Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Jonathan Aquilina]

I am going to be blunt here but its not worth that 2 cents per hour given 
phones are key to everyones day to day work etc youll have to carry quite a 
number of battery packs to get you through your day.

Regards,
Jonathan

From: Beowulf  On Behalf Of Chuck Petras
Sent: 27 November 2019 19:19
To: Beowulf@beowulf.org
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

My question re financial viability was prompted by this statement in the 
Neocortix article:

“And phone owners could be paid for the service to rent out their phones’ 
computing capacity. Neocortix claims on their website that top users can earn 
up to $80 a year for a phone that’s engaged in computing for 8 hours a day; if 
available for 24 hours, it can earn up to $240 a year.”

So that works out to around US$0.023/hour.


From: William Johnson 
mailto:meatheadmer...@gmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2019 7:23 PM
To: Chuck Petras mailto:chuck_pet...@selinc.com>>; 
Beowulf@beowulf.org
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Caution - External]

The technology for this type of distributed computing already has a large 
community.
The BOINC Project (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) has 
existed since 2002 and allows people to donate idle computing time to large 
science and math computation projects.
They have clients to run on many types of platforms with a system of job 
servers that can benchmark and customize workloads to the device/processors 
(CPUs/GPUs) participating. Clients that exist to participate already range from 
desktops and tablets to game systems like PS3, abstracting calculations from 
platforms and processors, and sometimes available to run in virtual box on a 
machine to keep them separate.
It could be nice to earn a return on this type of computation, current projects 
through BOINC are largely in the realm of university research and all 
participant volunteer their resources. I'm not sure what types of commercial 
work loads might be willing to pay for this type of computing resource. It does 
seem to limit types of jobs to data sets that can be batch divided into 
parallel units, to work large problem spaces. That brings to mind more research 
uses, and not many commercial uses.
Perhaps computational modeling for research and development (like failure 
testing several potential models), or analysis of geological mining survey 
data, or process flow analysis for large manufacturing and distribution 
systems. But it makes me think most of marketing analysis with the current 
focus in big data projects from corporate environments I see in articles and 
instructional materials.



On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:19 PM Chuck Petras 
mailto:chuck_pet...@selinc.com>> wrote:
Seen the below where a company wants to rent your smartphone as a cloud 
computing resource. From a few years ago there was a company making space 
heaters that contained servers to compute and heat your house.

Are there any classes of problems that would be monitizeable in a grid 
computing environment to make those efforts financially viable?

Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?
https://www.eejournal.com/article/is-crowd-computing-the-next-big-thing/ 
[eejournal.com]

Heating houses with 'nerd power'
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32816775# 
[bbc.com]

Chuck Petras, PE**
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc
Pullman, WA  99163  USA
http://www.selinc.com

SEL Synchrophasors - A New View of the Power System 


Making Electric Power Safer, More Reliable, and More Economical (R)

** Registered in Oregon.

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Re: [Beowulf] [EXTERNAL] Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Chris Samuel]

On 27/11/19 9:50 am, Lux, Jim (US 337K) via Beowulf wrote:


Wasn't there a minor scandal a year or so ago about websites mining bitcoin in 
the background using user resources? And some phone apps doing the same?


Javascript cryptominers are a thing, and Firefox tries to block them 
automatically.


https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/block-cryptominers-with-firefox/

All the best,
Chris
--
 Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Berkeley, CA, USA
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Re: [Beowulf] [EXTERNAL] Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Lux, Jim (US 337K) via Beowulf]

On 11/27/19, 12:43 PM, "Beowulf on behalf of David Mathog" 
 wrote:

On 2019-11-27 11:23, beowulf-requ...@beowulf.org wrote:
> Send Beowulf mailing list submissions to
>   beowulf@beowulf.org
> 
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> 
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Beowulf digest..."
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>1. Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing? (Chuck Petras)
>2. Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing? (Alexander Antoniades)
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Message: 1
On Wed, 27 Nov 2019 18:19:20, Chuck Petras wrote:
> My question re financial viability was prompted by this statement in
> the Neocortix article:
> 
> “And phone owners could be paid for the service to rent out their
> phones’ computing capacity. Neocortix claims on their website that top
> users can earn up to $80 a year for a phone that’s engaged in
> computing for 8 hours a day; if available for 24 hours, it can earn up
> to $240 a year.”
> 
> So that works out to around US$0.023/hour.

Whatever payment they make must also be weighed against the phone 
battery running down much faster than it otherwise would.  Seems like 
the sort of background application which, if one forgot to turn it off, 
could easily result in a dead phone just when it was needed at the end 
of the work day.

The idea that unused cycles are somehow "free" I think dates way back to 
the time when computers had fixed clock speeds and the amount of power 
the CPU used was nearly independent of what they were doing.  These days 
unless set otherwise ("max performance" or the like) most machines turn 
their clocks way down when they are not busy.  So burning all of those 
"free" cycles will result in substantially higher power consumption.  
Phones do that even more than other computers.  It seems likely that if 
the application was only running when the phone was plugged into its 
charger that level of payment could cover those extra electricity costs.


--
And, batteries are "cycle life" limited, so running the battery up and down 
will cost you in earlier battery/phone replacement.  Actually the life is more 
like "joules passed through the battery" (i.e. 100 cycles from 80% to 20% is 
similar to 200 cycles from 80 to 50 or 50 to 20)

With respect to "free cycles" in desktop computers - back in the day, 10-15 
years ago, a bunch of folks made measurements on cluster nodes of one sort or 
another.  As I recall, there *is* a power consumption change between full load 
and not, but there's a significant "background load" that is more than 50% of 
the total power consumption.

If you start looking at things like large FPGAs, the old Virtex II family had a 
very strong dependence between number of gates clocking and power consumption. 
The Virtex 6, though, has almost no dependence on clock rate or circuit 
complexity. It's dominated by quiescent current (the leakage through 600 
million devices on the die), and that is very strongly affected by die 
temperature.  It rises exponentially - so the increase from 0 to 20C is a tiny 
fraction of 40C to 60C or more.


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Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[David Mathog]

On 2019-11-27 11:23, beowulf-requ...@beowulf.org wrote:

Send Beowulf mailing list submissions to
beowulf@beowulf.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Beowulf digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing? (Chuck Petras)
   2. Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing? (Alexander Antoniades)


--

Message: 1

On Wed, 27 Nov 2019 18:19:20, Chuck Petras wrote:

My question re financial viability was prompted by this statement in
the Neocortix article:

“And phone owners could be paid for the service to rent out their
phones’ computing capacity. Neocortix claims on their website that top
users can earn up to $80 a year for a phone that’s engaged in
computing for 8 hours a day; if available for 24 hours, it can earn up
to $240 a year.”

So that works out to around US$0.023/hour.


Whatever payment they make must also be weighed against the phone 
battery running down much faster than it otherwise would.  Seems like 
the sort of background application which, if one forgot to turn it off, 
could easily result in a dead phone just when it was needed at the end 
of the work day.


The idea that unused cycles are somehow "free" I think dates way back to 
the time when computers had fixed clock speeds and the amount of power 
the CPU used was nearly independent of what they were doing.  These days 
unless set otherwise ("max performance" or the like) most machines turn 
their clocks way down when they are not busy.  So burning all of those 
"free" cycles will result in substantially higher power consumption.  
Phones do that even more than other computers.  It seems likely that if 
the application was only running when the phone was plugged into its 
charger that level of payment could cover those extra electricity costs.


Regards,

David Mathog
mat...@caltech.edu
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech
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Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Alexander Antoniades]

This paves the way for a "Google will eat itself"
http://www.gwei.org/index.php style solution and investing in new dedicated
phones. Next you attach the phones to the necks of those water drinking
bird toys, run Sweat coin https://sweatco.in/ from the  Brave browser
https://brave.com/brave-rewards/ and the rest takes care of itself!


On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 2:00 PM Chuck Petras 
wrote:

> My question re financial viability was prompted by this statement in the
> Neocortix article:
>
>
>
> “And phone owners could be paid for the service to rent out their phones’
> computing capacity. Neocortix claims on their website that top users can
> earn up to $80 a year for a phone that’s engaged in computing for 8 hours a
> day; if available for 24 hours, it can earn up to $240 a year.”
>
>
>
> So that works out to around US$0.023/hour.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* William Johnson 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 26, 2019 7:23 PM
> *To:* Chuck Petras ; Beowulf@beowulf.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?
>
>
>
> *[Caution - External]*
>
>
>
> The technology for this type of distributed computing already has a large
> community.
>
> The BOINC Project (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) has
> existed since 2002 and allows people to donate idle computing time to large
> science and math computation projects.
>
> They have clients to run on many types of platforms with a system of job
> servers that can benchmark and customize workloads to the device/processors
> (CPUs/GPUs) participating. Clients that exist to participate already range
> from desktops and tablets to game systems like PS3, abstracting
> calculations from platforms and processors, and sometimes available to run
> in virtual box on a machine to keep them separate.
>
> It could be nice to earn a return on this type of computation, current
> projects through BOINC are largely in the realm of university research and
> all participant volunteer their resources. I'm not sure what types of
> commercial work loads might be willing to pay for this type of computing
> resource. It does seem to limit types of jobs to data sets that can be
> batch divided into parallel units, to work large problem spaces. That
> brings to mind more research uses, and not many commercial uses.
>
> Perhaps computational modeling for research and development (like failure
> testing several potential models), or analysis of geological mining survey
> data, or process flow analysis for large manufacturing and distribution
> systems. But it makes me think most of marketing analysis with the current
> focus in big data projects from corporate environments I see in articles
> and instructional materials.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:19 PM Chuck Petras 
> wrote:
>
> Seen the below where a company wants to rent your smartphone as a cloud
> computing resource. From a few years ago there was a company making space
> heaters that contained servers to compute and heat your house.
>
>
>
> Are there any classes of problems that would be monitizeable in a grid
> computing environment to make those efforts financially viable?
>
>
>
> Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?
>
> https://www.eejournal.com/article/is-crowd-computing-the-next-big-thing/ [
> eejournal.com]
>
>
>
> Heating houses with 'nerd power'
>
> https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32816775# [bbc.com]
>
>
>
> Chuck Petras, PE**
>
> Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc
>
> Pullman, WA  99163  USA
>
> http://www.selinc.com
>
>
>
> SEL Synchrophasors - A New View of the Power System <
> http://synchrophasor.selinc.com>
>
>
>
> Making Electric Power Safer, More Reliable, and More Economical (R)
>
>
>
> ** Registered in Oregon.
>
>
>
> ___
> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing
> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
> https://beowulf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beowulf [beowulf.org]
>
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> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing
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Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Chuck Petras]

My question re financial viability was prompted by this statement in the 
Neocortix article:

“And phone owners could be paid for the service to rent out their phones’ 
computing capacity. Neocortix claims on their website that top users can earn 
up to $80 a year for a phone that’s engaged in computing for 8 hours a day; if 
available for 24 hours, it can earn up to $240 a year.”

So that works out to around US$0.023/hour.


From: William Johnson 
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2019 7:23 PM
To: Chuck Petras ; Beowulf@beowulf.org
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Caution - External]

The technology for this type of distributed computing already has a large 
community.
The BOINC Project (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) has 
existed since 2002 and allows people to donate idle computing time to large 
science and math computation projects.
They have clients to run on many types of platforms with a system of job 
servers that can benchmark and customize workloads to the device/processors 
(CPUs/GPUs) participating. Clients that exist to participate already range from 
desktops and tablets to game systems like PS3, abstracting calculations from 
platforms and processors, and sometimes available to run in virtual box on a 
machine to keep them separate.
It could be nice to earn a return on this type of computation, current projects 
through BOINC are largely in the realm of university research and all 
participant volunteer their resources. I'm not sure what types of commercial 
work loads might be willing to pay for this type of computing resource. It does 
seem to limit types of jobs to data sets that can be batch divided into 
parallel units, to work large problem spaces. That brings to mind more research 
uses, and not many commercial uses.
Perhaps computational modeling for research and development (like failure 
testing several potential models), or analysis of geological mining survey 
data, or process flow analysis for large manufacturing and distribution 
systems. But it makes me think most of marketing analysis with the current 
focus in big data projects from corporate environments I see in articles and 
instructional materials.



On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:19 PM Chuck Petras 
mailto:chuck_pet...@selinc.com>> wrote:
Seen the below where a company wants to rent your smartphone as a cloud 
computing resource. From a few years ago there was a company making space 
heaters that contained servers to compute and heat your house.

Are there any classes of problems that would be monitizeable in a grid 
computing environment to make those efforts financially viable?

Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?
https://www.eejournal.com/article/is-crowd-computing-the-next-big-thing/ 
[eejournal.com]

Heating houses with 'nerd power'
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32816775# 
[bbc.com]

Chuck Petras, PE**
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc
Pullman, WA  99163  USA
http://www.selinc.com

SEL Synchrophasors - A New View of the Power System 


Making Electric Power Safer, More Reliable, and More Economical (R)

** Registered in Oregon.

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Re: [Beowulf] [EXTERNAL] Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Lux, Jim (US 337K) via Beowulf]

Wasn't there a minor scandal a year or so ago about websites mining bitcoin in 
the background using user resources? And some phone apps doing the same?



On 11/26/19, 9:30 PM, "Beowulf on behalf of Greg Lindahl" 
 wrote:

On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 08:07:32PM +, Chuck Petras wrote:

> Are there any classes of problems that would be monitizeable in a grid 
computing environment to make those efforts financially viable?

Sure, currently there are 2 major areas:

1) Creating web proxies for web scraping from residential addresses
2) Mining cryptocurrencies

#2 pays less than the electricity consumed, but there are lots of 
circumstances
where people don't pay for their own electricity.

#1 doesn't use much cpu, but it's about as sleezy as #2.

Presumably you had something more noble in mind? And something other
than the well known SETI-at-home, etc.

-- greg

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Re: [Beowulf] [EXTERNAL] Re: Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

[Lux, Jim (US 337K) via Beowulf]

We had an interesting discussion a few years ago at JPL about the issues 
surrounding running background tasks like Seti@Home on desktop computers  – 
Since the government buys the computers and pays for the electricity, is this a 
“legal or appropriate use of government resources” – albeit one that would be 
very difficult to assign a specific value to.  There are also a host of 
security questions that come from such things.



From: Beowulf  on behalf of William Johnson 

Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 7:24 PM
To: Chuck Petras , "beowulf@beowulf.org" 

Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [Beowulf] Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?


The technology for this type of distributed computing already has a large 
community.
The BOINC Project (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) has 
existed since 2002 and allows people to donate idle computing time to large 
science and math computation projects.
They have clients to run on many types of platforms with a system of job 
servers that can benchmark and customize workloads to the device/processors 
(CPUs/GPUs) participating. Clients that exist to participate already range from 
desktops and tablets to game systems like PS3, abstracting calculations from 
platforms and processors, and sometimes available to run in virtual box on a 
machine to keep them separate.
It could be nice to earn a return on this type of computation, current projects 
through BOINC are largely in the realm of university research and all 
participant volunteer their resources. I'm not sure what types of commercial 
work loads might be willing to pay for this type of computing resource. It does 
seem to limit types of jobs to data sets that can be batch divided into 
parallel units, to work large problem spaces. That brings to mind more research 
uses, and not many commercial uses.
Perhaps computational modeling for research and development (like failure 
testing several potential models), or analysis of geological mining survey 
data, or process flow analysis for large manufacturing and distribution 
systems. But it makes me think most of marketing analysis with the current 
focus in big data projects from corporate environments I see in articles and 
instructional materials.



On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:19 PM Chuck Petras 
mailto:chuck_pet...@selinc.com>> wrote:
Seen the below where a company wants to rent your smartphone as a cloud 
computing resource. From a few years ago there was a company making space 
heaters that contained servers to compute and heat your house.

Are there any classes of problems that would be monitizeable in a grid 
computing environment to make those efforts financially viable?

Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?
https://www.eejournal.com/article/is-crowd-computing-the-next-big-thing/

Heating houses with 'nerd power'
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32816775#

Chuck Petras, PE**
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc
Pullman, WA  99163  USA
http://www.selinc.com

SEL Synchrophasors - A New View of the Power System 


Making Electric Power Safer, More Reliable, and More Economical (R)

** Registered in Oregon.

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