Saturday Night's All Right For Folding!

[mcscajun]

Date of last work unit:       2006-01-28 19:17:38
Active CPUs within 50 days:       203
Team ID:       48157
Grand Score:       208338
Work Unit Count:       1677
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate):       1117 of 42437

Join the Party!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=241611&mesg_id=241611

[liberaltrucker]

1. Already did

Working on 3rd WU:woohoo:

[mcscajun]

2. Cool Beans!

Just hoping to Lure some Lounge Lizards to the cause...

:)

[bigwillq]

3. I still don't get this whole

folding thing. :shrug: I'm just clueless in this department.

[mcscajun]

5. I'll simplify it.

"Folding" is something proteins do routinely; when they fold incorrectly, we're fucked, in the form of diseases/disorders. Research is ongoing in the area of protein folding to find cures for these.

Folding can be simulated, but it take a whole lot of processing power; it's faster and cheaper to put a few hundred thousand PCs on the job crunching little bits of the work and sending them back to a main computer, than to get one supercomputer on the case.

The program, or "Folding@Home" client, uses your PCs unused processing power to do the job, doesn't interfere with what you're up to, and requires no care on your part to function once you've installed it.

No impact to your PC from a safety standpoint, and it can run whenever you have your PC turned on. You don't have to leave your PC on 24/7.

We've got 153 DUers *(as of this post)* donating the spare computing cycles of 206 PCs to the effort, to assist medical research and as a sidelight, catch the Freepers, who have their own team with a head start on us.

Many of those 153 were as clueless before they joined as you are now; many others can answer questions to get you started, or help you along once you have. :)

Hope this helps you make a decision to join us; if not, we're glad you at least asked about the project. Visibility is everything.

[TimeChaser]

4. Finished my third last night

I got another 20,000 now

Oh, and last I checked I was ranked 69... heehee... *imature giggle*

[mcscajun]

6. Yeah, it's fun to watch the numbers, the team count go up, especially.

I was near the top of the team list early on, but as I've only got one CPU to donate, I resigned myself early on to watching myself slip down the rank, and that's okay. It's our team contribution that counts, the number of WUs contributed to medical research.

And you just finished your third; WTG!

[terrya]

7. Just downloaded and joined

It sounds like a great idea. Thank you.

[mcscajun]

8. Thank YOU for comin' on board!

:applause: