A Pentathlon & a mystery solved (Maybe).

It's the annual SETI Germany Boinc Pentathalon and we are struggling to make an impact. So far we are the lowliest of the 28 teams with points which is better than being one of the 8 pointless teams. All the same it's a reminder that we are a rather small team punching above our weight by using a disproportionate number of top end GPUs to crunch some of the more generous projects.

in particular we are indebted to Merlyn who was once the top cruncher in the world by RAC and who, even though he suddenly stopped crunching in April 2011 is still #52 by total credit and accounts for over a quarter of our credit.

I think I may have solved the mystery of why he stopped. http://www.ecurie-cymraeg.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?tid=278&page=2 The forename & surname are the same, the part of the UK is right, Merlyn was into motorsports, and most conclusively Merlyn stopped crunching the same week that this poor fellow stopped everything.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Merlyn/Steve Sandles.

Tedium & Triumph.

The tedium remains the deleting of the bogus forum accounts which slow down the forum database. About 450 are being set up daily. 8-0

FFS why? If any of us want to buy some dodgy viagra or to webcam with a Nude Russian Teen then surely we'll do it with the site of our choice without being distracted from matters Boinc by the spam these arseholes want to post!

Anyhoo dealing with the bogus accounts requires about 4 minutes on gmail each day to check that they aren't real, then another 10 min or so using the mass delete option in phpBB2.0 to delete them. This would be fine if my circumstances and my psychological make-up allowed for such regularity & discipline. As it is I just let the number of bogus accounts exceed 20,000. Some major deleting has trimmed this back to 17,043 and 20 min per day over the next week might get the figures back to 3 digits. Unless I can't be bothered!

The triumph is our continuing out crunching of  UBT. We are 2-4 years from regaining our UK #1 slot but as thing stand it will happen sooner or later!

FightMalaria@Home chosen as team project.

After careful deliberation, and with all due respects and and apologies to the many, almost as, worthy alternatives this anti-malaria project (please tell me you didn't need that bit explained to you) has been chosen as the first Official TSBT Project. Further details in this thread .

A big start to 2013!

Look at this graph and rejoice! 

That's what happens when several members independently rediscovered the bountiful pleasures of DistRTGen. So many credits it feels like cheating. We are even gaining on UBT (very slowly - they were 5,085 million ahead of us at the beginning of the week but we've narrowed the gap to 5,080 million!). I've switched most of my apparatus onto the project which might let me pass Merlyn this year and briefly be team number one before Janos tramples me underfoot on his way to the top.

From now on I'll do mainly DistRTGen with maybe 25% for Primegrid & enough SETI & Einstein to keep them afloat in the Top 100. WCG I'm afraid I'll pretty much abandon. Getting it top 100 is realistically just going to cost too much. 

And the forums have suddenly got lively again. Happy New Year!

December Update!

I'm getting over 400 bogus accounts created every day!

FFS, why? What possible gain is there for anyone in creating these accounts only to have them deleted sooner or later. Usually later here. I'd let the total raise to over 11,000 again. But with an hour or so of Admin Carnage I've got it cut back to 8,500 with more brutal pruning due tomorrow.

The Top Hundred For Everything Drive

SETI is now 97th after an epic effort. Well done guys! All other active projects are 100th or better except for World Community Grid where at the last count we were 180th by total credit. The advent of a GPU application has helped our position a bit and I think we are now 147th by Recent Active Credit. So, much to do, but at least the situation is getting a little better.

My Situation & Priorities

The former has been damaged by my, frankly, heroically selfless, pursuance of team goals to the detriment of my personal ambitions. Clearly this statement lacks internal coherence as my personal ambitions include the realisation of team goals! But nevertheless getting SETI back in the top 100 cost me an awful lot of DistRTGen credits and as a result I have sunk to 91st in the Pantheon of BOINC Gods by TC and to a truly alarming 198th by RAC.

 I want to stay top 100 so this will be what I shall prioritise over getting TSBT to top 100 for TC for WCG. The rest of you may increase your WCG contribution as you see fit!