Posts by soriak

1) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : Rosetta@Home RPG (Message 45387) Posted 25 Aug 2007 by soriak Post: Don't underestimate the amount of work involved in creating and running such an RPG. The time might be better spend looking for ways to optimize the application; especially since there's no hint as to how many new people this might attract.
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems with Rosetta versions 5.72 and 5.73 (Message 44422) Posted 28 Jul 2007 by soriak Post: My Vista Home Premium desktop computer has received a few BSODs as well - only noticed this since last night. (I usually work on my laptop) Didn't get them at all before. I seem to have completed a few 5.72 work units, so it may not be it... but I'm going to abort the upcoming ones anyway. I still have mostly 5.68 so no point risking more crashes, which only result in lost work.
3) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Advice on college direction of study (Message 43181) Posted 4 Jul 2007 by soriak Post: The university's science department should have a list of majors - I'd recommend checking that to see what sparks your interest. I'd imagine the actual specialization doesn't happen until graduate school. (I'm not a researcher though, so that may be wrong) I suppose you'll want to take a lot of biology and chemistry in college - not at all like applying to law school, where you should do anything but pre-law :p Might be best to contact your university and maybe meet with one of their academic advisers. They know what courses are available, how to best prepare for them and what graduate schools are looking for. edit: Some schools offer a major in "Natural Sciences" which combines chemistry, biology and physics - that might be something to look into.
4) Message boards : Number crunching : When is "one more project" one too many? (Message 43054) Posted 2 Jul 2007 by soriak Post: I try to only crunch one project at a time, but that does make it hard to decide which one to support. I figure the best use of resources is to optimize current applications, so that they can run actual science stuff in a reasonable time frame later on with faster computers. (like what Rosetta is doing) Another project with that aim would be QMC@Home, which tries to improve the application of Quantum Monte Carlo in quantum chemistry. (I hope that's right... been a while since I checked up with them)
5) Message boards : Number crunching : 2 billion served (Message 42930) Posted 30 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: Boincstats has graphs like this: And a lot more ;) www.boincstats.com
6) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Rosetta Banner? (Message 42657) Posted 26 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: SORIAK THIS WAS YOUR IDEA ....WOULD YOU LIKE A BUMPER STICKER ??I HAVE 2 LEFT Appreciate the thought, but I don't have a car to put it on ;)
7) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Rosetta Banner? (Message 42643) Posted 26 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: Soriak, I would like to have your permission to use your black banner you designed on my Myspace page to link to Rossetta@home if you wouldn't mind. very nice job on the design. Of course, feel free to use it however you wish - goes for anyone ;) And thanks! There's also a Rosetta@Home Myspace page at www.myspace.com/bakerlab if you want to add it as your friend.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : Could GPU's mean the end of DC as we know it? (Message 42517) Posted 23 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: @Tom GPGPU would be general processing GPUs - ie they can do what CPUs do now, just a whole lot faster. We're not quite there yet, but from what I've been reading we're getting there. That'd definitely make CPUs obsolete.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Could GPU's mean the end of DC as we know it? (Message 42503) Posted 23 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: If we're really going to see that kind of performance for general tasks, I think it'd be a very good idea to upgrade to a GPGPU system regardless of DC ;) We'd quickly see clients that support this new computing and take advantage of the full speed - and with that, a lot of new computing stuff would be possible. What takes now a year could be done in a month and that's just with the GPU speed we have today... pretty cool ;) It's important to keep in mind, though, that even if it's 10x as fast, there'll initially still be WAY more people with CPU machines. So the biggest combined contribution will still come from them. of course I don't think there's such a thing as enough (much less too much) computing power. Make it available, and someone will find a way to bring it to its limits.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Folding@home GPU app? (Message 42497) Posted 23 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: Generally speaking, you should always go with the 2nd or even 3rd newest card - that's usually the best performance for your money. Best time to buy is after a new card released, as that'll usually lead to price drops of the older models. However, when you use it for folding and not gaming, you'll be more concerned about a specific part of the card and how that performs. In the case of F@H GPU it's the amount of pipes. If a new card releases with twice the performance there, then that'll definitely be a huge improvement. I think your best bet is to post on the F@H GPU forum a couple days before you plan on buying the card. You should get some good suggestions there, especially when more is known about how the cards behave. People will post the time it takes per percentage, which is very consistent. An X1650 takes almost exactly 20mins/% (different manufacturers sometimes produce the card with different specifications, so those may take more or less time)
11) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : It was only a matter of time..... (Message 42495) Posted 23 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: Don't companies pay data centers to compute their work? Maybe this is something like that on a micro-scale, hehe. It'd actually be very cool if funds could be raised to buy time for Rosetta@Home work units, but I fear $1.50 wouldn't get a second even ;) On the other hand, it can't be that expensive either or companies would just set up their own centers...
12) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Rosetta@Home CafePress Store (Message 42493) Posted 23 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: I noticed Rosetta doesn't yet have a store at CafePress and I wanted to suggest opening one. I wouldn't mind covering the fees and administrating it, if this would get Rosetta@Home more exposure or offer anything of value. Since CafePress runs a commercial service, this would definitely qualify as commercial use. Hence nobody can touch it without approval from whoever owns the name "Rosetta@Home" (and the logo, since having the original logo would be nice) I imagine that's Dr. Baker, but it may be the University of Washington? I don't know if the store owner can sell at 'base price,' (ie no profit) but of course any profit possibly generated by such a store would be donated to the project - however, realistically I don't think the demand would even cover the fees... but that's ok, the purpose isn't to generate a profit but rather to make it easier for people to get Rosetta@Home branded products. People could simply post their designs and what they envision them on (shirts, mugs, etc) and it could be added to the store. Feet1st has been doing good work with his bumper sticker idea - those, too, can be made at CafePress and should make distribution a lot easier than someone having to front a large order and packing/shipping it himself. What do you guys think - would this be something beneficial?
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Folding@home GPU app? (Message 42489) Posted 23 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: I think it has something to do with the number of pipelines on the graphic card and the models prior to the x1600 just don't have enough bandwidth to make running the client worthwhile. While running the GPU client doesn't use much of the CPU, you'll notice a decrease in performance on BOINC and F@H GPU when you run both of them at the same time. I imagine this could be corrected if you assigned F@H a higher priority.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Let's stand up to the -1 moron (Message 42429) Posted 22 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: Or we could just get rid of the rating system - I don't see what purpose it serves anyway. If someone's just starting out asking a newbie question, it's probably not the most inviting thing when he sees his post filtered. By the way: You can rate your own posts +1 to prevent a single person from getting it filtered.
15) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Rosetta Banner? (Message 42428) Posted 22 Jun 2007 by soriak Post: Almost forgot about this thread ;) I now started using this one for black background boards: Good job on the small logo mnb-fin! did you make that banner soriak??? i made a sticker out of it.......on profile I did - feel free to use/edit it in any way you wish ;)
16) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : Suggestions for improvement thread (Message 41275) Posted 21 May 2007 by soriak Post: There's a "how to bring more people to Rosetta" suggestion thread, but maybe a sticky where only mods can post would be a good idea. Put it all in one place without the lengthy discussion. As for suggestions regarding the application: How much processing power does calculating the RMSD for every possible 'structure' use? Wouldn't it be more efficient to just calculate the RMSD for the lowest energy structure of each model? (the only one that actually gets submitted) I doubt RMSD is part of the algorithm, as it'd be useless on unknown structures.
17) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : Investigation into 'Fibonacci' numbers needed? (Message 41272) Posted 21 May 2007 by soriak Post: And of course the golden ration 1 : 1.618 is what you approach when you divide a fibonacci number with its predecessor. 55/34 = 1.6176 89/55 = 1.6181 144/89 = 1.6179 And so on ;) From what I heard when the ratio is applied to music (frequency of sounds, maybe? I don't remember exactly) it also produces something that is commonly found pleasing. Definitely more than just a coincidence, no doubt.
18) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : How can we bring more users to the Rosetta project? (Message 34700) Posted 14 Jan 2007 by soriak Post: I like the idea of a PDF that would contain a well presented promotional package. I just converted my powerpoint presentation to PDF, maybe this is a starting point? PDF is available here I'm going to fire up InDesign later and see if I can't get a better title screen done... this one was made for a black background and animation, as seen in the presentation. (if you haven't seen it yet, it's on http://www.myspace.com/bakerlab)
19) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : How can we bring more users to the Rosetta project? (Message 34696) Posted 14 Jan 2007 by soriak Post: What about advertising in college/university newspapers? Should be cheaper than other newspapers and target the right demographic - students should be computer literate enough to install BOINC and there's a good chance some understand the science behind it. Although I have no idea what kind of circulation they have, or how expensive it is to advertise in them.
20) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : WU duration (Message 30848) Posted 9 Nov 2006 by soriak Post: i have it set to discontinue when i use the cpmputer and start again 10 min after the comput is idle It should be fine to run it even while the computer is in use. BOINC will only take unused processing power and release whatever other applications request. Most applications barely use any processing power, so it should get a lot even while you work - unless you do movie encoding, in which case BOINC will just idle until you're done ;)

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