What factors do you consider when allocating your resources?

[litehouse43]

I recently started as a volunteer admin for a BOINC project (NumberFields@Home) and the endeavor of gaining new members from both within the existing BOINC community and from outside has gotten me thinking about my own allocation of resources. I am curious to hear from others how you choose who gets access to your valuable computational resources. What do you value most? I think personally I look primarily for a project that communicates well and is doing interesting science. How important are things like website layout, screensavers, points, badges and the like to everyone else? Do you care if the project is domestic or international? I would love to get input from other crunchers both for my own curiosity as well as to aid my efforts in continually improving the projects I am associated with.

[pinhodecarlos]

Can I ask you litehouse43 if you have a math degree? Before being a volunteer admin of any kind of project I think we must study (read articles, papers, etc) the matter to see if real science/math is made and not be a volunteer admin to gain new members, to be visible, etc...

When I look to run a project I only do the math ones and the reasonable ones. I read papers, master thesis on the subject, I try to understand the algorithm behind the application and try ways to tweak it. For me this is what makes a real cruncher, the one who knows the state-of-art in all aspects.

I don't care if project is domestic or international, I don't care about badges, I don't care about website layout, I care about the subject we are testing it, the rest is secondary. I don't care if the project only has 100 members, these ones at the end of the run have the grant of having done something special, something that is publishable. I'm on math projects to have my name on papers as I have on a few from OddPerfect project and others math related.

Sorry for my post but that is what I think.

Carlos

[Fogle]

Hi thanks for your question. For me I started like many others on SETI project years ago, it was intresting but I lost intrest rather quickly as looking for a needle in a haystack isn't much fun. I like to take a top level look at the science as I'm not a scientist. I like the space projects like Milkyway. Lately though I've been chasing milestone in every project I can find. Tuff job as there are many of them. Also it seems team racing and challanges is taking more and more of my time. Not complaining as this seems to be the most fun. So to sum it up I believe all the points you mentioned are valid as people's intrest change as time goes by. Keep crunching!! Go Team SETI.USA!!

[kmanley57]

I am much like Fogle, except I am not really chasing any Milestones. Just here to help people, and to find E.T.!

Quit looking for any depth of understanding math, besides not being in the RED financially. Science that was back when I was young, not so much anymore.

[Mike029]

I really liked Orbit@home and intelligence realm. PG, Seti, Einstein as well. Now more of a credit/challenge nut I guess. The more credits the more I like a project.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Everyone looking for the ET and I am here, I found you first.

[Mike029]

Everyone looking for the ET and I am here, I found you first.

[nanoprobe]

I started out at WCG in 2008. Since I lost my mom to cancer and I am a cancer survivor finding cures for it and other diseases is where my heart is. Now that WCG has a GPU app I have all my resources there for now. I also run other medical related projects like POEM, SIMAP, Docking and GPUGrid when work on WCG is not available. I also like exploring our universe type projects so I do occasionally wander over to Einstein and Milkyway.
Badges, points, credits, whatever are nice but results are what I'm looking for. Over 1,000,000 results returned @ WCG so far. Hopefully that puts the project scientists that much closer to cures.

[Al]

I started out at WCG in 2008. Since I lost my mom to cancer and I am a cancer survivor finding cures for it and other diseases is where my heart is. Now that WCG has a GPU app I have all my resources there for now. I also run other medical related projects like POEM, SIMAP, Docking and GPUGrid when work on WCG is not available. I also like exploring our universe type projects so I do occasionally wander over to Einstein and Milkyway.
Badges, points, credits, whatever are nice but results are what I'm looking for. Over 1,000,000 results returned @ WCG so far. Hopefully that puts the project scientists that much closer to cures.

My sentiments exactly.

[pinhodecarlos]

I had a friend aged my father who died in 1999 with lung cancer so in that time I joined United Devices Project to crunch wu's that supposedly would find a cure for cancer. After 2 years or more running it, also as age was passing through me, and also as I started to study at university I interior found and understood that the cure for cancer is not achieved by simulation but on a lab making experiments. Since then I moved to math related projects.

Carlos