I say this as someone who’s a fan of big, complicated, hours long games; 90% of the time, the numbers listed on the box are a total fucking lie.
OK, to be more precise, they typically measure how long the designers - who know every rule, never deliberate over what action to take, always pass priority when they’re done, and never stop to grab a glass of water - think the game should take. And probably don’t include set up time.
The problem here, to my understanding (context: I work in IT, but I’m not claiming to have a PhD in comp sci or whatever) is that something like BOINC works because the computation is highly self contained. Basically you’re just working through a list of math problems.
But something like, say, Lemmy or Mastodon isn’t really all that heavy on raw math. Instead it’s all about referencing items in databases, and dynamically assembling them into pages that are presented to a user. So it’s mostly about a) storing information, and b) accessing the stored information.
You can’t really offload that, because you have to be able to trust that wherever you’re putting the data, it’ll still be there when you need it. Not very easy when you might just turn your PC off at night… Or have a power outage. You also have to deal with the security and privacy issues involved in placing that data on random people’s computers.
Then you have the problem of connection speeds. Consumer internet connections typically have pathetic upload speeds. Generally the biggest issue with doing any kind of distributed database is that you need lightning fast communication speeds between every component. This is why no one builds distributed databases.
Once you actually present the data to the user’s PC, most of the “processing” happens on their end, so you’re already donating as much power as you reasonably can.
Like I said, I’m not a hardcore computer scientist, so there might be something in missing here, but to my understanding there’s really no way that you could usefully leverage any kind of “borrowed” processing power for any sort of platform or service outside of the very narrow field of “crunching big numbers.”
Tangential to the main subject here, Cockpit is awesome and everyone should be using it. You don’t have to be on a Red Hat distro either, it works beautifully on Ubuntu or Debian or whatever else you’re running. The log viewer and PCP integration (for performance metrics) are particularly standout features.
I also highly recommend the Navigator plugin from 45Drives, which adds a complete file browser and simple text file editor.
Podman replaces the underlying container engine (the docker component). Portainer is a webUI that sits on top of Docker and provides you with tools to manage it. The Podman plugin for Cockpit just happens to do the same thing.
You can actually use Portainer with Podman if you want to. It’s a little fiddly to set up, but it works.
The main advantage of Podman is that it’s rootless by default, whereas rootless Docker is still a somewhat tricky beast to set up.
I mean it’s gotta be Vlaada Chvatil. God only knows what kind of game I’d end up walking out with, but I can guarantee it would be something interesting.
If you’re using docker (which you should) there’s really very little value (and quite a bit of cost, resource wise) to putting everything in separate VMs.
Edit to add: for KVM/QEMU, you’re probably best off just using Proxmox as your host OS. If you’d prefer not to do that then the easiest way to manage QEMU is with virt-manager, either connecting over SSH, or piped from the host using X forwarding.
I’m a big fan of KVM/QEMU, I use it at work and at home, but it does have its quirks, so prepare for a bit of a learning curve.
I think it vastly improves on the card game. The dice bring a “pick up and play” element that was missing from the card game because I was always spending half of every game explaining to players how the cards work. Bang Dice was everything I wanted; the push your luck element amps up the fun in a big way, and the removal of hand management cuts down on analysis paralysis. It’s fast, fun, and a perfect pub game.
Three Cheers For Master. Struggles a little with the small footprint aspect, board states can get pretty large, but it is small and portable, quick to play, and a LOT of fun.
I often refer to it as the good version of Munchkin, in that its very funny, and features a lot of direct attack mechanics. The key difference is that every attack relies on exploiting a weakness in the opponent’s board state. Instead of just feeling like you got fucked, you’re always left thinking “Shit, I should have seen that coming. I’ll do better next time.”
Also, the card art and flavour text are some of the best I’ve ever seen.
Bang Dice fucking rules, but I don’t think it really works all that well at low player counts.
The Kobayashi Maru sequence is a perfect summation of everything wrong with Kelvin Kirk. He’s basically a fratboy. He just lies and cheats his way through problems by the seat of his pants with no forethought or consideration. Actual TOS Kirk is an incredibly smart, educated and thoughtful leader who constantly questions his own beliefs and motivations. He understands the burden and the cost of leadership, and always strives to meet that burden, and he truly believes in the Federations mission to be build a better world for all.
This is why I love Strange New Worlds. SMW Chris Pike is, genuinely, the best version of Kirk in any Star Trek. Smart, thoughtful, emotionally intelligent, cares deeply about his crew, but also funny and likable. And, when need be, kind of a badass.