Folding @ Home

[Thermodyne]

This post is a blatant attempt to recruit some new folders.

Folding at home is a distributed computing project that helps with the fight against cancer and many other diseases by folding protiens. The Folding at home client can be downloaded from http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandeg.../download.html

Three weeks ago some of my pals over at Sharkys Forums started a little Folding @ Home team. We started out in 34149th place. In three weeks we have climbed into 757th place and are shooting for 500th place by the end of the month. We are the fastest climbing team out of all F@H teams! We need your help! If you want to help us, or you just want to help fight cancer, we need your CPU.

Those of you who would like to join the quest can do so with ease. Just DL the client and install it. Enter a user name and use 34149 for the team name. When you turn in your first unit, you�ll be added to the Sharkys team. The team stats can be viewed at http://folding.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/teampage?q=34149


The Thermolian data systems are doing well. How would your systems stack up? Come on over and have a little fun for a good cause.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

huh? what?

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
huh? what?

If I'm reading things right, it's a matter of simulating protiens. Even the simplest life form on earth is extremely complex on a molecular level; for the cancer research, they need to simulate zillions of different protiens. To do that, they need computer power, and lots of it. If you download the client, it will chat with the research computer, get a piece of the puzzle to simulate, and use your spare processor cycles to simulate it. Specifically, they are simulating a particular portion of protienes' life: the folding process, where the protiene takes on it's shape.

SETI does something similar for analyzing interstellar signals. The folding group has wrapped a competition around it to try and garner more PC power.

If you have a permanent net connection with no limitations on badwidth useage, it's not a bad idea.

As it's usually a good idea to list the potential risks involved along with the potential benifits, so here's one: Trust issue: you are deliberatly installing a piece of software on your machine designed to give others remote access to your processor, run by people you haven't met, designed by programmers who you've never met, with the source code for the client unavailable for your review. You have to trust that they won't deliberatly harm your machine, and that there aren't any problems with the program which would allow others to sneak in and do stuff to your machine.

[Cosmos]

Well� that counts me out!!!
as I�m on a 56K modem.
Good luck!!! on the protiens,SETI,and asteroids.

[Mephisto]

You don't have to be connected all the time. It will download a data pack, process it and sent it when you go onlien the next time.
Regarding trust: How many programs do run on your PC? All of them use your CPU and most of them don't offer you the source code and yet you run them. The risk that such a large project will to something terrible with your PC is rather low IMHO.

[Thermodyne]

Correct, you DL stuff all the time. This program just automates the DL for you. And if you want, you can set it for a manual up/down link. 56K would not be a big problem; the units are not that large. And unless you have a real power box, there will only be a few downloads a week. It takes a lot of CPU cycles to do a unit.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

not for long. current top proccessor speed; may have changed: 3.2 GHz. computer speed's double about every 18 months, Last i heard. so, assume no increase between now and the beginning of 2004 and use that for a baseline:
2004 : 3.2
2005.5 : 6.4
2007 : 12.8
2008.5 : 25.16
2010 : 50.32
2011.5 : 100.64
2013 : 201.28

so, in 9 years, computer speeds will be 62.9 what they are now. in another 2 years...
2014.5 : 402.56
2016 : 805.12

* 251.6

[Fyron]

Actually... the rate of increase will slow down tremendously. Current processor architecture (the most powerful) is beginning to reach harder limiting factors of circuitry, namely interference from the electromagnetic fields accross the extremely small size of the transistors. The heat generated has always been a factor, as it is the other major limiting factor. But, heat has been easier to deal with than the electromagnetic field interference that comes into play once you get to really small transistor sizes. We will probably see another generation or two out of current CPU design, but after that, something new will have to be invented. That, or use more and more CPUs in a comptuter...

[narf poit chez BOOM]

or metals that have less resistance, so need less electricity, so less electromagnetism. people are inventive. although it may be time for the next thing in this area. new science instead of new technology. fiber-optics, maybe.

[Fyron]

Actually... you need variable resistances. You need high resitance for some parts, low for others, but mostly semi-conductors that you can change their resistance. Otherwise, you can't build the necessary circuits. Newer CPUs do not have less resistance or anything, they just make the parts smaller, so they can cram more on to the CPU board. The problem is, the smaller you make it, more of a problem the electric fields generated by the parts get.

Fiber optics might be one area where they could drastically change CPU architecture. Or those organic computers some people are trying to make...

[ November 08, 2003, 20:10: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]