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Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

workstream.paperspace.com

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Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#221

Post by spiritplumber »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #211
xupybd wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds really interesting. Where do you work?

I’d guess he’s a spacecraft engineer who does work in a neutral buoyancy tank. In the Us that usually means NASA/Johnson. That or he’s a spacecrqft engineer at a contract firm that picks up side projects doing underwater automation work, which is not that uncommon in this small field. Oceaneering Space Systems, for example.

The second one. I've done a couple things at NASA/Ames and it has been generally fun, although there have been a couple of weird episodes (Like me not being authorized to check out stuff from my own repository due to not being a US citizen, and being told that it wasn't a unique case).

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#223

Post by fxtentacle »

Lots of red flags. These guys apparently have very little clue what they're talking about.

I mean "fast + virtual" already makes me doubtful. And I'm sure that with the internet being overloaded by everyone working from home, using remote desktop is going to be even more painful than usual.

But when they claim "Get a new computer in less than 5 minutes, zero configuration required." and then mention 3ds max, I am 100% convinced that they are clueless. Pretty much nobody uses the stock 3ds renderer, so you'll need to install something like Redshift or V-Ray, too. And setting up the plugin licensing alone will take you hours. Plus you have to re-do it every time the underlying hardware of your virtual instance changes.

Oh, and then there's pricing. "P6000 For extreme 3D apps, rendering" starts at 50GB SSD? WTF? I have a 8TB storage raid here to keep the scene files around. And then "Only pay for what you use" but "For hourly plans, if your machine is powered off, you will only be billed for your storage."

OK, so you pretend to cater to 3D professionals, but you fail to mention licensing, the number 1 cloud issue, you provide too little storage to load even a hobby-sized rendering project, and your on-demand service will bill me for storage unless I download and re-upload terabytes of data every time I switch projects.

I'd say you can greatly improve your pitch by NOT promoting it as a professional solution. It's probably great for hobbyists and gamers, so I would focus on them with the marketing.

Oh and how are you going to be "Delivering every frame in less than 16.6 ms" when there's 50ms of latency (due to speed of light) between me and your closest server?

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#224

Post by battery_cowboy »

t0astbread wrote: post #117
kim0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I'm not getting the main value prop from this. I'm mainly an ops person. Can you please explain what that service would look like?

Netlify (primarily) takes a git repo containing a program to generate a static site and turns that into a live running website that automatically updates when the generator repo changes. You don't have to think about configuration or security or updates and you don't have to maintain a server. Ideally this would be a service with the same ergonomics but the outcome isn't a hosted static website but a machine (somewhe…

Have you heard of platform as a service, like Heroku or gigalixr? That's exactly what that is, pretty much.

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#225

Post by stevens32 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #220
marbogast40 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$800 / $0.18 per hour = 4444.4 hours I think you did: $800 / $18 per hour = 44 hours Pretty big difference! Curious, does this change your value assessment?

Oh good catch! That works out to 185 days so it won't change anything, my pc will last a lot longer than that. But then again, even a much lower cost wouldn't change things for me. For one I completely own my pc and can do anything I want on it, second I know it's secure & private and my data won't be used in ways i might not know about, and third there's no internet latency on input/output which is nice for gaming e…

185 days of continuous use.. for many 4000 hours is easily a decade worth of gaming

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#226

Post by ktpsns »

fxtentacle wrote: post #223

Lots of red flags. These guys apparently have very little clue what they're talking about. I mean "fast + virtual" already makes me doubtful. And I'm sure that with the internet being overloaded by everyone working from home, using remote desktop is going to be even more painful than usual. But when they claim "Get a new computer in less than 5 minutes, zero configuration required." and then mention 3ds max, I am 100…

This is so true. I've done GPU heavy High performance rendering on remote VNC-like connections, something which requires lot's of preparation time -- and evventually you will be frustrated by working remotely.

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#227

Post by KingOfCoders »

What I wonder, is there a special cloud service for compilation? Compilation is a spike in IO and CPU and most of the time nothing (and I don't mean a build server, but an exported file system I can edit on my computer and compile very fast in the cloud).

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#228

Post by jplayer01 »

mjayhn wrote: post #159
draebek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear that, after it left beta, the number of games that you can play on GeForce NOW is greatly reduced. I have read that you can no longer play arbitrary games from your Steam library (like you could in beta), and furthermore, a few major publishers have pulled their games from the service. So the advantage of Paperspace would be that you can play many more games than you can on GeForce NOW.

I don't know how to show you an actual list compared to my Steam library but I only know a handful of games that have been removed (The Longest Dark was big drama a few weeks ago) but I'm sitting here testing a bunch of my most popular games (Bannerlord, DOS2, POE2, Destiny 2, LOL, Space Engineers, etc) and I haven't hit a game yet that I can't play. Some publishers have been very anti-competitor regarding it and tak…

On the flip side, none of the games I play are available on GFN. It's incredibly frustrating. I've moved on to Shadow where I'm not subject to the arbitrary whims of publishers and developers. I can install any game that I own and nobody can do anything about it.

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#229

Post by pta »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #203

I was pretty excited to give this a try because it might be a good fit for some frustrations I've had with running a GPU-dependent task on my laptop without discrete graphics. Onboarding experience is terrible. Registered for an account from the Workstream page linked here, and was taken to a console with absolutely no mention of Workstream. Went back and forth a few times trying to figure out if auth provider had re…

I don't know if it has anything to do with this announcement (e.g. some malicious actor taking advantage of a dormant vulnerability), but just a few days ago someone managed to almost invade my Paperspace account. Fortunately the system detected it as suspicious, but it seems they managed to get the password right.

The weird thing is I haven't used this thing since years ago when I registered and used it, like, twice? And I used a unique, secure password which I'm pretty sure I've never shared with anyone or typed anywhere else or in any unsafe devices. No Google login either (but I've logged out of all devices and removed authorization for all external services just to be sure).

So I emailed them asking what happened and how I could cancel my account (because there's no way to do it via the website). They didn't give any detail except say someone did manage to "semi" sign in, more than once, in a few separate days recently. At least they responded quickly and deleted my account.

Re: Workstream: A fast virtual computer you can use for anything

#230

Post by glial »

pta wrote: post #229
jcrawfordor wrote: post #203

I was pretty excited to give this a try because it might be a good fit for some frustrations I've had with running a GPU-dependent task on my laptop without discrete graphics. Onboarding experience is terrible. Registered for an account from the Workstream page linked here, and was taken to a console with absolutely no mention of Workstream. Went back and forth a few times trying to figure out if auth provider had re…

I don't know if it has anything to do with this announcement (e.g. some malicious actor taking advantage of a dormant vulnerability), but just a few days ago someone managed to almost invade my Paperspace account. Fortunately the system detected it as suspicious, but it seems they managed to get the password right. The weird thing is I haven't used this thing since years ago when I registered and used it, like, twice…

I had the exact same experience.
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