Posts by nusbaumc

1) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Tablet computers and the future of Distributed Computing. (Message 75628) Posted 20 May 2013 by nusbaumc Post: The conventional desktops and laptops aren't going anywhere for a long time, if ever. There's just too much work that can't be feasibly done on a tablet - they don't have much computing power, they don't have a UI that's conducive to large amounts of text or data entry, the pointing device (your finger) is very imprecise, etc, etc. What has happened is that a lot of people who never really needed a computer in the first place are finding their needs better served by tablets and smartphones. Plus, computer hardware is lasting much longer than it used too - people don't buy new PCs every 2-3 years anymore, it's more like every 5-10. So the market is contracting, but it won't go away completely - it'll level off at some point and that will be the new normal. I think Steve Jobs said it best when he likened PCs to trucks - they'll still be around and people will still use them, but it'll be more like a 1 out of every X people.
2) Message boards : Number crunching : CPU fan going crazy (Message 70618) Posted 22 Jun 2011 by nusbaumc Post: You could try to open up the case and clean it up with a hair dryer. Dust takes a huge toll on refrigeration. One of my laptops, for instance, dust made temps go from 60C to a dangerous 100C. It's a good habit to clean your PCs 2-3 times a year. The nehalem and sandy bridge architectures, run pretty cool considering their processing power. I use a shop vac myself. I'd suggest you download a temperature monitoring app (I use RealTemp) and keep an eye on things if you think you're having heat issues. Running your CPU at 100% indefinitely can significantly shorten your CPU's lifetime if it's always on the verge of overheating - make sure you give adequate consideration to cooling. Keeping your case clean is an easy preventive measure and usually all that's necessary for an off-the-shelf prebuilt computer.
3) Message boards : Number crunching : What exactly is a 'result'? (Message 70617) Posted 22 Jun 2011 by nusbaumc Post: I'm just curious, I was looking at my computers and saw that of my two currently active computers, my tablet has one result per 318 credit and my desktop has one result per 2350 credit. Additionally, my netbook (which has been off more than 30 days since I'm away from home) has 56,000 credit but has never generated a single result. Why is my tablet generating so many more results on a per-credit basis? What about my poor netbook? Thanks! http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/hosts_user.php?userid=382979
4) Message boards : Number crunching : which cpu´s are you using for rosetta? (Message 70578) Posted 18 Jun 2011 by nusbaumc Post: My main computer is a core i7 desktop I've had for a couple of years now. Had a lot of heat issues initially - the northbridge heat sink is mounted about a centimeter from the CPU and is too bulky to fit a decent aircooler in there, and the stock cooler was totally insufficient for extended periods of heavy use, I'd overheat after about 20-30 minutes at 100% load at normal summer room temps (which are about 85-90F most of the time during the summer). Last year I bit the bullet and installed a Koolance system and haven't had any problems since; I was even able to OC it a bit, though not much due to restrictions on my CPU model. I'm also running Rosetta on my i7m tablet when I'm not using it and it's plugged into AC power, and my old EEE Atom-powered tablet, which isn't active at the moment since I'm away from home for the summer doing an internship and decided not to bring it with me.
5) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : GRE Prep (Message 69868) Posted 20 Mar 2011 by nusbaumc Post: I'm in college for Chemistry (Professional Emphasis, ACS certified) and I'm going to be a Junior in the fall. I didn't get picked up for any REUs this year so I'm considering purchasing a GRE prep course from The Princeton Review (the same people I went through for my ACT prep a few years back) and taking the GRE for the first time this fall. Is this too early? Or is early good? I asked my professors; they told me starting early is good but I figured I'd ask here and hopefully get an informed outside opinion before I spend the money.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Computer become unresponsive (Message 67955) Posted 4 Oct 2010 by nusbaumc Post: Rosetta uses gobs of memory - 5-8GB on my i7 is pretty normal. Unless you have tons of RAM you'll probably see a big performance hit from it unless you modify your BOINC settings. Or you could install more RAM if your motherboard supports it. I have 12GB installed on my main desktop and the only time I have to stop BOINC is when I'm gaming.
7) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : thinking outside the box... ah, sphere! (Message 67668) Posted 9 Sep 2010 by nusbaumc Post: The main issue I can see with this sort of an approach is that proteins exist in solution and interactions with water play a large role in their final shape, and they do not have any strictly defined overall shape in general. Fibrous proteins, by definition, are not spherical (and are generally insoluble as well) and even for globular proteins (which Rosetta seems to focus on) no particular shape is favored, some have distinctly non-spherical shapes (such as chaperonin), and there's no reason to assume that an arbitrary protein wouldn't have a hydrophillic protrusion sticking out of it somewhere. I'm not an expert by any means though, only in my first semester of biochem at the moment. Maybe someone more qualified will weigh in?
8) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : Boinc/Rosetta on the Xbox 360? (Message 67664) Posted 9 Sep 2010 by nusbaumc Post: normally consoles are idle for far less time than PCs... so I'm not sure if they'll reach the deadline I run Rosetta in the background on my PC constantly with no (major) loss of speed, etc. Given the sheer processing power of the 360, surely this could be applied also? I do the same (except when I'm running some games where the performance hit is quite noticeable), but I had to install a water block on my i7 because my CPU (with the stock cooler) would eventually overheat after a couple of hours of running at 100% load, and another large heatsink on my motherboard made installing an aftermarket air cooler impractical. The 360 has a pretty high failure rate already, mostly due to heat issues. I hear it's gotten a lot better in the last couple years but I'm still not entirely sure telling millions of 360 users to leave their consoles on 24/7 at 100% is necessarily a good idea.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : no work units (Message 67434) Posted 29 Aug 2010 by nusbaumc Post: Do I understand this correctly? The problems are so big that only grid computing can solve them, but they are not big enough to keep the grid busy? deesy No, there is a problem with the servers. Look on the server status page and you will see they have taken nearly all of them off line while they make a proper fix. I hope so, this is the 3rd time in a month this has happened. A good time to install all those queued updates on my auxiliary machines though. Windows without a mouse is painful...
10) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Molecular Biology vs. Biochemistry (Message 67292) Posted 21 Aug 2010 by nusbaumc Post: Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, and Genetics are all related fields. I think this image (this one) shows the relationship very succinctly. That said all my professors in the chemistry department at my university keep telling me interdisciplinary programs are the way to go for graduate studies, it may be worth looking into for you as well.
11) Message boards : Number crunching : all of my computers stopped working... nothing is happening now (Message 67205) Posted 13 Aug 2010 by nusbaumc Post: Farm Boy Sir - Not a waste - just the perfect time to get caught up with all the software updates your system needs! Bet you a buck that there is a completely full hard drive at the bottom of this ... Something weird is going on - I got the 'communication deferred' error as well, restarted BOINC on all my comps and that got the uploads to go through but I still haven't received any new work, 2/3 of my computers are sitting idle atm.