Folding Forum

BA was always set up as an experiment. Like all experiments, some parts work, and some parts do not work. Then adjustments are made along the way to get better results from the experiment. And it's not always easy to predict the direction an experiment will go. And eventually, all experiments end.

A new experiment may or may not come along to replace the previous experiment. PG has a year to figure that out.

I veryI very seriously doubt he has a year nor do I think he is going to take a year, that type of behavior is one of the things that caused this problem to begin with. (Lack of direction and communication) Road Map this experiment failed and created havoc within the donor community due to that exact same problem. Hopefully there were lessons learned.

And in reality this failure is going to be a bit costly to PG due to the fact the bigadv WU's will have to be run on supercomputers vs donor equipment. I am sure they would rather have them run on donor equipment if it went for the strife created within the community.

This experiment did not fail for any other reason other than what I said before and any experiment that has such high cost and expectations will fail without clear guidelines, There is some blame here that lies squarely on PG and the way it was set up to begin with..

Hukkel wrote:What a seriously bad decision to eventually END BA folding.

What are you guys smoking?

People have invested thousands and thousands of dollars and euros into getting big BA systems running. ll folding for the cure. People committing to folding, wanting to help out in the biggest way they can.

And now you guys say "hey man twas fun, we don't need you anymore. Sorry about those 10.000s of dollars you invested in us for nothing. BYE!!!"

Unbelievable. I cannot comprehend this. How can you guys be such megalomaniacs to just decide this?

If this will not be turned around I will turn my back onto folding altogether. Having spend so much money just to see it evaporate like this.

I was just as upset as you, when I was told that my many, many thousands of dollars invested in (mainly brand-new) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2xx series GPUs was about to become 'wasted money'.

But I eventually got over it, invested another ~$120k or so in all-new (mainly) dual-GPU systems (10 - GTX Titan's, 7 - GTX 680's, 23 - GTX 660 Ti's, and several GTX 650 Ti Boost's, GTX 650 Ti's, and 'lower' GPUs), and now I (of course) get a lot more PPD's and PPW's than ever before.

With these new systems, and the new QRB system for GPU WUs (Thanks, PG!), I recently passed 1 Billion points, and I am #4 among "real people" in terms of points-per-week gained for the Project.

You could say, and you would be mostly right, that it was pure 'dumb' luck, that I happened to choose the 'right' (= correct) path, in terms of GPU vs BA folding.

But I always liked the fine 'granularity' of GPU folding, in that I could spend around $1k on (for example) a new dual-GTX 660 Ti system, and get another ~150k PPD. Or, if I already had another 'empty' GPU slot in a system, I could spend around $250-300 just for the GTX 660 Ti GPU, and get an additional ~70k PPD.

Plus, I just think that GPUs are 'neat'!

Cheers,
Art

Sorry Gramps, it was a PG experiment, and only they get to determine the amount of success from the experiment, regardless of what your personal viewpoint is.

Like the goal of all experiments, I'm sure they learned a lot more than they expected.

LOL. It takes extreme naiveté (or trolling -- pick one) to believe the most recent bigadv announcement was a planned/ordered thing.

I find myself uncomfortable with the term " experiment" when dealing with people...When I think of great "social experiments", I just don't come up with too many positives.

There is no need to experiment with how you treat donors.

The entire language of the announcement really makes a mockery of science.

Experimentation (done right) implies controls and monitoring. Exactly what did not happen here.

mdk777 wrote:I find myself uncomfortable with the term " experiment" when dealing with people...When I think of great "social experiments", I just don't come up with too many positives.

There is no need to experiment with how you treat donors.

The entire language of the announcement really makes a mockery of science.

Experimentation (done right) implies controls and monitoring. Exactly what did not happen here.

From your limited viewpoint, and access to only external information, that may be a valid assumption. Doesn't mean it's an accurate assessment, just your opinion.

Don't assume to know the whole elephant when all you're doing now is yanking the tail.

7im wrote:

mdk777 wrote:I find myself uncomfortable with the term " experiment" when dealing with people...When I think of great "social experiments", I just don't come up with too many positives.

There is no need to experiment with how you treat donors.

The entire language of the announcement really makes a mockery of science.

Experimentation (done right) implies controls and monitoring. Exactly what did not happen here.

From your limited viewpoint, and access to only external information, that may be a valid assumption. Doesn't mean it's an accurate assessment, just your opinion.

Don't assume to know the whole elephant when all you're doing now is yanking the tail.

The problem it is there are more than just a few that see it the same way as mdk777, so that elephant has quite a few holding onto its tail, living in denial of the end results of something that happens as the end results of decisions made or not made is just that, (denial). We as people should take responsibility for our own mistakes, if we mess up, then we mess up, we should take a look at where we may have messed up and try and fix it in the next experiment, take responsibility and move forward.

There are many donors that have been hurt in this endeavor and PG has taken a blow in the current donor world, there credibility has been bruised with some very big donors some of which have left and some of which will never come back, People keep talking about bigadv being an experiment, is not Folding@Home an experiment in itself also ?

People keep talking about bigadv being an experiment, is not Folding@Home an experiment in itself also ?

See this is my point.

When you have a "project" or an "expedition" there is a connotation of leadership, planning,responsibility...etc. etc. etc.

When you start calling a "project" an "experiment"...well that it is a very handy conceit.

Things just "turn out" there is no right or wrong...good administration or poor administration...there is no responsibility or stewardship of resources required...it is just an "experiment"

It is a very Orwellian use of language.

Without getting too political, it would not be a logical defense for results in anything other than the political spin arena.

No one just started calling it an experiment. It WAS an experimental program from day one. If you didn't know that, then there seems to be a lot you didn't know. And all your assumptions and comments are badly colored by your lack of readily available public information.

No one just started calling it an experiment as you say it has always been an experiment same as Folding@Home is an experiment in its self. Does that relieve or justify lack of responsibility. ?

You are getting personal here and need to back off the insults to others.

lack of readily available public information.

Guess that is a problem then.

If you didn't know that, then there seems to be a lot you didn't know.

It is not a matter of my knowing or not knowing.

The experimentation should be on the side of the computer science, the ability to apply the distributed computing to the biology.
The administration of the "experiment" should not be "experimental"

Bus driver one(BD1) to bus driver two(BD2):
BD1) I'm going to experiment with that new Google driver-less software.
BD2) Are you going to tell the passengers?.... BD1) No, part of the experiment will be to see if they notice.
BD2) Is this safe?.... BD1) Who knows? Didn't you hear me say it was an experiment.
BD2) I don't think that is how an experiment is supposed to run....BD1) look, here is a link to an article... Google clearly states that the software is experimental.
BD2) I think they mean in development, that they are testing and experimenting on it: not that it is free to use....BD1) Phew..It'll be great. I can nap on the highway and let it drive.
BD2) And if there is a problem?....BD1) that is the best part! If I crash the bus, I can blame the experimental software. WIN WIN
BD2) Why don't you "experiment" with your car?...BD1) Really? Now you're just being dense. I don't own the bus. It won't cost me anything either way to experiment on it.
BD2) That sounds pretty irresponsible....BD1) What part of "experiment" did you miss in my first sentence? I didn't say it was safe or cost effective, or responsible. I said I was GOING TO EXPERIMENT... Sheesh...

Crash investigator) So, you mean you decided to give it a go, or a try. There was not any controlled experimentation per say going on right?
Bus driver one from hospital bed) What difference at this point does it make?

PS; point me to a paper on the BA point system, and I will concede and apologize.

I find this whole "it was always an experiment" line of defense disturbing every time someone floats it. It is also often parroted by people that have zero "skin in the game". It is a very weak way to hide behind a statement while ignoring the fact that important details/information were not provided to donors who invested a lot of money in the Bigadv project. If, as MDK suggests, there was a detailed paper that specifically gave donors information, road-maps, etc, then people could say "you were warned". The truth is that people were not properly (or even specifically) warned about what to expect. A much better statement, if it had to be short would have gone like this:

"Don't invest a lot of money helping us with this Bigadv experiment unless you are absolutely OK with having expensive equipment reach obsolescence given minimal notice. We will not provide you with any future road-map or other form of planning information. You must be willing to lose your investment in Bigadv capable equipment at any time or you should not even enter this project. Do not expect any regular form of communication as we do not have that to provide. You are totally on your own and exposed to possible disappointment if you invest in supporting the Bigadv program".


That is the minimum truth that should have been shared, but the truth of what donors actually encountered (time and again) was "shock and awe" from PG. I am one of the people that Grandpa mentions that has exited Folding (with a lot of Folding rigs). I have no plan to return to the project in any form unless there are some major changes in the way donors are managed. Oh and by the way, a "donor liaison" is no good to the Project if the people running it keep managing donors poorly. Donor management has to be corrected first or that liaison will have a full-time job treating wounds.

Later, BD1's dedicated troll) How can you even speak on the matter? You don't even have the source code of the driverless software and if you didn't have that you don't know anything so your opinions have no value here. <insert playful plausible deniability smilie here>

How can you even speak on the matter? You don't even have the source code of the driverless software and if you didn't have that you don't know anything so your opinions have no value here.

Yeah, I am of the opinion that 99% of the discussion is about vaporware.

I doubt that any plan ever existed other than "lets give it a go."

Hence my aversion to calling it an "experiment."

You are correct. I cannot prove a negative. It is up to PG to "show their work"

Haven't seen it.

Hence, my summation, if shown that it exists, I will immediately and fully apologize.

<insert playful plausible deniability smilie here>

Well, If I wrote unfiltered, without any sense of humor or irony....
Well, lets just say the expletives would get in the way of reader comprehension.