Ability to opt out of : S5 Engineering & S5 search #1
22 Nov 2010 5:48:56 UTC
Topic 195465
(moderation:
I would like the ability to opt out of :
S5 Engineering
&
S5 search #1
I have nothing against either of these searches, as I have already done enough of them. I do not believe the data processing of these projects would be harmed by allowing people to opt out of them.
There may be some cost savings in this more open choice arrangement as well.
I know that many people have aborted optical work units so they can do radio astronomy work units -- probably to the cost of several hundred SRDs per year at your end.
Some people participating in this project would like to do the radio astronomy stuff and not the optics stuff. Either taste or local CPU conditions may dictate this, but both reasons are equally valid.
My computer config copes better with the radio astronomy stuff, although the optical search overhead performance differences have improved over time.
OVERALL
I would like there to be a script that monitors the "Einstein@Home preferences" specific to "Run only the selected applications"
The script must enforce subscribing to 2 projects, or possibly only 1. No user should be forced into any sub-project, that is bad programming. You have do run what is best for your machine.
On the whole the project preferences box needs some basic upgrades -- so you choose screen resolutions from a default list of monitor sizes (and separate from that frame rates). With frame rates you really only need to choose between say 10 fps to 30 fps in 2 Hz steps (with maybe 48 Hz for the IMAX crowd!).
I am not asking for any complex coding, just bare bones reasonable choice restrictions.
Ability to opt out of : S5 Engineering & S5 search #1
)
The whole purpose of the E@H project is to attempt to detect Einstein's predicted gravity waves by analysis of the LIGO data. Some years ago, a Nobel Prize was awarded for inferring their existence, but the direct detection still remains as a much sort after prize. Since pulsars, particularly in binary systems, are thought to be a good source of the elusive waves, it's not surprising that a project to detect new pulsars is also on the agenda. However, it's not the main game.
At the moment, the GCE (engineering) run is essentially completed some time ago. The GC#1 run is also rapidly drawing to a close and the followup GCHF run has just started and should provide work for a period until further searches are configured. The pulsar search (ABP2) that you seem to want to do exclusively, is also about to run out of work. The current processing rate for ABP2 data is greater than 7 times the data collection rate and the data is almost exhausted.
There are plans to attempt to secure more pulsar data from sources other than Arecibo but there is no guarantee of an adequate (or even any) supply of work so I would think you should plan for ABP2 work shortages fairly soon now. If you really don't wish to continue with the GW work, perhaps this is not the project that best suits you.
BOINC already actions any allowed changes to your project preferences. If the project Admins wanted to allow opting out of GW work, you certainly wouldn't need some additional script to do it.
Actually, as volunteers, we should expect to run whatever is in the best interests of the project. If we don't like the choices offered, we stop volunteering. A project is set up to perform specific research - which is advertised in advance. We are invited to volunteer if it suits us. Any project is always grateful for the resources donated by volunteers. We should trust the scientists to decide how best to use those donations in achieving the documented aims of the research. Of course, it would be legitimate for us to complain if the project suddenly started doing something that was quite different from what was initially advertised. For E@H, the search for gravity waves was always, clearly, the main game.
Interestingly enough, in perusing the current project preferences, I've noticed that (at the moment) you can opt out of the new 'HF' (high frequency) search, whereas you can't for GC#1. I can think of three possible reasons. It could be simply an oversight, or it could be a deliberate change in policy, or it may be that it's a temporarily allowed escape route in case something were to fail drastically with the transition to this new run. Since Bernd has already commented on the relative smoothness of the transition, we should find out quite quickly if it was the latter :-).
Cheers,
Gary.