I accept it is very easy to post something one finds interesting that is related at least in one's own mind to a discussion thread. However as has been noted, this can very quickly make it difficult to follow the actual topic in a thread. I am going to be stricter both with myself and others. So if as a community we don't improve our discipline in what we post, expect to see a lot of posts moving here.

Way back when I first started, running Linux with a two-processor, 4 thread machine running at 3.06GHz, we had CPDN tasks that took several months to run. Luckily we did not have to worry about rebooting in those days. The CPDN work units would resume from where they left off (perhaps, since the most recent checkpoint?).

That would have been the multi-year climate runs. Unfortunately the complexity of today's climate models puts them beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful home PCs, for the kind of research that scientists need to do with them that is.

That would have been the multi-year climate runs. Unfortunately the complexity of today's climate models puts them beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful home PCs ...

Hmmm, and here I and probably others thought that our home PCs are these amazing "home beasts" capable of running complex weather models multiple models at a time. :-) It seems like the complexity of the models far outpaced the capabilities of even HEDTs which wasn't even a category of home PCs until some years ago. Thanks for that comment to help us see the bigger picture Glenn. :-)

That would have been the multi-year climate runs. Unfortunately the complexity of today's climate models puts them beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful home PCs ...

Hmmm, and here I and probably others thought that our home PCs are these amazing "home beasts" capable of running complex weather models multiple models at a time. :-) It seems like the complexity of the models far outpaced the capabilities of even HEDTs which wasn't even a category of home PCs until some years ago. Thanks for that comment to help us see the bigger picture Glenn. :-)

Ah, there's a difference between what you call 'weather models' like OpenIFS and what I'm calling 'climate models' that are used for multi-annual & multi-century simulations that contribute to government climate policy. Home PCs are indeed very powerful, more powerful than the Cray-1 I used to use many years ago. But climate models are much bigger beasts than weather models. Not only do they include sub-models for the atmosphere, ocean/lakes, land & sea ice like weather models, they also include atmospheric chemistry, dynamic vegetation, river-runoff sub-models, with sophisticated parallel I/O code that includes integrated data processing to handle the sheer volume of data coming out of these models. There's a nice graphic on this page if you are interested.

Don't get me wrong though, there's still plenty of interesting research you can do with utilizing weather models on home PCs that contributes to understanding and improving the bigger climate models.

The project I'm most closely associated with wanted to put out 125,000 OpenIFS tasks, but a quick calculation showed it would be nearly Christmas before we had 80% back. The scientist doing the work has a contract that finishes in Feb 2023 and needs analysis done by end of the year in order to write reports/papers/etc. So we've had to compromise and will probably only put out ~60,000. But we'll watch the return rate and if we think more can be done in time, they will get sent out.

Pity the virtualbox windows thing isn't running yet, then we'd get them all done.

That would have been the multi-year climate runs. Unfortunately the complexity of today's climate models puts them beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful home PCs, for the kind of research that scientists need to do with them that is.

I take it they can't be split into a thousand pieces and we all run a bit at once?

Ah, there's a difference between what you call 'weather models' like OpenIFS and what I'm calling 'climate models' that are used for multi-annual & multi-century simulations that contribute to government climate policy.

The government listening to scientists! C|N>K! No, they do what they can make money out of. That's why they give you guys so little funding, then draw conclusions that suit themselves.

That would have been the multi-year climate runs. Unfortunately the complexity of today's climate models puts them beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful home PCs, for the kind of research that scientists need to do with them that is.

I take it they can't be split into a thousand pieces and we all run a bit at once?

Good question, been thought about before. The starting fields for year N depend on the results of year N-1, so it's not easy to do. People have thought about applying time parallel algorithms but that's a whole new thread.

Ah, there's a difference between what you call 'weather models' like OpenIFS and what I'm calling 'climate models' that are used for multi-annual & multi-century simulations that contribute to government climate policy.

The government listening to scientists! No, they do what they can make money out of. That's why they give you guys so little funding, then draw conclusions that suit themselves.

Rubbish. I spent 20yrs in the university sector doing research, managing grants and international projects. That's not how it works at all. I suggest you read about the work of the WCRP. Those comments are typicaI from people with no direct experience of the sector. I'll leave it there.

CPDN also is the only project I know that uses trickles (they may even have asked for that facility specially), and awards intermediate credit at each trickle. That leaves the user with some concrete record of achievement, even if the task subsequently fails.

I know Primegrid does trickle ups with genefer extreme, because they extend the deadline if you're making reasonable progress. Although they don't do so with the credit (like that matters).

Rubbish. I spent 20yrs in the university sector doing research, managing grants and international projects. That's not how it works at all. I suggest you read about the work of the WCRP. Those comments are typicaI from people with no direct experience of the sector. I'll leave it there.

We all know the government makes daft decisions on the environment. You can't deny the lack of funding to your scientists, you've mentioned it earlier in this very thread. If there was enough funding, you wouldn't have to be farming out the computing to unpaid volunteers. They subsidise things in stupid ways, they want us to use electric vehicles which don't save us any money and involve mining (in a very dangerous way) a yet unrecyclable Lithium, and use electricity which comes from gas burning power stations. Electric vehicles do more harm to the environment than petrol cars. I have 0.000% faith in anything a government does, but I continue to support scientists so at least someone knows what's best, even if it's not carried out for some time.

There are many features in BOINC, like the locality scheduler written by Bruce Allen for Einstein, which were created to meet the specific needs of a single project. But once they've been added, they're freely available for any project to use.

Peter, you don't have to have the last word on everything. Get off your soapbox, and go and start reading up on your homework.

If you wish to debate the politics of this, please start a separate thread in the appropriate section.

There are many features in BOINC, like the locality scheduler written by Bruce Allen for Einstein, which were created to meet the specific needs of a single project. But once they've been added, they're freely available for any project to use.

Peter, you don't have to have the last word on everything. Get off your soapbox, and go and start reading up on your homework.

What's your problem today? Nothing I wrote is incorrect, but you said only CPDN used trickle ups.

If you wish to debate the politics of this, please start a separate thread in the appropriate section.

Neither me or Glenn wishes to debate it. We can't very well make a new thread for every single branch of a conversation. Welcome to the English language.

... but you said only CPDN used trickle ups.

False. I said "CPDN also is the only project I know ..." - it was a statement of my personal knowledge only.

... but you said only CPDN used trickle ups.

False. I said "CPDN also is the only project I know ..." - it was a statement of my personal knowledge only.

And I was adding to your knowledge.

I accept it is very easy to post something one finds interesting that is related at least in one's own mind to a discussion thread. However as has been noted, this can very quickly make it difficult to follow the actual topic in a thread. I am going to be stricter both with myself and others. So if as a community we don't improve our discipline in what we post, expect to see a lot of posts moving here.

Natürlich mein Führer

And I see you didn't dare to move Glenn's post.

And I see you didn't dare to move Glenn's post.

I had to take a break to answer the phone. I may move some more. George started the new thread because too many discussions were nothing or little to do with new CPDN work making it difficult for anyone new to find what might be important. I or other moderators may move more after discussions.

And I see you didn't dare to move Glenn's post.

I had to take a break to answer the phone. I may move some more. George started the new thread because too many discussions were nothing or little to do with new CPDN work making it difficult for anyone new to find what might be important. I or other moderators may move more after discussions.

ROFL, you moved the scientist's post. Time for you two to have a fisticuffs.

And I see you didn't dare to move Glenn's post.

I had to take a break to answer the phone. I may move some more. George started the new thread because too many discussions were nothing or little to do with new CPDN work making it difficult for anyone new to find what might be important. I or other moderators may move more after discussions.

Dave has moved & hidden my posts before for being in the wrong place. Fine by me. These forums are a valuable source of information but not if they are cluttered by off-topic messages.

Dave has moved & hidden my posts before for being in the wrong place. Fine by me. These forums are a valuable source of information but not if they are cluttered by off-topic messages.

You're a very bad boy, don't do it again!

I have not been given any modules for over a year. Is it possible to add me to volunteer list and push files to me?

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