PG announcement about Big Advanced Projects

[bruce]

Well said indeed. I doubt even Bruce could have said it better. +1, a Like, or Thumbs Up, however you want to measure the fact that I'm impressed.

Come on, Jesse. I don't have a corner on always saying the right things at the right time. I'm just here a lot. You guys all contribute to foldingforum.org.

+1

[orion]

Ditto the last 5 post.

+1 x 5

[Punchy]

FACT: The points system is not changing.
FALSE ASSUMPTION: PPD is not changing.

The same points per WU and Kfactors will still apply to all projects. The same formula will be used to calculate points.

Which WUs will be assigned will change, and that's nothing new. In fact, it's constantly changing. The only difference here is that there has been an announcement of a future change to assignment policy. Some will benefit from that change. Some will suffer a loss. Some will see no change. Some won't care if the change affected them or not.

Those that suffer a loss will understandably complain, but VijayPande has announced the change because it benefits science (and there seems to be little doubt about that), recognizing that it needs to be made even though some people won't like it.

Gee, sorry to not be one of your cheerleaders, but you're not quite right.

The statement that there is only one difference is incorrect. There is also a future shortening of deadlines to go with the assignment change.
If only the assignment policy changes and the deadlines shorten, then the only people to benefit from those changes are those that are running projects too large for their systems and so are getting only base points on QRB-eligible work.

Not that I care - I think the best fix to restore the system to balance is to eliminate the explicit QRB since there is and always has been an implicit QRB.

[mike.million]

FACT: The points system is not changing.
FALSE ASSUMPTION: PPD is not changing.

The same points per WU and Kfactors will still apply to all projects. The same formula will be used to calculate points.

Which WUs will be assigned will change, and that's nothing new. In fact, it's constantly changing. The only difference here is that there has been an announcement of a future change to assignment policy. Some will benefit from that change. Some will suffer a loss. Some will see no change. Some won't care if the change affected them or not.

Those that suffer a loss will understandably complain, but VijayPande has announced the change because it benefits science (and there seems to be little doubt about that), recognizing that it needs to be made even though some people won't like it.

Well congratulations on all your thumbs up, Cody.

Only problem is that we haven't been told anything remotely useful in making a Folding at Home hardware purchase. We are fast approaching the most important buying season of the year. And we have been told nothing, except that, "nothing is for sure, and we are not going to let you know how it will effect you, until January".

SO DON"T BUY ANYTHING! is what you all seem to be cheering on. Good thinking. That is what I have told my teammates http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?high ... =1#1337352

Secondly 100% of the people on the evga website seemed to think this favored 4P systems and most of the talk was about purchasing 4P and 2P systems. I would be suprised if that wasn't true of all the folding communities, and if a lot of people had purchased based on the current points, the back lash would have been quite severe.

This has already caused 50 folders at evga to start and join wcg@evga, a distributed folding team we didn't have a week ago, and it is comprised entirely of people who are my folding at home teammates. Keep this up and it could be a lot more people.

We need to be informed, the idea was sound, but execution has been very, VERY POOR.

If you or others knew that

"The points system is not changing.
FALSE ASSUMPTION: PPD is not changing"

then you should have been letting others know, at your teams and here as well, as they certainly did not!

I know I don't want any more people to leave Folding at Home.

I hope you have seen how the teams have been mislead or have misunderstood what is going on with this change.
You should go live with this as soon as possible or give us the particulars NOW!!!

[orion]

Get 4p MC/Interlagos or 4p Xeon, that's all you'll need.

[jimerickson]

this might end up being the incentive needed for some people to build quad socket magny-cours machines

[codysluder]

Only problem is that we haven't been told anything remotely useful in making a Folding at Home hardware purchase. We are fast approaching the most important buying season of the year. And we have been told nothing, except that, "nothing is for sure, and we are not going to let you know how it will effect you, until January".

We have been told that you'll be folding standard smp WUs unless your hardware is twice as powerful as what is presently getting bigadv assignments, beginning in January. That's about as explicit as it can be. If "double the power" isn't clear enough I'm not sure what you really want them to say.

You will never get a recommendation from the Pande Group about what to build or buy or how long it might be before you will want to upgrade again. They will continue to use the resources of whatever you choose to donate. Your hardware will always be slowing down, relative to the top-end hardware because it continues to advance. The only exact answers you might get are from people who are willing to voice an opinion based on their own prediction of the future, and they won't be any more accurate that your own guess. You might get a better prediction from somebody who sells top-end hardware than somebody on this forum.

Answer me this: How quickly do you plan to upgrade your hardware compared to the rest of the folding community? That is what will determine how long will your new machine stay in the top 2% of the FAH clients? (Well, maybe its 5% or 10% or 0.5%, but you get the idea.)

[Punchy]

Cody, since you didn't address my post, let me correct your statement, and then please back up the part about "some will benefit from that change" with some examples. Corrections in bold.

Which WUs will be assigned will change, and that's nothing new. In fact, it's constantly changing. The only differences here are that there has been an announcement of a future change to assignment policy and a future shortening of deadlines. Some will benefit from that change. Some will suffer a loss. Some will see no change. Some won't care if the change affected them or not.

So who (and we're talking about donors here, not Stanford) exactly will benefit from those changes and in what way? The only case where ppd would increase is the corner case I already mentioned, where someone is running QRB-eligible work and not meeting the deadlines.

Or, are you referring to the fact that people NOT running QRB-eligible work will benefit because their ppd will not change while the ppd of everyone running SMP work will drop?

[mike.million]

I went to try and figure out what the new bonus points would be for a 6903. Using the only real bits of information we have been given, figure the deadlines will be cut in half, this becomes a different kind of question. Will it be both the final and preferred deadlines that will be cut in half or just the preferred deadline.

Because if I read this right, it says you only collect bonus points if you complete the wu prior to the preffered deadline, but that the bonus points are then calculated from the final deadline? Guess it makes sense to someone, I always thought it was vs perferred deadline for bonus.


Total points = base points * bonus factor

The bonus factor is computed based on the time from when our server issues the work unit to when it receives the work unit (WU_time), the time from work issuance to when the deadline would expire (deadline_time), the time from issuance to when the work unit times out and is marked for reissuance (timeout_time), and a constant factor k.
If WU_time > timeout time, bonus factor = 1.
If WU_time <= timeout time, bonus factor = sqrt(deadline_time * k / WU_time)

So if there are no changes in in the final deadlines, then ppd remain the same, if the final deadlines are also being changed then the ppd will change.

Anyone know?

[Leonardo]

Using the only real bits of information we have been given, figure the deadlines will be cut in half

Pande Group has not revealed, no one has revealed, what the change to the deadlines will be, other than the deadlines will be shorter than at present. Anything else is conjecture or rumor. To be impatient is human. You're in good company.

[Jester]

FACT: The points system is not changing.
FALSE ASSUMPTION: PPD is not changing.

The same points per WU and Kfactors will still apply to all projects. The same formula will be used to calculate points.

Which WUs will be assigned will change, and that's nothing new. In fact, it's constantly changing. The only difference here is that there has been an announcement of a future change to assignment policy. Some will benefit from that change. Some will suffer a loss. Some will see no change. Some won't care if the change affected them or not.

Those that suffer a loss will understandably complain, but VijayPande has announced the change because it benefits science (and there seems to be little doubt about that), recognizing that it needs to be made even though some people won't like it.

If you could guarantee that the whole Bigadv project was 100% about the science 100% of the time I'd add a +1 to list....

[brutis]

PG, yes 100% of the time.

Donors, probably not 100% of the time.

[gwildperson]

If you could guarantee that the whole Bigadv project was 100% about the science 100% of the time I'd add a +1 to list....

Why ask just about bigadv? FAH is 100% about science, 100% of the time. The change PG announced is about doing more science more quickly.