2020 Formula-BOINC

Gilthanis

Gilthanis

[H]ard|DCer of the Year - 2014
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Messages
8,685
I am creating the thread in case anyone wants to discuss.
Formula-BOINC
Year long challenge - www.formula-boinc.org/ - Team presently doesn't seem concerned about 2020

2011 - Team placed 95th
2012 - Team placed 58th
2013 - Team placed 60th
2014 - Team placed 1st in League 2 -
trophyfb_2014_l2_1-jpg-jpg-jpg.jpg

2015 - Team placed 8th in League 1
2016 - Team placed 25th in League 1 - https://hardforum.com/threads/formula-boinc-2016.1887027/#post-1042061542
2017 - Team placed 1st in League 3 -
trophyfb_2017_l3_1-jpg-jpg-jpg.jpg
- https://hardforum.com/threads/formula-boinc-2017.1922108/
2018 - Team placed 1st in League 2 -
trophyfb_2018_l2_1-jpg-jpg.jpg
- https://hardforum.com/threads/formula-boinc-2018.1950308/
2019 - Team placed 4th in League 1 - https://hardforum.com/threads/formula-boinc-2019.1974162/
 
Season 2020
  • 03/12/2020 13:00 (UTC) - 03/15/2020 12:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 03/19/2020 21:00 (UTC) - 03/22/2020 20:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 04/02/2020 17:00 (UTC) - 04/05/2020 16:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 04/16/2020 16:00 (UTC) - 04/19/2020 15:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 04/30/2020 22:00 (UTC) - 05/03/2020 21:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 05/07/2020 22:00 (UTC) - 05/10/2020 21:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 05/21/2020 22:00 (UTC) - 05/24/2020 21:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 06/04/2020 20:00 (UTC) - 06/07/2020 19:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 06/12/2020 04:00 (UTC) - 06/15/2020 03:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 06/25/2020 22:00 (UTC) - 06/28/2020 21:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 07/02/2020 22:00 (UTC) - 07/05/2020 21:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 07/16/2020 23:00 (UTC) - 07/19/2020 22:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 07/30/2020 22:00 (UTC) - 08/02/2020 21:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 08/27/2020 22:00 (UTC) - 08/30/2020 21:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 09/04/2020 00:00 (UTC) - 09/06/2020 23:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 09/17/2020 16:00 (UTC) - 09/20/2020 15:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 09/24/2020 21:00 (UTC) - 09/27/2020 20:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 10/08/2020 15:00 (UTC) - 10/11/2020 14:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 10/23/2020 05:00 (UTC) - 10/26/2020 04:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 10/30/2020 06:00 (UTC) - 11/02/2020 05:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 11/13/2020 03:00 (UTC) - 11/16/2020 02:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
  • 11/26/2020 20:00 (UTC) - 11/29/2020 19:59 (UTC)
    Project to be determined
 
Yeah, I think a lot of people got discouraged with all the Sprint "MOD_PYTHON" screw-ups from Sebastien. Also, along with Gridcoin still being allowed in it what's the sense if no "real" team can compete for 1st place?
 
That all goes back to suggestions and complaints from several years back not being addressed. I also don't care for the fact that if a project ends mid year that a team squats on the points they had at the time with no threat of loss. Each month should be waited so that if a project drops off, it loses its value for the year. I also am not sure why they voted Enigma back in since it has been dead for months. Some common sense needs to be applied. Projects should have to consent to be included. TBrada specifically said they do not want more users as he runs the entire project off of a Rasp. Pie device alongside his "other" projects. This clearly implies not needing additional support or attention. Teams also should have to opt in. If they don't have interest in the event, then they shouldn't look like failures due to poor rankings.
 
Gilthanis said:
That all goes back to suggestions and complaints from several years back not being addressed. I also don't care for the fact that if a project ends mid year that a team squats on the points they had at the time with no threat of loss. Each month should be waited so that if a project drops off, it loses its value for the year. I also am not sure why they voted Enigma back in since it has been dead for months. Some common sense needs to be applied. Projects should have to consent to be included. TBrada specifically said they do not want more users as he runs the entire project off of a Rasp. Pie device alongside his "other" projects. This clearly implies not needing additional support or attention. Teams also should have to opt in. If they don't have interest in the event, then they shouldn't look like failures due to poor rankings.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, even with minimal effort from the [H], we will never look like failures in FB. Bank on that. :cool:
 
We have moved up to 7th just behind XS. I'm sure that will drastically change when sprints begin.
 
You guys are killing it on Milky and Moo...props!

Looking at getting one of those 2080 Supers myself.
 
WCG is the first project for the FB sprint.

Start: Mar 12, 6:00am PST
End: Mar 15, 5:59am PST
 
First FB Sprint is off to a good start...no MODE_PYTHON lol

On the other hand, the initial baseline stats are not there and no updates since.

Time for Sebastien to retire maybe?
 
I think we have someone crunching for the old name on WCG "[H]ardOCP". The username is King_N[H], not sure who that is here.
 
He is a very old school former member that long story short was ousted from the team. He now squats on the team name and deliberately makes sure some work is being contributed to justify WCG not transferring the name to us. We also have no way of directly reaching out to him.
 
Sounds like a dick for doing that.


(read with extreme sarcasm)... So, not much interest in FB this year? Not sure why not, it started off really smooth this year.
 
Yeah... we lost interest in it. If the sprint isn't overlapping something we may partake but don't hold your breath on it. Most of the active guys are focused on PG challenge this year.
 
bluestang said:
And the biggest for me was the lack of communication on his part about it when it was happening. Couldn't make a simple post to let people know some information.
Click to expand...

Two issues for me.

1. Why is the website not automatic? In the sense that, why does it go down if he's not there right at the minute the project is picked?

2. Went on vacation, during sprints, and never told anyone and didn't give anyone else access.

Big red flags

I get that it's a bit of work to run, doesn't excuse the lack of communication though.
 
Currently FB sprint stat not updating.

I would say PG and SG do a very good job in organizing challenges. I'm sure folks here can figure out 101 reasons why these two groups are able to manage better than the FB sprint. Go figure.
 
Yeah, this is pretty shitty anymore. He needs to hang it up and hand it over to someone that can handle it.

Also, this projects need to get their shit together as well. I'm getting sick of being their guinea pigs for their software/WU errors. The amount of processing power that was just wasted on Universe is crazy. WTF!
 
If there was a way to make Formula BOINC a fair(and fun!) competition again would there be any interest? Hopefully I won't get banned for posting this(I've had an account since ~2001 but it was purged at some point, the ~30 posts is probably accurate though). I think if some additional teams jumped back in and it wasn't XS/TSBT vs the world(TAAT and LAF?) it could be interesting again. Hell, I'll crunch for [H] if need be just tell me what project . Thoughts? Am I 10 years too late to this being a viable competition?
 
Icecold old, to be honest, most of us skip FB due to the impossibility of having "fair" challenges for BOINC DC projects. Whether the "strategies" or "tactics" employed are fair is debatable due to the difficulty in enforcing them. Switching teams, playing with weak accounts or even if one is willing to share login/password to mask the true contributors are some of the common strategies/tactics (maybe not the last one). There was an idea about perhaps having a cooling period (e.g. like seven days before the points are counted/awarded to the team or the user) whenever members switch teams and perhaps modifying weak accounts. Sharing login and password are difficult to detect. Most of us are focusing on personal goals and participating in limited challenges. The above is my observation and opinion only. I think the original intent of the FB sprint was to give other lesser known DC projects a recognition or a boost but the CPU/GPU improvement over the years (not to mention the use of cloud computing) swarmed the ability of these small projects to handle huge amount load from the contributors during the sprint. My personal opinion is that the sprint is no longer exciting, perhaps the FB should just concentrate on marathon as the strategies/tactics mentioned are unlikely to be of any significant benefits to the marathon.

My 1 cent.

P.S. I do from time to time watch the FB sprint as a spectator and I've posted some observations in the TAAT forum.
 
I appreciate the response. I'm not sure why as a bunch of adults we couldn't all agree on a list of rules and follow it regardless of how easy it is to enforce it. Do you happen to know - Is there a reason that there's no rules against teams colluding on Sprint votes, and also about trying to bunker a week or more ahead of time? It really bums me out that ODLK is out of work - this competition basically screwed that project and has left the scientists working on it in the wind.
 
AFAIK, there is no rules about FB sprint vote collusion, speculative bunkering, etc that can be enforced by the organizer easily. Maybe best to take this up in the FB forum but I'm not too hopeful if FB admin/organizer is receptive to make the FB sprint better overall. If the idea behind the sprint is to mimic the real Formula One race format, the first basic thing to do is ask if the country will want to host this race. Unfortunately this is not happening in our FB sprint. I'm not sure if FB admin has contacted the DC project admin in advance if they really want to host the sprint and be capable to handle the event.
 
Yeah...PC's have gotten so power and (at least in the USA) internet connections have been slow to improve, that most projects just cannot handle such a concentrated load. Not to mention the FB admin doesn't communicate worth spit. Projects large and small both need forewarning to guarantee work and to move resources around to support such an endeavor. FB doesn't even have the majority of teams participating and still brings projects to their knees. Project admins have stated numerous times that they didn't have forewarning and last I knew had never been asked to be included. Then you have to look at how many projects just aren't suitable to begin with. Something running off of a home laptop or a Pi device certainly cannot handle something of this scope. People also don't like the bunkering behavior. The only way to avoid this is to not give warning but you cannot do that with a project admin as some teams have project admins as part of the team. Projects themselves don't really seem to care about helping make things better. If projects handled challenges like PrimeGrid then it would get a lot better.
 
bluestang any input here?

I really appreciate the responses I've gotten so far! The one thing I think would make a huge difference would be if every team voted for every sprint Earlier today Aurum made a joke in the Formula BOINC forum about voting for SETI or other dead projects every time which is ridiculous. TAAT wasn't voting a lot of times either, but I think we will be based on some forum posts I've read. With 90% of the teams not even voting all it takes is a couple teams to agree on a project and they vote on that project and can bunker a week ahead of time. I really think everybody could take a step back, though, and try to actually follow some common sense sportsmanship type rules. Thrashing a tiny project's server way before a sprint is even announced is not sportsmanship and all it does is turn people away from DC/Formula BOINC. As it stands now you cannot even get tasks on ODLK
 
I'm going to keep trolling with memes and whatnot (not here) until I can get somebody from XS to release some tasks on ODLK and turn the project back on, or I guess until the sprint is announced and I've not succeeded. Not asking for a lot - release a small bunker, make me look like the fool in all of it, get the project running again. bluestang can you facilitate that? Get like 20,000-50,000 tasks uploaded by somebody on XS so their server can at least process some tasks again and return the project to some normalcy so they're not sitting in limbo? As far as I know I'm the only one on TAAT that even had any ODLK set aside which was only around 1000 tasks that I grabbed as there was a run on them and I already released 90% of it to try to get their server functioning again, but any open tasks from that release got immediately scooped up. I'm not sure if any other teams grabbed tasks, but it seems like XS has the majority of them so even with a partial bunker release it would still leave XS at position 1 if ODLK is chosen as the sprint project. I'll tell you what - if this somehow backfires and some other team is holding a huge(can only be so huge, that home laptop or whatever hosted project maxes at 500k tasks..) ODLK bunker and it's chosen as the sprint project, I'll throw my semi limited resources at crunching for XS on ODLK for the sprint to do my best to make it right.

I have a ton of respect for Hardforum, so my apologies if I've done any hijacking here. To be honest, the 'good old days' where you guys were killing it with a ton of 4P machines, BigADV, etc. was a huge part of why I got into DC, so I'm not looking to cause unnecessary issues but I didn't know how else to tag Bluestang.
 
Icecold said:
Get like 20,000-50,000 tasks uploaded by somebody
Click to expand...
Actually more like 500K tasks. See graph below. Definitely not one of our team mates as we no longer seriously participating in the sprint.

1601952917316.png
 
Sorry if I wasn't clear. It's not a hardforum user that has the tasks, but Bluestang doesn't have an account at Anandtech so I couldn't tag him there and he's one of the main XS members I'm aware of. I understand it's more like 500k tasks, but my hope is I can convince XS to at least release a small bunker and get the project functioning again. The project has been left totally in limbo because XS grabbed all the open tasks several days before the sprint was announced and are just sitting on them so there are no pending tasks for the scientists to work on or other normal contributors to crunch. If you go on the ODLK forum it turned fairly hostile on the back and forth and the thread got locked, but it was a bunch of the project scientist wondering if the server was having issues, etc. because all the tasks were stuck out there without being uploaded, and then me calling out other teams for wrecking a small project. It's bumming me out that this tiny project has been basically shut completely down for days over Formula BOINC, so it's become kind of my personal mission to get it up and running again(even though I'm not making any progress :ROFLMAO: )

Again - tons of respect for [H], Hardforum etc. and my apologies for bringing any drama this way I just wasn't sure what else to do.

Edit - they released a 20,000 task bunker late last night to get some tasks flowing again. It's back out of work again, but that's all I was asking for, so (y) on that.
 
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Icecold said:
bluestang any input here?
Click to expand...

Sure, I'll input...

Grow a set already and quit your bitching. No one is killing the ODLK project. Go whine to the crazy woman Natalia over at ODLK to release more work. So get off your high horse and learn how to deal with it. This is nothing new to happen here and XS is certainly not the only team who bunkers. Go ask UKBT if they have any bunkered.

So just STFU already and crunch away on what projects you can. I mean it is all about the science according to you and we are doing the science. But you have your panties in a bunch for whatever reason. You can't have your cake and eat it too, so pick a frickin' story and stick to it already cuz it's getting really f'ing old.

And don't expect another response from me. I'm too busy crunching for science.
 
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Spectre said:
I'm not having any trouble, maybe the ODLK project just doesn't like you. Dunno.
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LOL - yeah at this point you're probably right. It seems like it's inconsistently up and down most of the day, but it could also be that ODLK just doesn't like me :D
 
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