Posted on 03/25/2013 12:13:00 AM PDT by thatsmyshin
Edited on 03/25/2013 12:38:00 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Maybe a veteran Freerepublic.com member who folds can chime in with links and extra information for curious readers.
I joined the Free Republic Folders for the Gipper....and because I wanted to help a team that was slipping off of the top 100 page. I wasn't even aware of Freerepublic.com until I noticed the folding team...therefore, staying on the top 100 page is beneficial to this site.
If you search for, and start folding@home on your own, kudos! Our team number is 36120.....get to it!
Someone help me out here!
Update with additional information from Texas Booster's thread here:
It has been a while since our last Free Republic Folding@Home update.
The team has seen growth in the past couple of years as contributors have added high performance GPUs from NVidia and AMD/ATI, and same consoles such as the PS3.
The team started in 2001 with a few volunteers, and grew dramatically in 2005 as we started actually posting regular threads.
As we grew from a Top 2000 team to a Top 100 team, we attracted the attention of DU. After a couple of years of name calling, they realized that merely boasting that you can beat the opposition means nothing if you can't back it up. They float in the Top 300 due to the strength of two primary folders. Still, they have folded for nearly 8 years and we thank them for that.
Today the FR team 36120 folds about 330 individual computers, down from our peak of about 1,800 systems. However, the team is currently averaging 250,000 ppd, many times greater than we have ever accomplished.
If you have a computer running Windows, Linux or OS X, or a PS3, then you can start folding very quickly. Look here for starting instructions:
Why would you fold? There are multiple distributed computing groups searching for everything from cryptography to SETI. I started folding after helping in the original Genome@Home project, as scientists worked to complete the first sequencing of the human genome.
Now I fold to advance the science of treating diseases. A partial list of diseases that the project has worked on include:
Alzheimer's Disease
Mad Cow (BSE)
CJD
ALS
Huntington's Disease
Parkinson's Disease
and many cancers
Read the thread and PLEASE ask questions. I will try to answer all questions that are posted.
If we could reach 100 active folders and 1000 systems, we would see our output double. While we fold to cure diseases, a race to the top is always fun.
TexasBooster, please say hello to fellow Folding Booster and new Freeper thatsmyshin.
TexasBooster, hope you don’t mind that I copied most of one of your Folding threads content into this one.
TexasBooster, if you have another current and active thread, please let us know via the abuse button.
Thanks.
Again, welcome to Free Republic, Thatsmyshin.
There’s a lecture series?!
Yes, .30Carbine there is a Lecture Series. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Lecture Series.
It would be as dreary as if there were no .30Carbines. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
It was eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon who wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun. The quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897, written by veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church.
With thanks and apologies to Virginia O'Hanlon, Francis Pharcellus Church, and the Jolly Old Elf himself Santa Claus!
What is this post about? I do not understand what “folding” is.
Clicking on the Report Abuse link underneath any post, then typing up your
question or short note and including a link to the post in question, will
be the fastest way to get in touch with a moderator when you need assistance.
Thanks.
What is folding? Why should I care? What does 250,000 ppd mean?
Folding is when you donate use of your home computer for medical research being performed at Stanford University. My PC runs 24/7 here at home, and about 50% of the CPU time works on crunching numbers for them in a background process. Most of the time I do not notice the burden, but I do shut it down when I do major downloads.
I am long time FReeper. I have no clue as to what”folding” is. Now I have no comouter,only webtv so prob dont need to know.
See post 11. I believe “ppd” stands for “pages per day” which is a measure of how many numbers are being crunched by the team.
I copied this from the previous thread...
Folding@Home FAQ for new users:
What is Folding@Home? A Stanford University project to find out how proteins fold.
Why it’s important: Proteins folding wrong causes all kinds of diseases, like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and forms of cancer. Folding@Home uses novel computational methods and large scale distributed computing, to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than previously achieved. Through Folding@home, scientists now have the horsepower to study the mechanics of protein folding. With its ability to share the workload among hundred of thousands of computers economically, Folding@home can help scientists understand how proteins snap, or don’t, into their predestined shapes - and may help to explain the origins of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and apparently unrelated diseases. We’re fueling research that could end all that.
How does it work?: You download a safe, tested program (see link below) that is certified by Stanford University. It gets work from Stanford, runs calculations using your spare computer power, and sends the results back to the University.
Is it safe? Yes! Folding@Home rarely effects computer performance in any way and won’t compromise your privacy in any way. It only uses the computing power you aren’t using so it doesn’t slow down other programs.
How do I get started folding for Team FreeRepublic?:
1.) Download the folding program from Stanford University’s folding download page (Folding@home Client Download). Type in your desired user-name.
2.) Type in 36120 for the team number. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - if you get the number wrong, you won’t be folding for team FreeRepublic!
3.) The third question asks, “Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service?” - We recommend you answer YES. Otherwise you will have to manually start the program after every reboot.
How can my computer help? Even if they were given exclusive access to all of the world’s supercomputers, Stanford still wouldn’t have as much processing power as they get from the supercluster of people’s desktop systems Folding@home relies on. Modern supercomputers are essentially a cluster of hundreds of processors linked by fast networking. But Stanford needed the power of hundreds of thousands of processors, not just hundreds.
There’s no reason to not get involved! It’s free, easy, and you can know you’re helping every minute without lifting a finger.
West, Alaska....Folding refers to the way proteins in the body bend and twist. There is a small computer program calling Folding@Home that you can download and it runs quietly in the background. Your computer is sent small chunks of data that the program performs some mathematical functions to and then sends the data back. Data from millions of computers around the world are culled, giving a much better picture of what’s going on chemically inside the body. The results help scientists design better drugs to help fight cancer and other diseases.
Programs of this type are called distributed computing. People donate their unused computer time to essentially make one MASSIVE computer. PPD means points per day. After each time your computer sends a result back, you are given points based on how quickly results were returned and how big the work unit was your computer computed. Hope this helps....C
Link: http://folding.stanford.edu/
Curious about this...
Are there any tax advantages to doing something like this?
I’m a sys admin. I have a lot of server power that is mostly idle outside of normal business hours.
Possible I could convince my employer to participate - we probably have upwards of 100 pc’s worth of computing power available off hours. If there was a tax advantage, I’d have an easier time making the argument.
Chrisser, I’m not the person you addressed. I’ve never heard or read of any tax advantage to running Folding@Home. I realize that running these programs cost money in higher electrical use, especially if you are running video cards 24/7. You might want to check out the f@h boards or ask their admin directly.
There have been numerous scientific articles written based on the results. Advances have been made. Not looking for aliens here. Tell your boss it WILL, someday, save lives.....possibly their own.
Thanks for the info.
Did a little digging. Seems no one’s been able to find a way to find a IRS-friendly way to deduct the costs. Pity.
I’m going to make a case for it. However, my company is a member-supported organization - a C-corp that operates as a not-for-profit. So we, as employees/staff are really operating this equipment on behalf of thousands of members.
Makes it a little dicey to donate equipment that others technically collectively own, especially since there’s always the possibility of adverse effects (although it looks like Stanford’s done a good job of mitigating those).
Without the financial incentive, it’ll probably have to go through the board as an entirely altruistic option. If there’s a way to schedule the program, I may have an easier case - I’d turn it off during business hours and then back on during slow times so there was no possibility of interference.
Perhaps if we can wrap it in a little PR campaign, we’d have an easier time of it.
Bm
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