Hi,
I came here because the front page (https://boinc.bakerlab.org/ ) says clean energy science is possible with Rosetta, but I'm not seeing where. I did search the boards for "clean energy" and "renewable". I have hundreds of sustainability college students I want to get on grid computing and we're struggling with reliability at ClimatePrediction. Does Rosetta (still) contribute to clean energy?
Many thanks indeed
Quentin[/img]

I've been a contributor to Rosetta on and off for a long time, that's the first association I've heard of with energy. World Community Grid has had a few phases of a "Clean Energy Project" dealing with organic solar panels, but they are both wrapped up. QMC@Home started a secondary project called "Clean Mobility Now" that dealt with batteries, but their website is incomplete and it doesn't seem like they really got off the ground. I'm not aware of any other currently running projects.

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Click here to see My Detailed BOINC Stats

Apparently, the Rosetta software can help you build nano-structures (protein-based structures?) for more functions than just drugs... such as the fentanyl sensor recently published on the homepage. This "material" side of Rosetta's potential could potentially (ha!) be used in Clean Energy technology and what not. At least that's what I understand about the subject.

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I believe the renewable energy aspect is a reference to catalyzing the processes that break down plant structures to make ethanol.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/feature/enzymes-for-everyone/9592.article

We start with the reaction we wish to catalyze, and use computer modelling to search for and compute the transition state, and to design an ideal active site to stabilize that state,

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Thanks all, that's very helpful. Clean energy gets pretty big billing given that it's not really part of the project, it seems. Very frustrating that climateprediction is unavailable so much, and it seems they have more users than they need - all work units are taken up soon after release. I will switch my students to Rosetta - the graphics help a lot too.

BTW, rant follows: I did notice that BOINC are reviewing their charter, which is basically: make sure the software works, fix bugs. I suggested that they include "increase number of volunteers" and I think they deleted it. BOINC is relatively unimportant as long as it's installed on 0.0001% (illustrative!) of CPUs - doesn't matter if it works or not if no one runs it. It's a fantastic achievement, but the following is true: it looks like it was written in the 90's, is unintuitive, and offers no user interaction/ support - as far as any modern computer user is concerned. I'm not saying it's an easy (or cheap) fix, just that growing user base must be a goal, surely? BOINC could be 10x, 100x, 1,000x, 100,000x as big. I started programming on punch cards, but I know that a college kid with a supercomputer on their lap isn't going to install software unless it's a few clicks and every step is obvious (and all the support questions about BOINC on ubuntu Linux running as a virtual machine with dual GEForce 1070's stuff is hidden waaaaaaay in the back). Maybe some baby steps can be taken in the right direction by at least understanding why people install and uninstall and what they think of the experience. Seta goal. Get some data. Then see what to do. . /rant

BTW, rant follows: I did notice that BOINC are reviewing their charter, which is basically: make sure the software works, fix bugs. I suggested that they include "increase number of volunteers" and I think they deleted it. BOINC is relatively unimportant as long as it's installed on 0.0001% (illustrative!) of CPUs - doesn't matter if it works or not if no one runs it. It's a fantastic achievement, but the following is true: it looks like it was written in the 90's, is unintuitive, and offers no user interaction/ support - as far as any modern computer user is concerned. I'm not saying it's an easy (or cheap) fix, just that growing user base must be a goal, surely? BOINC could be 10x, 100x, 1,000x, 100,000x as big.

Boinc is open source.
Everyone is welcome, as said Boinc Admins (David Anderson and the others).
If you have some ideas to improve the boinc manager, the setup procedure or other tasks, you can partecipate!

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Yes, I'm being unfair. And my comment wasn't deleted as far as I can tell. I can't track what a fork in a wiki is and how that works so I got confused - never having used a wiki in earnest or developed software.

My "contribution" is simply that growing the user base must be a goal. In commercial and other undertakings there is a group pounding the streets, defining requirements, talking to customers, feeding back to developers who are coming up with their own fixes and improvements and new ideas and it all moves forwards. It seems that with BOINC there is no role for increasing uptake. No one has that job, there is no goal. Fixing issues and increasing capabilities of course helps (but not very much as user history numbers show), and would be so much more powerful if there was a process that understood who signs up, why they sign up, if they are successful, why/why not, who doesn't sign up, and why, and how to reach out to potential new users, and what they would need to see for it to work for them.

Hopefully not a rant. It's all based on the frustration of seeing this awesome machine capable of so much with so many dedicated and skilled engineers and programmers nurturing it - and it could be working for so many more people. No one's "fault" and I don't have all the answers (of course). Think the first step is to formally acknowledge that one change - growing the user base should be one of the 3-4 headline goals.

Anyone agree with any part of this?

Q

Quentin, this is off-topic for this thread. Please continue your topic in a new thread. Either in the Cafe, or on the BOINC message boards.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

There was some work done on developing a CO2 capture enzyme some years ago. I subtotal know how far it got though.

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