There has to be feedback. That's what I see the points doing.

What am I missing? Badges are awarded on run time NOW!

If you have your finger even to some small extent on the pulse of the community here and without giving any identifying details or inadvertently skewing the narrative, I'd be interested in hearing more, and here's why.

I'm sure that there are times that people do feel personally slighted for something that if they really just stepped back for a moment, would realize they could look at differently if they really wanted to.

Then again, it's also true that a lot of people just strongly identify with particular projects and that's all there is too it. It's not really about WCG. That just happens to be the mode of transport for the thing that they actually do care about. No need for us to take that personally either.

But something that would bother me and that I've wondered about for a while now since HCC-GPU got going is what role that's played. And I'm not just talking about the points aspect either although that has to be an issue if you're on a budget and it's going to be a sacrifice for you to make the necessary investment.

No. Rather, what I mean is that even if you're content with continuing with what you have, there's still the fact that you're being horribly wasteful compared to someone doing gpu crunching when you look at from the point of view of research done per kilowatt/hour.

Of course that's immediately tempered by the fact that HCC is only one of the dozen or so truly worthy projects here, but that isn't necessarily going to matter depending on how you look at things. For example, a lot of people might feel that GPU computing should have been initiated here long ago and the fact that we only have one project (one that will terminate soon at that) is more a reflection on the extent to which IBM doesn't care if the right platform is used for the job. And if that's really the case, maybe I should take my cpu cycles someplace that actually needs cpu cycles rather than giving them to a place that only uses them because they happen to be free - even if they happen to be least efficient method currently available for that particular project.

Now before anyone yells at me, I'm not saying that these are arguments I'm making or even agree with. I'm just playing devils advocate in case there are people that might feel that way or if not precisely that way, perhaps similarly. Because if so, that would make sense to me and I would want to hear them out and have a discussion with them.

I've been away from the board for a few years, but that's not my recollection. What I recall is that WCG wasn't entertaining GPU projects for a host of reasons. I think some of that had to do with platform considerations, APIs and the like, but it was definitely an option. I'll happily be corrected if mistaken though.

edit: On the other hand, if you mean that the researchers, many of whom probably write their own code, just aren't up to the task of doing massively parallel coding, yeah, I can see that too.

But maybe that's a place that either IBM and/or the BOINC community can step in to help. I mean if the only reason that a project isn't getting pushed through on gpu architecture is that you need someone to hump the code, ok. That's a reason, and in some cases a decent reason. But it's never a good reason.

Personally I think those who put the emphasis on 'points' or acheivements are loosing the reason for being here and investing the time and on most cases, money, if only for the electric, to do the Crunching.

I personally am here to see if what I'm contributing can make a small difference in the wider picture!

As has been said, for those of you who have lost sight of this or have become too involved in the competition of 'Points' good luck on your Journey!

I suspect we all have different reasons for joining, but the goal is lilely to be similar. I'm a Project Manager in IT, sometimes during a project, we have to step back and take stock of where we are, assess if the original goals of the project are still relevanta and acheivable. If not the project will be closed.

May be for some they have reached this point and need to move on. This is not to demean their contribution thus far, it, as are all contributions appreciated, but there becomes a time in many projects to colse it, this is reached at different times.

One last point, I've been involved in many volunteer projects, being treated like a mushroom seems to be indicative of the sector. You have to accept that or move on!

Regards

Well said, Mamajuanauk

At present I am crunching:

1. HCC (GPU)
2. DSFL
3. SN2S
4. GPUGrid (cancer, HIV, neural disorders)
5. Folding@home (Alzheimer's)

Why?

1 & 4 - I know people suffering from Cancer
2 & 3 - Horrible diseases of the underdeveloped world
4. Many young children die from HIV infection, especially in South Africa
5. My father suffered from Alzheimer's: it was terrible to watch for the last couple of years