What on earth are the credits good for?

Owner
Owner
Joined: 9 Jan 07
Posts: 1
Credit: 7073
RAC: 0
Topic 192379

Thats just it, i dont know why im being given credits..... Can they be used for something, or is it just to incite competition?

MattDavis
MattDavis
Joined: 18 Jan 05
Posts: 68
Credit: 10565341
RAC: 0

What on earth are the credits good for?

Credits are simply there so you can keep track of how much work you're doing and compare your work to other people.

Dagorath
Dagorath
Joined: 22 Apr 06
Posts: 146
Credit: 226423
RAC: 0

RE: Thats just it, i dont

Quote:
Thats just it, i dont know why im being given credits..... Can they be used for something, or is it just to incite competition?

We used to use them for inciting flame wars but that was back when it was easier to cheat on your credits. They worked really good for that. Now they are used primarily for creating annoying banners for your sig ;-) If I really need to know how many credits someone has I'll just go to BoincStats and search on their handle.

serengeti
serengeti
Joined: 7 Dec 06
Posts: 9
Credit: 6316
RAC: 0

So I can't redeem my credits

Message 60333 in response to message 60332

So I can't redeem my credits for frequent flyer miles, or a trip on the space shuttle?

Annika
Annika
Joined: 8 Aug 06
Posts: 720
Credit: 494410
RAC: 0

Unfortunately not... if you

Unfortunately not... if you could go on a shuttle trip for those, I'd probably have tried illegally attaching the whole university network to my account or so ;-)

Pooh Bear 27
Pooh Bear 27
Joined: 20 Mar 05
Posts: 1376
Credit: 20312671
RAC: 0

Yes, part of it is bragging

Yes, part of it is bragging rights.

I also have a inkling that projects use the numbers for grant requests. They can show that a certain amount of work was done in a certain amount of time. The numbers game as we all know is in every financial circle.

Mac-Nic
Mac-Nic
Joined: 25 Feb 05
Posts: 71
Credit: 547461
RAC: 0

In the future the Boinc

In the future the Boinc concept will be used to sell your
free cpu's/time/cyles,ram,disk space and band wide to company's
who are temporary in need for more power.

Thats why there is a need for credits and the urge to make them
the same between the different projects and platforms.

This concept has been predicted way back in 1980-82. (by Dr. Criet Titulair if i recall this right)

"The FUTURE is only a PARTICLE away from the PRESENT and the PAST."

Annika
Annika
Joined: 8 Aug 06
Posts: 720
Credit: 494410
RAC: 0

I'm more in favor of doing

I'm more in favor of doing volunteer stuff with my PC's idle time. Okay, I'm young and I need money, but I don't need it that badly... With BOINC as it is now, you at least stay in control of how much you donate. For example, my workstation is extremely busy at the moment, so BOINC gets less than 10% CPU time- which is okay, because it's voluntary. As soon as I've finished the other work I'll have more resources for BOINC again. If it's a commercial think they could "force" you to deliver a certain amount of computing power. Besides, you wouldn't really know WHAT it is they are doing with your computer, and they probably wouldn't tell you because companies have to keep some secrets to be competitive.
No thanks.
With those scientific projects my boxes at least do sth useful... plus it's fun interacting with other crunchers. I've also learned a lot here on the boards. Without that, I'd probably find my box sth else to do.

Mac-Nic
Mac-Nic
Joined: 25 Feb 05
Posts: 71
Credit: 547461
RAC: 0

Imagine you have a Octo core

Imagine you have a Octo core cpu, 4Gig or more Ram and a
half terabyte HD how much would be wasted if you do the
things you do now and even some more tasks.

But this has nothing todo with the original credits question.

Warm regards

"The FUTURE is only a PARTICLE away from the PRESENT and the PAST."

Annika
Annika
Joined: 8 Aug 06
Posts: 720
Credit: 494410
RAC: 0

Not that much ^^ at least

Not that much ^^ at least when I'm doing the things I'm doing at the moment, crypto-stuff and so (I'm in an "IT Security" project group at uni)... that would merely go faster. But of course during "normal" use like surfing/researching or Office apps one would waste a lot of power. You already do that on "normal" systems much of the time. Therefore I'm glad there's BOINC... but as I said, I prefer the current usage to sth more commercial. Btw, the system you mentioned made me drool :-D badly so. Atm I'd be glad if I could afford adding a bit more memory.
But you're right, we are getting off topic here... interesting question, though, the future of BOINC as computers get more and more powerful.

DanNeely
DanNeely
Joined: 4 Sep 05
Posts: 1364
Credit: 3562358667
RAC: 0

RE: In the future the Boinc

Message 60340 in response to message 60336

Quote:
In the future the Boinc concept will be used to sell your
free cpu's/time/cyles,ram,disk space and band wide to company's
who are temporary in need for more power.

There's already a system that does this. You don't have control over who/what is running on your machine though, and I've zero desire to become a testcase in if the dupes are legally at fault when thier machines are used in the commission of cybercrimes.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.