduates - teach,mark papers,tutorials
3. Has own research to do - other than FAH
4. FAH research
5. Software development team
6. Oversee FAH and other FAH projects
7.Oversee FF forums
8 Donor advisory board
9.Head of biology department (or a segment of it)
10, Stanford Boards (Funding, politics,development boards,fundraising)
11. Other Off campus developments or businesses (that he or his department are co-partners in)
12 travel and do seminars to other researchers on your work
13. not to mention he has infighting/powerplays from other researchers vying for funding(even in his own department).. even for control of the department
14 he has some life outside stanford - like wife ,kids and some free time (I think)
 
so tell me where does he find time to do it all?
It's a big enterprise to run - not a research project (might have been at inception but not anymore)
 
Stanford has to step in and put a admin person in charge to take some pressure and workload off him
 
just imagine what stanford would feel if Bill gates or some other bigwig withdraw 1Billion in funding because of mistreatment of them (donors) or 10M
stanford board of directors would flip and VJ be lucky to have a job left, and if he did there would be big changes how it was run - like take direct oversight from VJ - and put in the hands of admin ( basically appoint a CEO or hire one)
 
Basically the Stanford Board or directors need to "bring the law down" and sit the players in a room and tell them the games have to stop.
if you want to do research..then do research and leave administration of the program to an admin person
stop the infighting and powerplaying between some of the head researchers - you are now hurting us financially -
if it doesn't there is a solution one or two of you go (pink slip)
 
You want to smooze donors(and money - donations of any kind) to your cause - not scare them or make them run away from your institute because of the way they were treated
 
that's what should happen - then stanford could focus on expanding it to other DC projects and developing one software development team that caters to all science department that want to take use of distributed computing.
 
It's a business - it reduces University energy cost and improves profitability. 
you can also do research for phamacuticals or other businesses (scientific) and collect funding,donation or sell excess computing power for $$
 
 

X Z, What you just described I reduced down to :
 
"But as you also know, I am nothing if not direct.
I advised that his continued behind the scenes control gave the appearance to Folding at Home of suffering from Founder's syndrome."
 
He did not appear to be offended, but only mentioned that he did not have the personnel to whom he could delegate.
I agree that the foundation needs professional administration. How much of this can be attributed to choice on the part of VJ, and how much is the structure and choice of the University; I really can't say.
 
EDIT: Viper97
 
Where I may well end up. But like Text...I am somehow compelled to try. ;)

Viper97

mdk7777777
EDIT: Viper97
 
Where I may well end up. But like Text...I am somehow compelled to try. ;)

I call that masochistic tendencies....

At my age, I do that just to see what happens...and to check to see if I'm still kickin'

Punchy
 
bigadv was overvalued from the start (which is really the reason PG got into this mess in the first place)

 
 
The points value according to VJ is correct as far as science value is concerned so that is incorrect, also BA is not ending it is going to continue on supercomputers. What caused the problem was not the points value it was the lack of a clear description of what was needed to do the work as expected by PG and miss management of deadlines. There were not enough of the class of equipment needed to do the work and too much of the class they needed in smp doing bigadv. But the expectations were never clearly stated from the beginning.
 
That was PG's fault though for not setting the program up right in the first place, not the donors fault, they put the carrot in the wrong place. Vijay decided to end it because of the headaches created by the BA program in the donor world and it could be run faster on supercomputers, not because of the points being wrong. That and BA is a small part of folding vs smp which is huge in comparison.
 
He is still going to have the problem of getting people to run SMP vs GPU especially since most feel smp is dyeing, which I do not know the answer to. But getting people to run them is PG's problem which is probably going to be an artificially inflated points system until they get them done if ever.
 
The points system is not there biggest problem though it actually works if used correctly, which we all know throughout the history of folding at Home there has been a PR problem which has been generated from the FF and attitudes towards donors there, How many people have left folding because of treatment there. Where did the donors of EVGA Boinc team come from and why how many former folders are there in boinc and why.
 
There will always be people to replace those who leave it is just a matter of time, because Fah is a good program with lots of potential, I believe Fah could be two to three times what it is today if they had better PR and donor retention, but as long as they maintain the current attitude towards donor's that is going to be very slow to materialize if ever. It will take an attitude change on PG's part and PG's representatives for something like this to happen otherwise it will always be just a mediocre program that gets passed by, by other programs. 

If they can get SMP to run on Tablets and Phones, then they might have a chance. Grandpa_01 always nice to hear what you have to say and yes I am one of those that went to crunching from FAH. Will use one 4P for the bucks then everything back to crunching.

...or maybe this book as a gift for Vijay. 
 

Oh stop it... you got everyone blushing!

Eh... FF is a dead end... only those remnants of believers still visit.  Only those who stare at the mirror and reflect upon the words they are given to recite believe.
 
Or, to put it bluntly sort of a geek is a self centered, egotistical person whose delusions of power are only bringing FF and as a result FAH down. 
 
Again this person has done more to damage Folding than any one dissenter could do in years.
 
And all this with a delete key.  Amusing.
 
Sometimes the enemy within is more capable of bringing change than the enemy without.
 
Nice job sort of a geek.... nice job.
 
 

well in the interest of full disclosure, sort of a geek wants everyone to know that I am not completely banned. (I don't know what draconian measure that would entail, blocking my IP address from seeing the site?) rather I am only required to have my posts reviewed...of course none of my posts have been able to pass that review to date....so the difference is lost on me. ;)
 
But it seemed to be important to her, so in fairness I thought I'd pass it along.