Should we post a DC recruiting thread in GH?

[Train]

Im not that great of a writer and im not sure if one has been posted there recently or not, but didnt the mods say we could do one in GH once a month? I hope we are taking full advantage of that. i think now is a great time, if you notice there are about twice the amount of people logged into the forums recently, probably due to all the new articles and exitement about nforce, AMD MP etc..

Anyone want to whip up a draft? so far all i can think to include:

RC5,
Seti,
OGR,
TA irc
TeamAnandTech.com
MiniTeams
The GameBox

anything else?

 

[dANt3R]

This is how I got drafted, maybe we could just do some editing:



<< I don't know if you are already cracking some rc5

--if you are, you need not read any further--

but, if you aren't, I was wondering if you would be interested in joining my Borg herd (so far a bunch of guys &amp; 11 gals, including WombatWoman, GirlFriday, ChrichtonsGirl, freesia39, kassy, Yo_Ma-Ma, schnozz, myputer &amp; Isla) and helping reclaim AnandTech's honour. So this private message constitutes a one-time invitation to join Team AnandTech and be part of my Borg group in a miniteam called TA Cube. Rest assured, I will not repeatedly spam you on this. The reference to my herd comes from the fact that the project is called the bovine rc5-64 project and the mascot is a cow (the icon sported by many in the forums).

The purpose of this program is to join several thousand computers in an effort to prove that 64bit encryption is safe enough (requires too much computing power to break) for internet banking, etc... by cracking a code and, therefore, that 128bit encryption is not really necessary. Its other aim is to prove the value of distributed computing, that is show that a very large number of home computers can perform together on a level usually reserved for supercomputers. RC5-64 is sponsored by the major companies that produce the encryption software as a way of testing. Basically, it would install and run a very small program that does mathematical computation on your computer to try and find a hidden key amongst a few billion blocks.

The program (client) is set to the lowest priority on your computer, meaning that it will not slow any of your normal processes (or even most idle processes) (one of the rare issues encountered so far is with some distributed high-end rendering programs). It only uses unused cpu cycles, making your processor run at 100% of its capacity. During that time, Windows would produce garbage loop instructions anyway, so this just makes you use more of the cpu you paid good money for. This generates a little heat (like running a game all the time) but if your system is cooled enough, ie stable when you play games, there is no danger at all to your pc. If you are not overclocking, there are no danger at all. Moreover, the client starts automatically when you turn on your computer and runs in the background. One of the processes limiting the lifespan of your hadware is thermal shock and transient voltage when you turn on your pc. You could do like me and always leave your computers on, so that the temperature remains stable. All I do is set up power management in control panel so that my monitor goes to sleep after 20 minutes of inactivity from my mouse or keyboard. Or you need not change your habits at all.

The client will not interfere with antiviral software or defragging (it pauses automatically during the latter). Gaming is also almost always unaffected. One thing to keep in mind though, if you have installed Rain or Waterfall or another cpu cooling software that uses halt instructions, you need to disable it (I have uninstalled Rain from my pc) because it will not be effective anymore.

I am part of a team involved in a contest as to who will find the key first, Team AnandTech (after the best hardware site in the world, off course). Within TA, I am part of a miniteam call TA Cube or simply THE BORG!!! My integral designation is Galactus of Borg and I currently have ~320 computers in my herd. TA is in a fight to the finish with another team called the Dutch Power Cows. We were way ahead of them in the world standings but they passed us on January 17th and many of them have been mocking AnandTech and rubbing our noses in it, saying that they should now move to other contests after kicking our collective butt in rc5. Please understand that the contest is far from over and that we can reclaim first place in the world if we can gather enough computing power. That was but a battle, not the whole war and the contest is akin to a marathon, not a sprint. The best hardware site in the world should not be should not be shown such disrespect.

Here is my picture as Galactus Of Borg.

The contests generates a tremendous amount of statistics and these stats are utterly addictive. I cannot spend a day without checking the teams and individual progress in them

Here are the stats for TA Cube!!! .

Here are the individuals within TA Cube.
Here is my herd.

Here are Team AnandTech stats overall.
Here are Team AnandTech stats yesterday.

As you can see, the Dutch Power Cows are actually crunching over one million more blocks per day than us. Each block or packet of work units as they are variously called is a bunch of numbers to check for the key. For my 500MHz Celeron cpu, a block generally takes about 7 minutes to crack and I do between 200 and 400 per day depending on their size. So you see, while one computer doesn't do much, the number of PCs can add to a lot. That is why I want to get as many in my herd as I can. There is a little monetary prize but if we win, it will amount to about 50cents per TA members, so we ain't in it for the money. The competition however is tremendous fun.

There are two ways to install the client: one is visible and will show as a small cow in your system tray (lower right corner of your taskbar). In that mode, right-clicking on it and restoring allows you to see the client at work by watching the progress of a blinking light. That is the option I chose on my PC. Another option is to install the client as a service on a PC and it will run unnoticed, not even showing under ctrl-alt-del. In either case, the client downloads (fetches) work to do when your computer is connected to the internet and sends (flushes) the work it has done all automatically.

The home page of TA Cube is here. Preconfigured clients are available for download (very small file, a little over 100kB) at this page . To join my herd, you just need to download the upper left client (specific to TA Cube) and extract it to a floppy (if you're on broadband, use the upper right corner disk). From the floppy, run setup. I would recommend using the visible version for your home. Once you have run setup. Just reboot your computer and see the little cow in your taskbar. You can restore it and minimize it again. It uses very little resources and the client program is a great way to test your PC for stability problems. Once it is working, you need not do anything else at all to be on my herd. The client does all automatically by itself.

I would really appreciate it if you trust me enough for you to install the client on your PC and run it. It will be no hassle at all and I will simply need to know your processor type and speed to list your PC in my herd (e.g. Celeron 500MHz for my PC). Any computer or person that you could similarly assimilate (convince, convert) would also be very much welcome. No money involved, just lotsa fun and giving a little something back to help Anandtech's reputation. I'm sure that you would get addicted to the stats and being part of the team is really nice, particularly when you don't have to do anything else but a 2 minute install of the client.

Please note that these preconfigured clients are only for Windows. They will not work on Macs. However, one person has made preconfigured Mac disks for TA Cube and I can point you to their location if need be. Please note also that 24/7 connection is not needed. I am on a 56k connection with a winmodem and that causes no problem whatsoever.

If you need further clarifications, you can find detailed info at the Team AnandTech FAQ for beginners page and also at their Advanced FAQ page.


BTW, if you wish to become an integral yourself and have your own herd rather than joining mine, just send you cpu speed and type to Russ (One of Borg) rather than to me.

I know that we have not talked before but I would be delighted if you jump on board my group or if you become your own Borg.



Cheers

Denis
aka
dennilfloss
>>

 

[Adul]

Wow that is long. I think it might escape the short attention span of some users, but I say edit it and try it out.

 

[Train]

first of all, thats borg specific, and besides, ITS HUGE!! jeeze, whos actually gonna take the time to read all that?, your just gonna scare people away from DC with that thing!

 

[BurntKooshie]

Note that Dennilfloss did that regularly....

 

[DanC]

It could also be noted that he personally recruited a sh*tload of people that way...

 

[dANt3R]

<< It could also be noted that he personally recruited a sh*tload of people that way... >>


Agreed. We should trim it down a bit, but I think anyone serious about DC (not the one-time dumpers) would read it. We should definitely cut the borg stuff out and make it more general (*gulp* did I say that?)

 

[Assimilator1]

Wow! that recruiting message is w-a-y too long!:Q ,I'm not dissing DF's recruiting successes but I'm sure many people 'lightly' interested in DC would probably not bother to read all that &amp; thus be put off.
If no one else has drafted a copy for the SETI side of things at a latter point then I will ,but I'm rather tied up atm with tracking inactive SETI members.
BTW I think you should also include G@H,UD &amp; F@H in that DC list

 

[ViRGE]

I agree, we obviously have to edit it a bit since it would be comming from the team, and not Dennil(Sorry Dennil), and we'd also have to edit it so that it's shorter. THat's just a tad outside GH's attention span.

 

[dANt3R]

We could always post in the OT forum:

Poll: What is hotter, Brittany Spears or DC?

....or the Hot Deals forum:

Stolen RC5 coupons

Just a thought

 

[Robor]

Whew, I do DC and I couldn't make it through that message. It needs to be trimmed down *a lot* and should also include some of the other projects.

Ahem, Seti@Home, ahem.

Rob

 

[kmmatney]

I received the exact same letter from DF as a private message. I did take me a few weeks before I finally read it all through. I did join DC, and am averaging about 9000 blocks a day now for RC5.

 

[Train]

ya but private messages are one thing, threads are something very different, a long message may be good for PM's, but we need something short, catchy, and to the point for GH, threads move down in GH pretty fast too.

 

[ElFenix]

*tries to think of a witty recruiting message. fails.*

 

[Jani]

I think that is personal message and is not meant to be published to all. We had little conversation over here and Mod didn't like revealing Dennil's PM.

 

[Confused]

ok, i do not really know much about this (which can be good, i'm like our target audience!!), and this is my little attempt at a message to tempt peeps here , and i'm also gonna be stealing some bits from above


Poll: What is hotter, Britney Spears or DC...?



Distributed Computing that is, not [insert girl's name here wiv initials DC (i can't think at the mo)]!!

What is Distributed Computing?

For those of you who don't know what Distributed Computing (or DC from now on) is, you do not know what you are missing out on. DC involves hundreds of thousands of computers, of all specs, from all over the world, working together on a project. The huge amount data to be &quot;worked on&quot;, which would take even the fastest supercomputer years to work on, is split up into small chunks, and sent to individual computers, where it is worked on, then the results sent back to a central server.

What does this mean to me?

This means that you are part of a huge, worldwide team, all working together towards a goal. Examples of these goals are to break the RC5 64-bit encryption, and prove that even with thousands of computers, it is impossible to crack by brute force (trying every possibility). This is sponsored by RSA, and is a huge worldwide project to show that 64-bit encryption is enough, and 128-bit encryption is not really needed.

Amother example of a DC project is a project called Seti@home, or, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. This works similarly to RC5, where data collected is split into small Work Units, and sent to individual computers where a small client works on them. Seti takes readings from the Aricebo Space Telescope, looking for signs of extra terrestrial life.

But won't these things slow my computer to a halt?

The simple answer is: NO. The &quot;clients&quot; for these projects run at the lowest priority on your computer, and ONLY use unused CPU cycles. This means that when your computer would normally be sitting there doing nothing, the CPU that you payed good money for will actually be doin something.

The only effect that this will have on your computer is that the CPU would be running at 100% load at all times. This will cause the CPU to run as hot as it would in games, but only all the time. This would only affect your CPU if your cooling is not good enough. Also, if you run a software CPU cooler such as Rain or Waterfall, then these would have to be uninstalled or disabled, because they would not be able to cool the CPU as the DC client would be using all the spare CPU cycles.

OK, I'm interested, what now?

Now, you head over to the Distributed Computing Forum, and take a look at Team Anandtech's web page and enquire how you can join the Team.

If you join Team Anandtech, you will have the satisfaction of being in one of the top DC groups in the whole world, and you will make many more friends



Well, that's my little attempt, what ya'll think?

 

[dANt3R]

ConfusedBW,

I like it a lot!!!

 

[ElFenix]

okay, but if its in GH the poll should be like
&quot;What is hotter, a KT133 northbridge or DC?&quot;

 

[BurntKooshie]

<< The &quot;clients&quot; for these projects run at the lowest priority on your computer, and ONLY use unused CPU cycles. >>

That's not quite true.... There are programs which spawn idle threads for less important work, but important nonetheless. I recall an incident where a guy who uses a farm of x86 computers to do frame rendering, and this program did spawn such threads, and the client cause a 50% drop in producivity for him.

Also, S@H has a higher priority than RC5, which indicates that S@H, by default is not &quot;the lowest priority&quot;....though it is fair to say that if the average user were to jump onto a computer, do some work, and jump to an identicle computer, without knowing that this second one had a dist. client running on it, they'd likely not even know.


Just my 2 cents.

 

[Train]

Very good, but we need to throw OGR in there

 

[Poof]

Since alot of people use DC clients to test the stability of their hardware, you could title a thread &quot;How to test your system and contribute to TA&quot; (or similar - or titled shorter). Then put all the good stuff in there in a FAQ sortof way.

Then people won't b1tch about it being too offtopic for the particular forum!

 

[Assimilator1]

ConfusedBW

Nice draft ,though I think maybe G@H,F@H &amp; UD could be added ,say just a few lines each giving their basic goals.

Seti takes readings from the Aricebo Space Telescope, looking for signs of extra terrestrial life.

A slight mod to that.
SETI records radio data from the Aricebo Space Telescope,looking for signs of extra terrestrial signals

 

[poopaskoopa]

Damn, I clicked on that &quot;stolen RC5 coupon&quot; And I'm a Seti guy!

 

[BadThad]

Be careful where you post this stuff. If you put it in the hot deals forum YOU WILL GET FLAMED immediately which would actually have a negative effect....ditto in the F/S Trade forum. There is some VERY touchy users in these forums.

In all, I think it's a great idea as long as you don't PO the mods or other forum users.

My technique for the &quot;other&quot; forums is to just include a bit at the end of my response like &quot;Have you joined TeAm AnandTech?&quot; I usually help people then ask them: HERE is an example!

 

[Confused]

thanks for your input on my quick draft on summin i don't really know a lot about!!

feel free to add odd sentences which ya think need to be added, make any corrections, and if ya want, use it

as i've said, i do not really know much about these, just what i've picked up here and from own experience, and of course ya'll know a lot more than me!!