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Why are they not appealing to the major cloud providers at this time to use any spare resources couldn't they set it up so that the cloud providers could count

by ozfive 7y ago

Why are they not appealing to the major cloud providers at this time to use any spare resources couldn't they set it up so that the cloud providers could count using resources as donation to a charity?

nicolaslem 7y ago
Cloud providers do not have much unused resource. Tricks like spot instances make sure that they are as close to 100% utilization as possible while still being able to handle a spike in demand.
- ozfive 7y ago
  Can I spin up instances and write it off for charity as a business?
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    There should be no need to write it off as charity. If you spin up instances, it's a cost which gets written off as any other cost. If you use those for folding at home, that's your (business') thing. (Obviously, this is generalized and your local tax situation may differ)
    - willis936 7y ago
      That’s their point. If you’re billed for instances, but those instances are used for charity and can be written off taxes, then why not? Tax write off donations in the form of product usually help clear out stock/keep things moving. They’re like a guaranteed sale. So it may be best to appeal to the providers of the instances.
      - balfirevic 7y ago
        Business expenses (for the company spinning up instances) are already written off taxes, which is what ozfive was talking about. Do you mean that the cloud provider can write off that income as charitable donation?
        burnte 7y ago
        In the US you wouldn't be able to write that bill off as a legitimate business expense. The auditor would ask "What legitimate business purpose does this represent?" and they wouldn't have an answer.
        privateSFacct 7y ago
        100% false. If a business allows a nonprofit to use excess capacity, the capacity is still a business expense. Google and AWS have huge amounts of unused computer capacity at low traffic periods. They can still expense those items even if they allow charitable use when not needed for business use. Worst case if no unused capacity a business can call the expense a marketing expense and can ask the nonprofit to acknowledge their support of the activity. This is not uncommon.
        burnte 7y ago
        I wasn't talking about AWS writing it off, but someone else buying that capacity to use for distributed computing for the CV. You have to donate to an approved 501C3 for it to count.
        debian3 7y ago
        « I posted about our donation on HN and it drove traffic back to us, it’s a marketing expense. »
- dobleboble 7y ago
  Do you know that as a fact? If so, how?
specialist 7y ago
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, whomever could just gift some data centers to the protein folding effort. It'd be amazing PR bang for the buck.
kossTKR 7y ago
Google has just done this with AlphaFold a few minutes ago: https://deepmind.com/research/open-source/computational-predictions-of-protein-structures-associated-with-COVID-19 https://deepmind.com/research/open-source/computational-pred... It's just so fresh it hasn't been posted anywhere yet: "Normally we’d wait to publish this work until it had been peer-reviewed for an academic journal. However, given the potential seriousness and time-sensitivity of the situation, we’re releasing the predicted structures as we have them now, under an open license so that anyone can make use of them."
- georgeam 7y ago
  Kudos to Google for doing this. It is so much more effective to marshall a small number of extremely powerful cloud providers backed by very qualified and active techies, than a large number of weak providers (people using their home machines).
- beojan 7y ago
  Not quite, Google are running their own code.
  - kossTKR 7y ago
    I agree that the wording could have been be better. "This" here referring to the link after the :, not the folding@home project. I wonder how AlphaFold compares.
- forgot-my-pw 7y ago
  That's very newsworthy. Hope the prediction system is accurate enough to help.

by ozfive 7y ago

nicolaslem 7y ago

Cloud providers do not have much unused resource. Tricks like spot instances make sure that they are as close to 100% utilization as possible while still being able to handle a spike in demand.

ozfive 7y ago
Can I spin up instances and write it off for charity as a business?
- Xylakant 7y ago
  There should be no need to write it off as charity. If you spin up instances, it's a cost which gets written off as any other cost. If you use those for folding at home, that's your (business') thing. (Obviously, this is generalized and your local tax situation may differ)
  - willis936 7y ago
    That’s their point. If you’re billed for instances, but those instances are used for charity and can be written off taxes, then why not? Tax write off donations in the form of product usually help clear out stock/keep things moving. They’re like a guaranteed sale. So it may be best to appeal to the providers of the instances.
    - balfirevic 7y ago
      Business expenses (for the company spinning up instances) are already written off taxes, which is what ozfive was talking about. Do you mean that the cloud provider can write off that income as charitable donation?
      - burnte 7y ago
        In the US you wouldn't be able to write that bill off as a legitimate business expense. The auditor would ask "What legitimate business purpose does this represent?" and they wouldn't have an answer.
        privateSFacct 7y ago
        100% false. If a business allows a nonprofit to use excess capacity, the capacity is still a business expense. Google and AWS have huge amounts of unused computer capacity at low traffic periods. They can still expense those items even if they allow charitable use when not needed for business use. Worst case if no unused capacity a business can call the expense a marketing expense and can ask the nonprofit to acknowledge their support of the activity. This is not uncommon.
        burnte 7y ago
        I wasn't talking about AWS writing it off, but someone else buying that capacity to use for distributed computing for the CV. You have to donate to an approved 501C3 for it to count.
        debian3 7y ago
        « I posted about our donation on HN and it drove traffic back to us, it’s a marketing expense. »
dobleboble 7y ago
Do you know that as a fact? If so, how?

specialist 7y ago

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, whomever could just gift some data centers to the protein folding effort. It'd be amazing PR bang for the buck.

kossTKR 7y ago

Google has just done this with AlphaFold a few minutes ago: https://deepmind.com/research/open-source/computational-predictions-of-protein-structures-associated-with-COVID-19 https://deepmind.com/research/open-source/computational-pred... It's just so fresh it hasn't been posted anywhere yet: "Normally we’d wait to publish this work until it had been peer-reviewed for an academic journal. However, given the potential seriousness and time-sensitivity of the situation, we’re releasing the predicted structures as we have them now, under an open license so that anyone can make use of them."

georgeam 7y ago
Kudos to Google for doing this. It is so much more effective to marshall a small number of extremely powerful cloud providers backed by very qualified and active techies, than a large number of weak providers (people using their home machines).
beojan 7y ago
Not quite, Google are running their own code.
- kossTKR 7y ago
  I agree that the wording could have been be better. "This" here referring to the link after the :, not the folding@home project. I wonder how AlphaFold compares.
forgot-my-pw 7y ago
That's very newsworthy. Hope the prediction system is accurate enough to help.