Good I have no UD credits.

BREAKING NEWS:
Angry Mob Marches on WCG Demanding Their Missing UD Credits!

Dataman,

A Brief History of Crunching, Credits, Dog Year Points & Badges by Dataman

In the beginning there was nothing and darkness was on the face of the void.

Then Berkeley said, “Dude, if I could find some little green men we could all party and they might bring some beer!” On the first day, Berkeley created SETI and he saw that it was good. On the second day, he took a memory stick from an old machine, and Berkeley created crunchers of every nationality and he saw that they were good (and worked for free). For the rest of the week Berkeley created a cruncher’s paradise and he saw that it was good. On the seventh day Berkeley said, “Dog! I’m wasted.” So grabbing a cappuccino from Italy and some ganja from Jamaica, he curled up with his PhD and rested.

In another realm there was an evil prince called Grid.org. Deep in his black heart he knew that if he could attract companies with something to crunch to crunchers that wanted to crunch then capitalism would prevail and there was money to be made. But alas, in the end he tricked the friendly crunchers into crunching bad projects and even made them do the same meaningless work over and over. But the friendly crunchers discovered his evil tricks and one night Grid.ord disappeared and was never heard from again.

Just when the friendly crunchers thought all was lost, a voice was heard in the distance. A blue knight on a white horse rode in from a land called White Plains. “Follow me and my mate United Devices and together we will build a crystal temple to the one true God of Science. Together we will cure disease, end hunger, discover new science and, once and for all, prove mathematically that 2+2=4. There, all of the friendly crunchers can crunch good projects in safety and we shall call it the World Community Grid.” And thus it became so and the friendly crunchers saw that it was good. However, United Devices was old, inflexible and not open source and over time it withered and became close to death. Again Berkeley’s voice was heard saying, “Dude, that SETI party was way cool but I could not find any little green men but those SETI gals sure put out. On the eighth day I had a bit of a hangover and I made this thing called BOINC and it can not only out crunch UD but it also makes a mean margarita too!!! But dude, you have to learn to divide by seven.” And WCG saw that it was good (and made a mental note about the SETI gals). But in their haste to install BOINC, WCG did not learn how to divide by seven and did not convert their dog year points to credits. They did not report the old UD credits to the stat’s services. Old UD crunchers have been looking for their UD credits ever since. However, a whole new generation has had to learn how to divide by seven.

Then others built their own temples to the one God of Science and spirited away some of WCG’s crunchers. “Psssst, WCG cruncher. If you will come here and crunch I will pay you more credits.” Some even made it their mission to save video gamers from a wasted life of depravity, cold pizza and diet Coke by showing them how to crunch on GPU’s and save the world. And the gamers saw that it was good.

WCG then began to lose market share. They abandoned their love of the one God of Science and made graven images of many gods. They crafted them from precious metals and later encrusted them with jewels from the far reaches of the world. They called them badges and encouraged their crunchers to covet and worship them. Some of the once friendly crunchers began to argue and fight among themselves over the graven images, dog year points, CPU time and errors and they abandoned their love of the one true God of Science for a lust for badges. They would crunch any project, no matter how perverse or depraved, to satisfy their addiction for the precious badge. Some, it is said, have sold their children into slavery to get that next badge.

Prophesy states that one day the one true God of Science will return. On that day of rapture the true believers will be transported to the crystal temple where they will crunch forever on golden, thousand-core machines with a million GHz processors. Electricity will be free and no work unit will ever error out. Every work unit will be granted more credits than was requested.

Woe be it to the crunchers who accepted the false gods of badges. They will be cast down below where their badges will be rent from their writhing flesh and cast into a lake of molten fire. Their machines will be ground into dust and the evil crunchers will be forced to watch reruns of “Dancing with the Stars” and “America’s Idol” for all eternity. Thus sayith The Prophesy …

*****

Cheers to all and crunch on!!