Welcome to my "State of OGR" address. I would like to invite people who are involved with other projects to read this as well, as it is pertinent to most of us in some ways.
OGR has been a very successful project so far for our team. We are currently in first place, and have enjoyed a fairly long stint as the dominating team. Unfortunately, many people believe that our dynasty will come to an end.
You have probably heard it many times before...
"Only 100 days until the DPC take #1" .. "Only 40 days until the DPC take #1" ..
It is a fact that the DPC are currently out performing us.
So, what can we do about it?
1) Recruit more computers.
There are currently many people who are trying to recruit more machines.
Every bit helps. Even if the machine you find is a k6-2 300 that only runs 8 hours a day, that is still more output than what we already have, and will help us out. If we each add one machine to the OGR effort, that would be simply amazing.
2) Swap OGR time with Seti or RC5 time.
Some CPUs are better at different things. A K6-2 for example, is pretty good at OGR, while it is very poor at doing RC5 or Seti. It may be worthwhile to create a "time swap" chart, where you can choose your CPU and see what CPUs and projects you may be able to swap with on a near-equal basis.
3) Make a crack rack.
I have nearly no need for additional computers, except to do OGR. The easiest way for me to do this is create a crack rack. I plan on purchasing an AMD Duron 800 (which will run at 1000 Mhz) each month for the next few months. This will increase both my output and the teams output quite significantly.
Crack racks are fairly cheap. The prices I have come up with currently are between $344.94 and $372.01 canadian per node (that's between $226.62 and $244.41 USD). (See here for details.).
This brings me to my real point:
Not everyone can afford $230 USD to buy a crack rack node each month. Most people can however afford $5 a month, or $20 here and there.
I propose that we should have an "OGR crack rack fund", much like the advertising fund or the server upgrade fund. We would then use the money to purchase crack rack nodes whenever we can. The crack rack would have its own e-mail address. I believe that this would bring the team as a whole closer together, as everyone would have a stake into how well the rack does. I'm sure that a crack rack would move up the distributed.net ranks fairly quickly. Dedicate a web page to the building and progress of the crack rack, as well as any significant progress that it makes. Perhaps add this page to http://www.teamanandtech.com. This could also introduce people who are active in RC5 and Seti into the addicting world of OGR. It would meen to them $20, and not a decrease in their RC5 production.
Obviously there are several potential problems with this plan. Some are as follows:
1) Who gets to run/maintain/possess the crack rack?
I believe that there should be a vote on who gets to run the crack rack. If there is a good amount of interest, I believe that there should be a nomination period, followed by a vote. Only people who pledge $5 or more during the nomination period will get a vote.
/** Side note, at this point, I would like to nominate myself. I have several things going for me, I have the hardware in place (hubs, dhcp server, pproxy, etc..). Also, I have an air conditioner, which is necessary to keep temperatures down, and I have the most important thing of all - free electricity. I would also insure the crack rack in the unlikely chance of fire, theft, etc.. **/
2) What happens when OGR-25 ends?
I believe that after OGR-25, it would only be natural to progress on to OGR-26. If OGR-26 doesn't happen for some reason, then we would need to vote on what to do with the crack rack. Much like in the case above, there will be a nomination period, and anyone who has contributed $5 or more will get one vote (no substitutions).
3) Who gets to choose what hardware to buy?
This is a tough question. Obviously, people should have a say. According to my research, Duron 750 and 800s overclocked seem to be the best bargain. It seems to me like an open forum would be the best here, with everyone posting their opinion, and one or two people in charge of researching to see what really is the best bang for the buck.
I hope that this message at least promotes some thinking about the way we do things.
If 23 people donate $10, or 46 people donate $5 thats one crack rack, or an extra 700 GNodes a day.
If 46 people donate $5 a month, thats 700 Gnodes a day for the first month, 1400 Gnodes the second month, 2100 Gnodes the third, etc.. $5 a month isn't very much, but it adds up fairly quickly.
I hope that this letter at least makes people think a bit about this, and what it could accomplish. Remember, this really is a team effort!