As to RPI giving us money -- you don't know too much about academia :P We receive support from labstaff (which comes through RPI), and we're located on campus, but when it comes to actual dollars to spend on equipment or students, all that has to come from grants.

So what happend to the donations we gave to the project? Did it buy hardware and jobs or donuts?

This smells like bullshit!!!

This is the letter I received when I donated:

Dear Donator:

Thank you for your generous donation to the MilkyWay@Home Fund of the Dudley Observatory. Below is a summary of your donation:

Date: 8/14/2009
Amount: $50.00
Deductible: $50.00
Fund: MilkyWay@Home/ donation
Payment: Online Payment

As you know, the majority of our costs directly support students who maintain the servers, answer your questions in the forum, create new Milky Way models and improve the computing infrastructure, and create knowledge from our activities. In so doing, they learn how to become the researchers of the future. Thanks to your generosity, we will be able to fund graduate and undergraduate students, travel, publication, materials, and equipment costs related to Milky Way research and education.

Thank you again for your support of MilkyWay@Home.

Clear Skies,
Janie Schwab
Executive Director
Please keep this letter for your income tax records.

[Edit]

I forgot you guys are in N.Y. Guess we could contact New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, huh?

[/edit]

AFAIK (i'm still just a grad student so i don't deal with too much of the monetary issues) some of the donated money went to the new hard drives. Some more is going to vibration absorbers so the problems we just had don't happen again.

I'm pretty sure the rest we're trying to save up so we can fund a graduate student for a semester. Personally I think this is the best kind of funding because you're not just helping out BOINC, but you're also helping a student get their PhD (which from my own experience is not an easy thing to do). Having your PhD come from volunteered support is even better because you know that there's a community out there who really appreciates your research and the work you've been doing. My PhD has come only from NSF grants, so it's not quite the same thing.

I think if we could reach a point where the BOINC community (or at least some volunteer community) could fund PhD students, we'd really have reached Dave Anderson's vision (as much as you hate him) for truly democratic science.

Personally, I think this is really a goal we should be striving for, because we could branch away from a centrally defined infrastructure for supporting important science, to a globally defined infrastructure for what people really think is important for furthering scientific goals, which isn't dependent upon current political or industrial trends. At the very least (and this might be even better) it might provide another avenue for scientific advancement, which could help all the other paths.

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But you're a Dr now - grant committee budget meetings. Enjoy!

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Cheers,

PeterV

.

AFAIK (i'm still just a grad student so i don't deal with too much of the monetary issues) some of the donated money went to the new hard drives. Some more is going to vibration absorbers so the problems we just had don't happen again.

I'm pretty sure the rest we're trying to save up so we can fund a graduate student for a semester. Personally I think this is the best kind of funding because you're not just helping out BOINC, but you're also helping a student get their PhD (which from my own experience is not an easy thing to do). Having your PhD come from volunteered support is even better because you know that there's a community out there who really appreciates your research and the work you've been doing. My PhD has come only from NSF grants, so it's not quite the same thing.

I think if we could reach a point where the BOINC community (or at least some volunteer community) could fund PhD students, we'd really have reached Dave Anderson's vision (as much as you hate him) for truly democratic science.

Personally, I think this is really a goal we should be striving for, because we could branch away from a centrally defined infrastructure for supporting important science, to a globally defined infrastructure for what people really think is important for furthering scientific goals, which isn't dependent upon current political or industrial trends. At the very least (and this might be even better) it might provide another avenue for scientific advancement, which could help all the other paths.

I think a lot of us when we Donate money to a Project because it's Hardware is having a hard time keeping up with the Demand from it's Project Participants expect or at least think that money is actually going to go for new Hardware, at least that's what I think when I Donate because that's how the Donation talk starts at every Project.

I already Fund the Electrical Company, the Hardware Industry, Comcast so I can have fast Internet Service & my wife to keep her off my back for funding these things already. The last time I looked at my Banking Account I didn't see enough there to be Funding somebody elses Child through Collage too so that they could get their PhD especially when I'm already helping Fund my own Son's Children thru Collage.

If this is part of DA's Grand Vision to Suck money out of BOINC Participants personally I'll have to think long and hard before Donating any more money to any more Projects. I'm just a Retired Auto Worker who someday with escalating costs of my own will probably be struggling from day to day to make it anymore & not somebody named Rockefeller from New York that I can be that big a Philanthropist to be giving my money away to some Project else under False Pretenses ...

I thought that is what the grants were for. Also that is what internship and volunteering comes in at. Nobody helped me through college, I couldn't get free money since I am not a "minority" nor "poor". I voluntered my time and the college wouldn't even give us a free drink.

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Doesn't expecting the unexpected make the unexpected the expected?
If it makes sense, DON'T do it.

I thought that is what the grants were for. Also that is what internship and volunteering comes in at. Nobody helped me through college, I couldn't get free money since I am not a "minority" nor "poor". I voluntered my time and the college wouldn't even give us a free drink.

Apparently not, DA must think there's a Gold mine out there & he's hit the Mother of all Mother Loads ... ;)

I was lucky enough to get through college on military reeducation grants, MAP grants and the PELL.
It just so happened that it seemed the technology bubble burst just as I graduated in this area. Now with no money to move I am stuck here doing minor repair and maintenance for whatever I can get.

I am with you PB, I fund enough peoples pocket books already... I refuse to fund another one when they continuously hose over the few volunteers that they can get.

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AFAIK (i'm still just a grad student so i don't deal with too much of the monetary issues) some of the donated money went to the new hard drives. Some more is going to vibration absorbers so the problems we just had don't happen again.

That's fine with me :-)

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Don't drink water, that's the stuff that rusts pipes

Personally, I think this is really a goal we should be striving for, because we could branch away from a centrally defined infrastructure for supporting important science, to a globally defined infrastructure for what people really think is important for furthering scientific goals, which isn't dependent upon current political or industrial trends. At the very least (and this might be even better) it might provide another avenue for scientific advancement, which could help all the other paths.

It would also, I think, stimulate people to take an actual interest in science. Just look at the predominantly positive responds projects that -do- reach the media get, with a lot of people actually taking the time to read up on them a bit; I think a lot of people have the capacity to be interested in science, but most of the time they're stuck in their own little world, just doing their jobs. The internet has the potential of changing that, but it also has the potential to bring badly biased sources of media within easy reach, with the reverse effect (that is, closing people off and stopping them from doing their own research).

I only wish I could find the time to follow the debate here. I'm too busy trying to micro-manage to keep my ATI cards occupied and justify my so-called investment in science...

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I think a lot of us when we Donate money to a Project because it's Hardware is having a hard time keeping up with the Demand from it's Project Participants expect or at least think that money is actually going to go for new Hardware, at least that's what I think when I Donate because that's how the Donation talk starts at every Project.

And currently that's entirely where the money has gone. However if you read the posting about what the money is for, potentially supporting students is in the list.

If this is part of DA's Grand Vision to Suck money out of BOINC Participants personally I'll have to think long and hard before Donating any more money to any more Projects. I'm just a Retired Auto Worker who someday with escalating costs of my own will probably be struggling from day to day to make it anymore & not somebody named Rockefeller from New York that I can be that big a Philanthropist to be giving my money away to some Project else under False Pretenses ...

Oi, everyone is quite cranky lately. When I said DA's vision for democratic science, that is people voting with their hardware as to which projects they help support.

My personal opinion is that might might be interesting if volunteer computing went to another level.

Anyways, we're doing the best we can here. For some reason it seems like a lot of our users think this is some kind of massive project and we have a lot of people working on it. For the last semester, it's really been just me (with the professors providing support via grants) an I've also been finishing up my dissertation and defense. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time to get things done as fast as people expect. I also have the institutional limitations of having to go through our labstaff to get most of the server work done.

At any rate, try and stay civil guys.

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This is interesting thought taking distributed computing to a new level.

Here is a thought to help that comment out.

1. All credit rates and times should be the soul ownership of the project admin, Not DA's quest for equal wu parity. As this cross parity will never work. This would be do to the fact that all Science projects will have different needs and require different computer types and hardware. And who will be the credit cops for this new adventure? DA? Then all lower projects should now comply and raise there rates...Right like this will ever happen..

2. Some times in our lives we must as parents let go of the children, and let them grow up for them selves. So Please DA..Find more kids to raise. Please!

3. This whole argument about credits that has been going on now for 3 or more years could be stopped by the admin's of projects, by stating that this point per wu will be this and not change any unless the admin's increase the amount of computer time required to complete the task per wu.

4 All those who think that the credit is too high will be asked to leave the project and find a lower credit project to make them happy, as we want to make them happy don't we? And I will do my best to point them out for the complainers. Hey anything to help those folks out.

5. Have a great day.

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This is interesting thought taking distributed computing to a new level.

Here is a thought to help that comment out.

1. All credit rates and times should be the soul ownership of the project admin, Not DA's quest for equal wu parity. As this cross parity will never work. This would be do to the fact that all Science projects will have different needs and require different computer types and hardware. And who will be the credit cops for this new adventure? DA? Then all lower projects should now comply and raise there rates...Right like this will ever happen..

2. Some times in our lives we must as parents let go of the children, and let them grow up for them selves. So Please DA..Find more kids to raise. Please!

3. This whole argument about credits that has been going on now for 3 or more years could be stopped by the admin's of projects, by stating that this point per wu will be this and not change any unless the admin's increase the amount of computer time required to complete the task per wu.

4 All those who think that the credit is too high will be asked to leave the project and find a lower credit project to make them happy, as we want to make them happy don't we? And I will do my best to point them out for the complainers. Hey anything to help those folks out.

5. Have a great day.

There is only one problem with all that...

It makes sense....

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This is interesting thought taking distributed computing to a new level.

Here is a thought to help that comment out.

1. All credit rates and times should be the soul ownership of the project admin, Not DA's quest for equal wu parity. As this cross parity will never work. This would be do to the fact that all Science projects will have different needs and require different computer types and hardware. And who will be the credit cops for this new adventure? DA? Then all lower projects should now comply and raise there rates...Right like this will ever happen..

2. Some times in our lives we must as parents let go of the children, and let them grow up for them selves. So Please DA..Find more kids to raise. Please!

3. This whole argument about credits that has been going on now for 3 or more years could be stopped by the admin's of projects, by stating that this point per wu will be this and not change any unless the admin's increase the amount of computer time required to complete the task per wu.

4 All those who think that the credit is too high will be asked to leave the project and find a lower credit project to make them happy, as we want to make them happy don't we? And I will do my best to point them out for the complainers. Hey anything to help those folks out.

5. Have a great day.

There is only one problem with all that...

It makes sense....

Not really. If DA 'owns' BOINC and has influence to dictate what credit goes where.. then live with it or find another game to play on your PCs. Tongue in cheek of course, but we all have a choice of where to crunch or how much to endlessly complain about...

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> if volunteer computing went to another level
Do you, Travis, have have any thoughts that you are willing to share on how you [not DA] see that next level?

Everyone joins/leaves projects for their own reasons.
Some [ice] are in it purely for the rocks.
Others [AstroWX from CPDN] are in it purely for the science and would be perfectly happy if no rocks were awarded at all.
I am midway - I like the rocks, but try to only do projects which [in my highly biased and sexist opinion] have some scientific validity.
Which is why I've only recently stopped crunching CPDN after 24/7/6yrs, having realised that no matter what the results the sleazoids [easy to pick in Oz - they have honourable in front of their name and MP after] will carry on obeying their masters and ignoring the results until waaay too late. And which also explains why the 1800 yeti rocks that I got during the BOINC beta in '04 [when it was the only BOINC project on offer] are likely to be my only such rocks ever.

Reducing the turnover rate is where you and your massive staff come in - the better you keep things running, the fewer the outages like the recent ones, the happier the customers are likely to be and the lower the turnover rate. Until some new, sexy and high-paying project comes along anyway...

Keep up the good work.

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Cheers,

PeterV

.

Reducing the turnover rate is where you and your massive staff come in - the better you keep things running, the fewer the outages like the recent ones, the happier the customers are likely to be and the lower the turnover rate. Until some new, sexy and high-paying project comes along anyway

I just finished posting something along the same lines over at the Collatz Project when I seen you Posted here ... :)

Until BOINC Can find a way to attract new Participants that actually stay & Participate for the long term instead of dropping out after just a taste of BOINC the Projects will continue to be Diluted with every new BOINC Project

I'm sure Slicker has just as massive a staff as Travis. :)

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Cheers,

PeterV

.

I'm sure Slicker has just as massive a staff as Travis. :)

I think Slicker is the entire Staff, he has some help with the Application Optimizing though from Gipsel & Crunch3r ...

Some [ice] are in it purely for the rocks.

That's an outrageously wrong and ridiculous comment. I suppose you're in it because nobody reads your monologues at CPDN anymore?

What it does for me, as if I should know why I crunch here, is helping Team England (BOINC) climb up the rankings and now Ukraine to climb up the rankings. Take away the teams and I'm finished with BOINC. What other reason is there? And don't say science because that ain't no monologue.

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Some [ice] are in it purely for the rocks.

That's an outrageously wrong and ridiculous comment. I suppose you're in it because nobody reads your monologues at CPDN anymore?

What it does for me, as if I should know why I crunch here, is helping Team England (BOINC) climb up the rankings and now Ukraine to climb up the rankings. Take away the teams and I'm finished with BOINC. What other reason is there? And don't say science because that ain't no monologue.

Geez you people are cranky. The sky isn't falling. The database got corrupted last night (most likely because the controller is indeed bad). So we're ordering a new controller and getting the database repaired.

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Some [ice] are in it purely for the rocks.

That's an outrageously wrong and ridiculous comment. I suppose you're in it because nobody reads your monologues at CPDN anymore?

What it does for me, as if I should know why I crunch here, is helping Team England (BOINC) climb up the rankings and now Ukraine to climb up the rankings. Take away the teams and I'm finished with BOINC. What other reason is there? And don't say science because that ain't no monologue.

Geez you people are cranky. The sky isn't falling. The database got corrupted last night (most likely because the controller is indeed bad). So we're ordering a new controller and getting the database repaired.

We want that damn controller so badly, we want it now..:) we don't have time Travis, This must be done at all cost..you must understand us..:D