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Thread: How about harnessing this Maple leaf computing power?

  1. #41
    Howard,

    How many computers are on this project at the hospital you're at? Are there lots more there that could be enrolled into this project? Again, starting small and building. I'd first suggest we contact the director of the hospital to get them behind this and then hit up the university. Thoughts?

  2. #42
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    Scott (and Howard),

    In terms of practicality, a script would be good to facilitate the installation (once you get the OKs). However, my concern is if someone has an older workstation then DF running at it, even if we run it with default memory mode, is going to have a bigger impact in performance and guess who they are going to call to complain. Not going to be Howard.

    However, assuming you have relatively decent systems in the labs, these (ideally) should be in their own groups and scripting those would be relatively simple.

    Now, something to think about before we launch on the crusade... which are going we going to be running. The client or the screensaver? The client can be installed as a service so it runs in the background. However, the screensaver is much more visible, and only runs when the system is not being physically used by a person. It we want to go the SETI route with the cool screensaver, this would be the way. The only thing I would suggest is something on the screensaver that shows a link to the website (SETI it shows the URL, folding@home I believe if you click on a part of it that it takes you the website or at least info on the protein).

    ANother two-pence of thoughts.

    RuneStar

  3. #43
    Runestar,

    I'd give them a choice of the two and tell the pros and cons of each.

  4. #44
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    Well, I was trying to think of what might be beneficial to the DF project. There's a chance that if people see the screensaver than they'll want a copy of their own. However, if its running in the background you don't have to worry about people changing the screensaver (although on public access PCs they could have the script set it back each login).

    BTW, anybody out there got their own Radio show? What do you think Scott, think we can get Art Bell to tell his listeners about DF? heh.

    RuneStar

  5. #45
    Runestar,

    I'm not sure this project is suited for a radio talk show program. Maybe a news report on it or a very short interview. However, it has to be something for either of those. If we could get more volunteers than SETI@Home or outproduce them, that would make news. If Howard had won CASP5, that might ... just might be newsworthy.

    Instead, I suggest that we (and hopefully this isn't just you and I only willing to do this) focus on first getting Howard's hospital fully behind the project then his university and then other Canadian universities then the world.

  6. #46
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    Remember, to get the big numbers, we just need to get people to install it... how many on the Art Bell team do you think really knew just what in the hell the science behind SETI was? Art Bell talked about this really cool screensaver and some set E stuff and some quite a large number of adoring fans went and downloaded this funky screensaver.

    You figure for everyone of us geeks there's what... a 100 average run of your mill users? We got a few thousand, so that's what... a few 100s of thousands of people. I'm not even sure SETI has that many ACTIVE. (As I noted before SETI@home creates a lot of hype with these million some users milestones...and I am not impressed by the hype.) If we had an even 100,000 active users, we'd being doing new proteins what, every few days?

    Now THAT would be a milestone. That's more people than a lot of suburban cities! Let's see the press ignore that.

    Okay, okay, I'm dreaming... but hey... a businessman once offered this quote: "I would rather aim at the moon and hit the barn wall, than aim at the barn wall and land in the mud."

    Oh BTW, do you have IM Scott? If you do look me up on any of them:

    ICQ: 3487901 (still my favorite)
    AIM: admiralrunestar
    Y!: runic_star
    MSN: res17cxx @ verizon.net

    TTFN,

    RuneStar

  7. #47
    Did you just use Science and SETI in the same sentence?

    Anyways, the hospital (as far as I know) is fully aware of and behind (in spirit) our project. All the hospital computers running it though are in reserach labs, installed by our IT as I mentioned before though, and only because he chose to do it, not because someone dictated to him to do so (he did SETI before this too..).
    The only way I can see getting all or most of U of T to run it is to get the IT guy(s) and gal(s) from each individual building to install it on their respective machines that they are in charge of. This could easily total thousands of CPUs. But each building/epartment would need to be approached and persueded one at a time as far as I can tell, and that's a lot of work.
    Howard Feldman

  8. #48
    Runestar,

    When I was working to start up the charity for Folding@Home (why that didn't happen is another story), I did quite a bit of research and one of the things I found out is that SETI@Home only has about 50,000 active volunteers. In fact, if you download SETI@Home, install it, and crunch just one unit then send it back, you've contributed more than almost a quarter of their volunteers. Crunch two and you've done more than half of their volunteers. What this means is that the SETI@Home people are counting the millions that have signed up as their number of volunteers (from its very beginning to today) and not the "mere" tens of thousands that actually actively crunch today. Does the press fall for this? Sure.

    The press investigates things as much as a three-year-old does. The vast majority of the news you read wasn't written by a reporter but by a publicist. And by "vast majority" I mean in the 90-99% range. Of the 1-10% of original work reporters actually do, most of that is merely re-wording press releases and some go as far as actually adding something by calling the contact person. True from-scratch investigative reporting is quite rare. Sorry, but that's the sad true state of news these days.

    However, before you think we can just write up a press release and get it published in all newspapers, you should know that each news agency is bombarded with thousands of press releases each day. The real job of a reporter these days is going through all of these for ones that might actually have something newsworthy to report and be of interest to the public they serve. The job of a publicist is to make the press releases s/he sends in rise above this ugly flood of self-serving press releases. To do this, a publicist must research what areas a reporter specializes in, their slant, etc. What you want as a publicist is to get on the reporter's A list. Those on the A list always get their press releases at least glanced at.

    Anyway, what all the above boils down to is that we've got to have something newsworthy to report (even if it is basically a half-truth). And using the "if you report on us, we'll get more volunteers than SETI@Home thus be newsworthy" logic doesn't cut it. Oh, and radio talk show needs far more than a news article. The more you have to chat about, the longer you get to stay on the air.

    In DF's case, Howard and crew actually have to do something out of the ordinary. My big hope was they'd win CASP5. But because they didn't, we have to look for different spins. One of those is what this research IS doing to help advance science. What the pay-offs will be. And let's not forget Folding@Home. DF will always be compared against them and have to answer the question: Why help you and not them? Giving an answer like "Helping either helps advance science." isn't a good idea. It's a wishy-washy answer. We need a "Here is why DF is better than F@H!" type of answer. Is that possible? At this stage, I think only Howard and his crew could answer that.

    And Howard and crew NEED to answer that right now for us to do this pitching I'm talking about. Not in vague terms. Crisp concise and to-the-point terms. No more than a short paragraph. This will be what we will use as the reason why Howard's hospital should get behind Howard's project ... as well as his university, Canada, and the world. It is the best reason. Selling it as "just" a science project by a local boy will likely not get us far ... if anywhere.

    As for IM, my handle is twinntattoo.

  9. #49
    Howard,

    Yes, someone that can hit the pavement and knock on doors would be great for the project. That's essentially what I was willing to do if hired. However, as we've already discussed, you don't have the money for that. Given that reality...

    What I'm proposing is that we contact the head guy at organizations and ask them to issue an organization-wide directive. These do carry weight if properly worded. What we want is for the directive to have a report-back aspect to it. The head person wanting all departments to report back to him what they've done to accommodate the directive. In our case, how many computers in a department are now running your dc project and why those that are not are not running it. What I was going to send these head guys was a pitch letter and also an "example" of a directive letter for them to send out. I was going to "mention" that they can use the directive example if they like ... and fully expect them to if they agreed with the idea. The directive letter would have also explained why people should want to help your project out. First rule of public relations is always make it as easy as possible for your marks to do something.

    By the way, my category team suggestion (see the thread about it) would go a LONG way to help with this. Everyone likes to at least make a good showing (to say nothing about loving to be the leader of their category!) and category teams would help this. For example, in your hospital, it could get the Burns Clinic to compete against ICU. It could also get a little rivalry going between different hospitals. Amongst the clinics of a hospital.

    In fact, if you could get the category team idea instituted, it would go a LONG way in helping me get publicity for this project. It would be great fodder for talk shows. Heck, we could do a category for just talk shows where the talk shows compete against each other to get their fans to join their team! Now there we're talking about raking in the masses!!!

    And, yes, the category team thing has to be done by your staff and not by one of the outside volunteer teams. OR ... to be more precise ... it has to appear to be done by your staff. If an outside team could set this up for you and then you run it through your system as part of it, that would do. The outside team MUST be willing to be a silent helper in this regards and be VERY reliable. Reliable as in their stat system isn't on an Atari that's only turned on once a week. It must be on a very good system that your system can always quickly and reliably access so when people access their stats, your system can access this other system and give not only the volunteer's individual stats and the stats of their team but the stats of all the category teams they belong to. Howard, if you were to ask for such help in that other thread, possibly some team would step up to the plate.

    As for getting sponsors for this project, you could set up a charity for it along the lines of one I was working to set up for Folding@Home. Basically, a booster club for your project. Your current volunteers donating via monthly automated credit card deductions. The money from this could be used to send out inexpensive postcards to recruit more volunteers. The idea being that some of the ones those postcards recruit will turn around and also become patrons. The desired effect is a snowball rolling down a snowy slope. Once this revenue generates enough money, the booster club would hire someone to walk around and knock on doors. The doors I'd have that person knock on would be corporate and seek corporate donations to the booster club. As this revenue increases, more and more people would be hired to knock on more and more doors. With each new hire, the world is further divided up so each territory they cover gets smaller and smaller. Smaller means they can cover it more thoroughly. Initially, I'd have the first hire be in North America. Second hire in either Europe or Japan. Third hire be for the area that wasn't covered by the second hire. Eventually, the booster club could have one for each country in the world and for the major countries, for each state/province. Each of these workers going around and talking to corporations, universities, school systems, non-profit organizations, social organizations, hospitals, etc. And part of their job is to keep the ones they bring in to remain in. Keeping volunteers and keeping them crunching is the key to success. In fact, after a little bit, these workers would mainly be going around giving updates to the organizations they've already brought in and doing the necessary patting-on-the-back to keep them in.

    If you went this booster club route, I'd strongly recommend that you have the stats also reflect donations. Thus when someone checks their stats, they see how many units they've contributed and what ranking that gets them as well as how much money they've contributed and what ranking that gets them. Do the same for teams and category teams. This would go a long way in getting people to toss some coins to the booster club.

    Now could I set up that charity (a.k.a. booster club) for you? Yes, but not out of my own pocket as I did with Folding@Home. I got burned by Stanford and don't want to do that again. And I wasn't the only one to get burned. A very nice lawyer did as well. A lawyer I'd like to use again, but I'm almost positive she'll expect cold hard cash upfront before she does this a second time. And it isn't cheap. Incoporation costs $1,000, tax-exempt status costs $10,000, and that doesn't include the costs of a single postcard mailed out. Any millionaire volunteers like to contribute to the cause? On the other hand, Howard (or more likely, Chris ... since he's your professor) could you ask for a grant to set up this charity and possibly at least one hire and operating expenses for one year? Afterall, how valuable a dc project amounts to is largely based on how many volunteers it has crunching for it. The above proposed booster club would very likely do the trick more than anything else.

  10. #50
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    Originally posted by Brian the Fist

    The only way I can see getting all or most of U of T to run it is to get the IT guy(s) and gal(s) from each individual building to install it on their respective machines that they are in charge of.

    Brian, since you mentioned that... I've been wondering, have you done any kind of start this within the various Life Sciences departments? Seems that would be the best start. Also this is why I suggested scripting through the logins. That or find 10 students who think this you have a really cool screensaver and interested in the whole "points" system and get to go around installing it for you... What's a 100 machines to an excited student...

    BTW, have you and Chris tried talking to your classes and getting them to install it ... maybe offer some extra credit to spicen things up? If you get them to spread it amongst the dorms and their homes, that might work well.

    Just some thought...

    RuneStar½

  11. #51
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    Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie is a comedy group (from Alberta?) who described all the things they despised in/from Toronto in "The Toronto Song" which you can download from www.mp3.com.

    http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/37/t..._in_a_bag.html

    I was assuming this was something that a Dean wouldn't want being played in front of his office..

    How do we contact all the IT heads for each of the buildings, once we get approval from the Dean?

  12. #52
    Scott,

    I disagree that you need to argue DF is better than F@H, as that's simply not true. That's like saying Superman is better than Spiderman, or Dogs are better than Cats. Despite the similarity in their names, they are two different projects with two different goals, both important scientifically. They are not our competitors, at least in terms of the science (but we obviously compete for the same user base to some extent) and some of their stuff even complements what we are doing quite nicely.
    It is certainly not our intention to 'steal away' users from F@H or to kill their project, they are doing very useful and interesting work - just different from the problem we are solving.

    So why should someone help us and not F@H? Well I still maintain that both are important, and the user should make a choice him/herself based on their desires and which they find more intriguing. If they don't care/don't understand the science (mass majority of the public), they will likely just picking the cooler-looking screensaver and that is clearly us
    Howard Feldman

  13. #53
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    Talking

    Howard, you're forgetting all those stay-at-home parents... if you can get the screensaver to run the dishwasher, the washer & dryer, and order food for the fridge you'd have the market cornered... you could probably partner up with some of the manufacturers and get some moola back on it!

    RuneStar

    P.S. Okay, we'll keep very hush-hush about this, delete all references to this thread and idea once it gets going... and then when we U of T assimilated, we'll sneak over to Stanford and we'll install the DF screensaver on all of their life science computers. I'll throw in $20 for anybody who can get to Vijay's crews computers and get the screensaver running on their computers. Anybody else want to chip into the pot?

  14. #54
    Howard,

    You are competing with Folding@Home. You're competing for crunchers. You really should address how the two dc projects differ from each other so people can make an informed decision. And not only how DF is different from F@H but how it is different from all the other active dc projects. A little comparison chart would help along this route.

    And if you're just hoping to get the layman with eye candy, then you really are competing with every dc project that's out there. I wouldn't recommend you take that position. You need to make your science understandable to the layperson and why it is important. You do that and, it is my opinion, you've just blown away all the decoding dc projects, SETI@Home, etc. You're then left competing against Folding@Home and ... hmmm ... I wonder what else?

  15. #55
    If this thread would just die, that would be fine and dandy.
    Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies..

  16. #56
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    Originally posted by KWSN Grim Reaper
    If this thread would just die, that would be fine and dandy.
    <Looks at Grim Reaper> Is that a siren I hear coming to round you up...

  17. #57
    Originally posted by KWSN Grim Reaper
    If this thread would just die, that would be fine and dandy.
    Oh my god! Who's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read this thread?! Someone call the police quick!

  18. #58
    Originally posted by KWSN Grim Reaper
    If this thread would just die, that would be fine and dandy.
    Jokes aside, why do you want this thread to cease?

  19. #59
    Originally posted by Scott Jensen

    As for getting sponsors for this project, you could set up a charity for it along the lines of one I was working to set up for Folding@Home. Basically, a booster club for your project. Your current volunteers donating via monthly automated credit card deductions. The money from this could be used to send out inexpensive postcards to recruit more volunteers. The idea being that some of the ones those postcards recruit will turn around and also become patrons. The desired effect is a snowball rolling down a snowy slope. Once this revenue generates enough money, the booster club would hire someone to walk around and knock on doors. The doors I'd have that person knock on would be corporate and seek corporate donations to the booster club. As this revenue increases, more and more people would be hired to knock on more and more doors. With each new hire, the world is further divided up so each territory they cover gets smaller and smaller. Smaller means they can cover it more thoroughly. Initially, I'd have the first hire be in North America. Second hire in either Europe or Japan. Third hire be for the area that wasn't covered by the second hire. Eventually, the booster club could have one for each country in the world and for the major countries, for each state/province. Each of these workers going around and talking to corporations, universities, school systems, non-profit organizations, social organizations, hospitals, etc. And part of their job is to keep the ones they bring in to remain in. Keeping volunteers and keeping them crunching is the key to success. In fact, after a little bit, these workers would mainly be going around giving updates to the organizations they've already brought in and doing the necessary patting-on-the-back to keep them in.
    Is it just me, or does this sound suspiciously like a pyramid scheme


    Now could I set up that charity (a.k.a. booster club) for you? Yes, but not out of my own pocket as I did with Folding@Home. I got burned by Stanford and don't want to do that again. And I wasn't the only one to get burned. A very nice lawyer did as well. A lawyer I'd like to use again, but I'm almost positive she'll expect cold hard cash upfront before she does this a second time. And it isn't cheap. Incoporation costs $1,000, tax-exempt status costs $10,000, and that doesn't include the costs of a single postcard mailed out. Any millionaire volunteers like to contribute to the cause? On the other hand, Howard (or more likely, Chris ... since he's your professor) could you ask for a grant to set up this charity and possibly at least one hire and operating expenses for one year? Afterall, how valuable a dc project amounts to is largely based on how many volunteers it has crunching for it. The above proposed booster club would very likely do the trick more than anything else.
    Scott,

    Please remember, we are Mount Sinai Hospital. We ARE a charitable organization already. Anyone can make a donation to Mount Sinai Hospital and request that the money be directed to the Hogue lab (everyone hear that? ) and a standard tax receipt will be issued by the hospital. Thus I see no point in setting up a DFP charity even if I thought it sounded like a good idea.
    Howard Feldman

  20. #60
    Originally posted by Brian the Fist
    Is it just me, or does this sound suspiciously like a pyramid scheme
    Hardly. This is how many manufacturing companies develop out their sales forces and thus their overall business. What I propose is doing this rather traditional approach on a global scale for a dc project. Normally, as the sales forces brings in more revenue, the manufacturer uses a portion of this increased revenue to hire more sales people and divides up the overall territory (in this case, the world) into smaller territories for each member of that new larger sales force. Eventually you reach a point of diminishing returns where you literally have more sales people than you need. Where this point exists is different depending on what you're selling, the size of the buying market, etc. and isn't always clear cut. Most find it along the way and usually pull back a bit when they've stepped over it ... which is usually the only way they find out where it is.

    In the case of DF, it would be trying to find out how many large organizations a worker can keep motivated and in the project. As anyone that has be part of a dc project knows, just because someone has joined your project, doesn't mean they're forever going stay in it and always keep actively crunching for it. For individual volunteers, though, you cannot give them the personal touch of an in-person visit. This would be definitely too expensive. However, if you do this for an organization that has thousands upon thousands of computers, some people (those contributing to the booster club) will feel the expense is well worth it to have that massive crunching power behind their dc project. But just like an individual, if you really want them to stay with you, you need to give them attention. That's where the worker comes in.

    The worker first recruits the organization/corporation and then regularly visits them to keep them motivated and actively crunching. The worker also is their contact for getting solutions to problems they're experiencing with the project, a way to submit suggestions that will reach the powers-that-be, etc.

    Take, for example, American Family Insurance here in Madison, Wisconsin. I talked to one of their IT people not too long ago and found out that company-wide they have well over 100,000 computers. This includes the computers at their local sales offices and the number would practically double if you were to include those own by their employees and "independent" sales people at home. Would it be worth trying to convince the CEO of American Family to get behind DF? American Family alone could more than double the crunching power that is currently being done by all of us. Most of their computers are idle most of the time and even when they're being used, it is for word processing which doesn't take much of their CPU. However, it isn't likely you'd get the CEO behind this project without an in-person pitch for DF and likely end up having to go to meetings at least once with its Board of Directors and probably more than once with their IT department. So is American Family Insurance worth going after? Again, those that would contribute to a booster club would say so.

    And, if you still think what I propose is a pyramid scam, use this link to find out what real pyramid scams are: http://www.bbb.org/library/workathome.asp

    Please remember, we are Mount Sinai Hospital. We ARE a charitable organization already. Anyone can make a donation to Mount Sinai Hospital and request that the money be directed to the Hogue lab (everyone hear that? ) and a standard tax receipt will be issued by the hospital. Thus I see no point in setting up a DFP charity even if I thought it sounded like a good idea.

    First, I'd recommend you set up a way for volunteers to do just that.

    Second, to do the booster club idea, the above would need to be set up so people know where the money is going to, what it is being used for, and given proof that it was actually used for that and doesn't simply disappear into the hospital's general fund or used to simply reduce the support of the hospital for DF by the same amount.

    Now if you did want to start up a booster club, I'd recommend you talk to your hospital and get their lawyer to set it up as a separate entity within the hospital with its own charter and bylaws, separate bank account, and separate Board of Directors. By the way, this is how many non-profits start off. They use an already existing tax-exempt organization as an umbrella organization and later gain their own wings as the donations grow to the point where they can afford to do so and want to.

    The problem comes when the umbrella organization won't set up the new charity as a separate entity. When donations solicited for the new one actually goes into the general fund of the umbrella with the "promise" it will be used for the new one. Even if the umbrella is totally true to their word, seeds of doubt rise and donations suffer, if not completely cease.

    As for what I did for Folding@Home, the F@H people and I initially tried to get Stanford to do the above. It didn't. The F@H people made repeated requests to Stanford's legal department but they all fell on deaf ears. It was then decided to start up a separate entity for the booster club because of the lack of interest by Stanford. From beginning to the ugly end, I spent a year working to get this all set up. From getting the charity its EIN to its own bank accounts to finding a good credit card processor that could handle automated monthly deductions to a whole list of stuff. Then at the eleventh hour, Stanford did finally pay attention. Right before the lawyer I got was to submit in the application for tax-exempt status. I'm literally saying at the last possible moment. The lawyer needed F@H director to sign off on the application and it would have then be submitted. But it didn't happen. One moment I was the best buddy of the F@H people and the next I get the cold shoulder and left holding a bag of bills that they won't even acknowledge. Stanford then simply told the F@H people to have its volunteers donate money to Stanford with a note it goes to F@H. In reality, the donations went into Stanford's general fund and F@H has never seen a penny of it. And because of this, F@H has received very little in the way of individual donations and there exists no booster club for it. The whole affair left a very bitter taste in my mouth and I just couldn't even crunch for them anymore and thus came to this project. Oh, and if you doubt what I'm saying, the lawyer and I still have all the emails I exchanged with F@H over that year.

    Now maybe your hospital is different. I hope so. But the proof is in the writing. If they're willing to set up the booster club as a separate legal entity, give it its own bank account, and let it have its own Board of Directors, then there's hope that it will actually do something and people will donate to its cause. Sorry I didn't propose this to start with, but I guess my experience with F@H colored my view. Life experiences tend to do that.
    Last edited by Scott Jensen; 01-17-2003 at 02:14 PM.

  21. #61
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    Ummm... would you do us just one favor Scott... Breathe BREATHE! You're scaring us here when you ramble on like that.

    RS&#189;

  22. #62
    Runestar,

    Really? Sorry. It is just that I wasn't the only one burned. If it was just me, it would have been easier to shrug off, but it wasn't. And to make it worse, I was the one that brought in those others.

    On the bright side, it did teach me a lot about the academic bureaucratic mindset and I've been able to use that knowledge to good use when advising clients on how they should deal with universities.

  23. #63
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    The rambling isn't the scary part... its the fact you don't seem to be INhaling any air. People get a little tense about walking over bodies passed out on the floor.

  24. #64
    Well, I do tend to post big posts normally.

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