[FAD] question about green/red/yellow balls

**Chuckiechan** · February 4th, 2005, 11:45 AM

A member, who shall go unnamed, has a red ball next to his name indicating he is "inactive". Is this what the "Red Ball" means?

I don't believe this guy is inactive!

**paul9** · February 4th, 2005, 12:20 PM

red, yellow and green on the fad site indicate certain time periods/completion levels for events and projects. so against a members stats, green means recent results returned, yellow is a little while since results were returned, and red means the member is probably not ruunning fad at the current time. one of the site faqs has the time periods listed, i think. it's a while since i read about that, so i'm not sure quite where the info was located. it may be that the person has a very long job or has been hoarding results for a big dump. imo, the second thing is not a good practice.

**PresterJohn** · February 4th, 2005, 12:23 PM

or the other possibilities are that he's registered under another name or as a duplicate name, ie xxxxxxxx;1.

**Twinkletoes** · February 4th, 2005, 07:02 PM

Originally Posted by paul9

red, yellow and green...it may be that the person has a very long job or has been hoarding results for a big dump. imo, the second thing is not a good practice.

Green means a result has been returned in the past 2 days, yellow a result in the past 14 days, and red no result in the past 14 days.

And that's a good comment about hoarding results Paul. Until results are returned FaD clocks the job as unfinished, and downloads the job again to somebody else. That's called redundancy. Not good for our and the Project's efficiency. I hate the thought of doing a job unnecessarily because some idiot has deliberately been hoarding it just to dazzle us all with an impressive dump.

**pphalan** · February 4th, 2005, 07:18 PM

I posted that new guys should be told the problem behind hoarding, points are points and the holding of jobs means you are no longer doing anything for FAD but trying to impress people. Hoarders will be shot, stomped on and given no respect.

**Sixpac_XP** · February 4th, 2005, 07:23 PM

There is nothing bad about hording.. I have a couple of computers that I can't get to all the time and thus upload so they may be seen as hording.. but once I get to them I upload and they contribute...

so who cares if they hoard or not as long as they upload as some point???

**pphalan** · February 4th, 2005, 07:29 PM

Originally Posted by Sixpac_XP

There is nothing bad about hording.. I have a couple of computers that I can't get to all the time and thus upload so they may be seen as hording.. but once I get to them I upload and they contribute...

so who cares if they hoard or not as long as they upload as some point???

After a job has been assigned and I dont know exactly how long, no results are returned the job is sent out to someone else to do! That means the hoarder of say 3weeks ended up doing it for points because someone else did their jobs again. They in effect are not helping FAD but their own selfish reasons
Post a new thread with what you just said in FADs Forum and see the response

**pphalan** · February 4th, 2005, 07:32 PM

Your not hoarding sixpac because you upload in a reasonable time

**Twinkletoes** · February 4th, 2005, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by Sixpac_XP

.. I have a couple of computers that I can't get to all the time and thus upload so they may be seen as hording.. but once I get to them I upload and they contribute...

Sixpac, that is most definitely NOT hoarding, that is perfectly fair enough. I know myself from my own experience how difficult it is to upload "standalones".

Hoarding to me is the deliberate withholding of uploads solely to get a nice impressive dump. I believe there are certain characters around FaD who on occasion have hoarded a couple of million points (!) for tactical reasons as part of some warped overtaking strategy !!! Crunch away and get 'em in as fast as you reasonably can, and everybody's happy.

**paul9** · February 5th, 2005, 10:47 AM

points are accrued at the same rate, whether or not you hoard them for a big dump. why go for a stupid big dump when it means you are returning old results which have been rturned a week or two ago by another member? surely it makes more sense to each be doing unique jobs, instead of repeated ones? if you can only upload once a week from your non networked pcs, then that is definately not hoarding, that is validly contributing, instead of gumming up the system.

**jrsweger** · February 5th, 2005, 06:11 PM

Now I have a really silly question. One of my machines is a very old P2 233 mhz machine. It has a rating of 13 to 16 at the most. It has been crunching the last job off and on since Jan. 24th. Using the hoarding logic, isn't it likely that this job has been reassigned? Is there a point of no return? I would think that any crunching is better than none but is this really helping in any big way?

**paul9** · February 5th, 2005, 06:25 PM

you are probably right, but checking with keith would be a good idea.
/edit the fad site seems to be down at my end....
you would be looking for username 'think' on the fad forum, i forget what his timo username is, as he doesn't have the spare time to visit here very often

**jrsweger** · February 5th, 2005, 06:32 PM

Paul9, you must have been reading my mind. I went to quote you in a new message and when the quote showed up, so did your edit which wasn't there when I started.... I'll go and check the FAD forum.....

**paul9** · February 5th, 2005, 06:37 PM

well i was about to post keith the link to this thread to see what he thought, as i believe you may well be right, but no fad forum for me. probably just as well, as i can't remember my fad forum password, once again.

**pphalan** · February 5th, 2005, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by paul9

well i was about to post keith the link to this thread to see what he thought, as i believe you may well be right, but no fad forum for me. probably just as well, as i can't remember my fad forum password, once again.

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**Twinkletoes** · February 5th, 2005, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by jrsweger

Now I have a really silly question. One of my machines is a very old P2 233 mhz machine. It has a rating of 13 to 16 at the most. It has been crunching the last job off and on since Jan. 24th. Using the hoarding logic, isn't it likely that this job has been reassigned? Is there a point of no return? I would think that any crunching is better than none but is this really helping in any big way?

jr, every little helps, yeah, but you have to look at your own wallet as well. Sharder might not agree with me here, cos he is a true fanatic, and I respect him for that. I started FaD running a 400 MHz (rating 30) and a 166 (rating 9, if I recall correctly). I got caught up, and over the course of a year or so I bought 1,2,3,4 and then 5 faster machines. I quickly realised that under those circmstances it was just not economically feasible to carry on running the 166 machine: its power consumption cost did not motivate the additional 9 points an hour - especially on top of the investment I had made in the new machines. One I could rationally motivate, the other 4, while my wife and daughter obviously love them, are primarily crunchers only !!! So for me the 166 (read your 233) became a no-go.

On the other hand, if I possessed ONLY a 166/233 I would definitely crunch with it but just for what it represented, if you get my meaning.

HTH

TT

**paul9** · February 5th, 2005, 07:52 PM

so does anyone really know the point where diminishing returns make it no longer worthwhile to run fad on older hardware? not counting electricity costs, as i am a philanthropist and don't mind lashing out a little on the cost of juice

**Twinkletoes** · February 5th, 2005, 08:21 PM

Originally Posted by paul9

so does anyone really know mthe point where diminishing returns make it no longer worthwhile to run fad on older hardware? not counting electricity costs, as i am a philanthropist and don't mind lashing out a little on the cost of juice

Well if you're not counting electricty, and you're a philanthropist anyway and Wales thrashed England at rugby, you seem to have answered you own question, don't you? I seem to remember way back that Keith said it was technically possible
to score 1! Going for a record, are we?

**jrsweger** · February 5th, 2005, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by Twinkletoes

On the other hand, if I possessed ONLY a 166/233 I would definitely crunch with it but just for what it represented, if you get my meaning.

HTH

TT

Well for me it almost doesn't matter either way since I have two machines (the 233 mhz one and an AMD 2600+ Barton) here at home on 24/7 anyway. The other machine in my herd (that I physically own) is with my daughter at college and I'm sure that one is on 24/7. I have also acquired my daughter's roommate's computer (a Dell, not sure what speed) strictly for crunching. She graciously allowed it since I removed a ton of spyware/adware from her machine. I also am sure it is on 24/7.

The following is the reply I got from Keith. I mentioned this thread although I did not put a link to it in my note.

Start quote from Keith:
I don't see any advantage or disadvantage in using faster or slower computers (apart from the electricity costs etc).

We do close queries to results with at least 28 days notice after the query reaches 100%.
End quote from Keith.

So I guess that if it's put food on the table or run an old old machine for FAD, it's put food on the table, otherwise it doesn't seem to matter a whole lot.

**Twinkletoes** · February 5th, 2005, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by jrsweger

...I have also acquired my daughter's roommate's computer (a Dell, not sure what speed) strictly for crunching. She graciously allowed it since I removed a ton of spyware/adware from her machine. I also am sure it is on 24/7...

Well...er...if you want to find out what CPU rating that Dell has, click on yourself here...but now we could be getting into problems with your daughter and her roommate's integrity of course... so if you're a nice Dad perhaps you ought to warn her that you can work out how many hours a day her computer is running...

http://woo.gotdns.com/FrameStats/203...hp?Show=Points