Why haven't you joined DU's Folding@Home team?

[Vox_Reason]

Did you know there's an easy way that you can help advance medical science and support DU by using idle time on your PC to perform complex scientic calculations?

It's called Folding@Home, a distributed computing project based at Stanford University that is studying protein folding, or self-creation. Understanding how protein folding goes wrong can lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of disease and treatment. You can help by joining those of us who are part of the DU Folding@Home team. We're representing our community and our values by supporting medical research and working together for a good cause. We'd like you to join us!

Why haven't you joined the DU Folding@Home team yet?

[Vox_Reason]

1. Why you should join DU's Folding@Home team

What's Folding@Home?
Folding@Home is a distributed computing project that simulates folding proteins. The goal of the program is to to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases. In short, volunteers install a little program that uses idle time on their PC to do scientific research to understand how proteins self-create. This research requires incredibly complex molecular biophysics calculations that are made much easier by using large numbers of cooperating computers that combine their power to become a SUPER supercomputer. You can learn more by checking out the Folding@Home FAQ PDF.

Sounds too complicated.
But it's really not! All it takes is a quick download and within minutes your computer will be crunching away, helping the cause of understanding the mechanisms behind protein behavior. The program works in the background on your computer. Once you install it, it's likely you will rarely ever notice that it's there. It requires no maintenance, no attention, no nothing--it works only when you're not using your computer. Betweem cursor blinks while you think of synonyms for cabal and quagmire, your computer is helping advance medical science.

Advance science and health care? That's so un-liberal.
I couldn't resist a bit of sarcasm. Yes, this project is actually quite in line with a lot of our values. In fact, I hesitate to write too much about it to avoid getting too bogged down here. This project has already yielded results, and as more computers join the project, the benefits will only increase. Your computer can do its part to reflect your sensibilities, every millisecond that you're not using it!

My computer is too old and slow.
Nonsense! Every computer, no matter how slow or how old, can make a difference in this project. It may take your computer a bit longer to process a "work unit" than a newer one, but the results are just as valuable to science. That ancient machine the grandkids use once or twice a year? If it can connect to the Internet, it'll work just fine. That machine that acts as a part-time laundry and/or plant stand? It'll work too. If it boots and can get online, it can be a DU Folding@Home contributor!

My joining wouldn't make a difference in the DU team's results.
If there's anything we know as liberals, it's that each one of us can make a difference and contribute in ways that can be subtle but powerful. Every single participant in the project makes a difference. Over time, that difference increases in significance. You set an example by participating. Maybe others will follow your lead. The progress compounds. Never underestimate the degree to which you can make a difference, in this or any other way.

I feel deep and intense hatred for Stanford University.
Folding@Home is based at Stanford University. Though as a University of North Carolina graduate I thoroughly understand the bitter enmity that can come from college rivalries (we're coming after you, Wolfpack and Blue Devils!), I urge you to put your understandably complex issues aside and come together for the sake of DU unity and scientific progress.

I didn't know DU had a F@H team, but I'll look into it.
Good for you! Check out the latest thread and the team statistics and beam with pride that DU is now ranked 567th out of 42874 worldwide Folding@Home teams, and is rising faster than just about any other team in the program. You can be a part of that gathering momentum!

I've seen the value of the project and have joined team DU!
Good for you! You're one a small percentage of the tens of thousands of DUers who have joined this project to represent DU in a way that reflects well on this community and also reflects our liberal values in a tangible way. Congratulations to each and every one of you who have joined the DU Folding@Home team! If you haven't done so yet, I urge you to consider doing so.

Thanks for taking the poll!

[acmavm]

2. Question: Because of the horrible things that my kid and grandkid keep

infecting my computer with (an oldie from 1999, HP, Windows 98) I am forever having to reformat and reinstall my programs that came with the computer. I suppose it's about twice a year, maybe even more, that I lose everything and have to start over again.

How would that interfere with things?

[Vox_Reason]

5. Folding@Home only uses idle computer time.

Folding@Home is not spyware or malware of any sort. It only uses computer time that you're not using. It's likely that you would never recognize that it was working in the background. In fact, if you're reading this message, you could be running a Folding@Home session at the same time and would recognize no difference from what you're experiencing now.

It's a very unobtrusive, up-front program. What you see is what you get. There's no cookies or ads or surreptitious data-passing or any of that. It crunches scientific data, sends it back to the server when it's done, and gets another batch to process. Rinse, lather, repeat. That's it!

Hope that helps.

[rexcat]

3. Good for a kick...

I joined and now I am in 13th place on the DU team. My Alienware AMD 64-bit Athlon based computer is kicking some butt! My apologies for being self-serving but couldn't resist it.

[MrMonk]

7. "Old and slow"

Can every computer contribute meaningfully?

I've found out that one needs at least 32 mB to fold. If one's computer came from the factory with less than 32, your machine is probably so old that it couldn't support the upgrades that are available.

I also note that my Pentium II machine (ca. 1999) takes about 2 weeks to process WU of the same size that my brand new office machine completes in less than 36 hours. With older machines, it might take more time than you would want to spare. Still, it does present an excuse to get a new machine.

[BrightKnight]

20. CO2 (SETI = 34k to 68k large SUVs driving 15k miles/year)

I have actually been contributing to the folding@home for years. The science appears to be valuable. I think that all distributive computing projects should be required make a CO2 emissions statement.

I did some CO2 calculations for SETI@Home. The projects are not at all related but the numbers will be similar.

---------------------------

SETI annual CO2 = 34k to 64k SUVs driving 15k miles

Seti@home claims 506,415 active computers.

1 kilowatt hour = 1 lb of CO2 (w/ natural gas plants)
Coal plants generate twice the CO2.

506,415 * 100 watts each = 50641 kilowatts

24 hours * 50,640 lbs = 607 tons of CO2 per day

221,802 tons of CO2 per year (w/ Natural gas)
443,619 tons of CO2 per year (w/ coal)
-----------

all SETI projects = 860,120 users
377k tons to 754k tons of CO2 per year

That is 34k to 68k large SUVs driving 15k miles
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/17634.shtml

----------------------------------------------------
Here is a table of annual per capita CO2 emissions:

Country Year CO2e Mt / Pop M = CO2e t/person
Australia 2001 553 / 20.09 = 27.53
Canada 2003 740.00 / 31.00 = 23.87
China 2004 3583.80 / 1306.30 = 2.74
European Union 1999 4030.00 / 375.30 = 10.74
India 2001 1228.54 / 1027.00 = 1.20
Japan 2002 1224.98 / 126.93 = 9.65
Netherlands 1999 174.10 / 19.80 = 8.79
Russia 1999 1880.00 / 145.60 = 12.91
United Kingdom 2003 656.00 / 59.60 = 11.01
USA 2003 6935.70 / 290.81 = 23.85

A hybrid car generates 4 tons of CO2 per 15K miles and an SUV generates about 12 tons of CO2 per 15K miles.

[Th1onein]

4. Interesting. I have been studying the CFTR protein for over a decade.

I can't join you, though.

[IronLionZion]

10. of course you can

it's very simple

just follow the instructions:
http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

DU is team 48157

[annabanana]

6. I would be more than happy to add my assistance, but

SOMEone is going to have to take me by the hand and lead me step by step. I go to the site and it says how to start and a space to fill in my name... then in the dossy stuff that starts scrolling, I see <<anonymous>> start scolling by and I think I've done something wrong so I abort the whole thing in a panic,, and then, even if I DO manage to sign up ok.. how do I get on DU's "team" as opposed to just running my machine out there on my own in cyberspace?


(you asked.. now I'm going to hit the hay and check in again in the morning...)

[IronLionZion]

8. Very simple

Here are the instructions for Windows:
http://folding.stanford.edu/winstructions.html

If you have some other system, get it from here: http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

Once installed, you will go through configuration. It's best to leave the default choices if you're unsure. This is where you enter your username. and the DU team is 48157.

That's all! Now you're helping important scientific research! I just started today.

You can mess around with configuration later if you feel comfortable.

[Vox_Reason]

9. PM me tomorrow and we'll get you all set up.

Won't take but a jiffy!

Good for you!

[Mr. McD]

11. It is not compatible with BOINC

I am running Seti@thome and Einstein@home

[phusion]

12. Ok, I joined! n/t

[corporate_mike]

14. Awesome!!! See you on the stats pages soon.

See you on the stats pages soon.

[mia]

13. Love your poll.

:kick: Thanks for explaining it all so well.

[EFerrari]

15. This Cal alumna will keep her Stanford feelings to herself.

lol

:kick:

[clixtox]

16. Incredibly Accurate Description of f@h

Many thanks and kudos for this fabulous post and thread! You are a gifted writer as you have created a very impressive exposition with amazing clarity. If I wasn't already on our team I would surely join after this alluring explanation! I am so proud to be a part of this DU team effort.

[newyawker99]

28. Hi clixtox!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[eggman67]

17. Other

I'm already on another team.

[mia]

18. We're united in spirit.

Fold on!

[eggman67]

19. Cheers :)

:beer:

[unhappycamper]

21. Other reason:

I'm running the climateprediction.net experiment. FWIW, team democraticunderground.com is #123 on the all time leader board.

[mom cat]

24. Wow! I just posted a similiar reply. I am on the climate project too!

[mom cat]

25. They have a DU team too!

[unhappycamper]

26. One would hope you've joined our team. . . . n/t

[mom cat]

32. I thought I did but I am not posted yet. Here is their link:

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/team_display.php?teamid=2548

[progressoid]

22. Kick for the morning crowd...

[mom cat]

23. Other: My computer is being used for global warming research. My spare

capasity is being used to help develop climate modeling at climate prediction.net:
http://climateprediction.net/

They also have a democraticunderground team!

Check it out!

[Maru Kitteh]

27. can both be run? I'm on the folding@home already but

I'd love to be on both teams. :)

[mom cat]

31. I really don't know! Maybe one of our techie types can help out here.

[nini]

29. because I simply don't trust putting anything like that on my system

Sounds safe but I don't trust anything that can access my system in ANY way.

Being paranoid about stuff these days doesn't seem so whacky anymore.

[Beelzebud]

30. My computer isn't too slow, but Folding@Home crashed constantly.

Computer would just freeze. I tried running it as a service, I tried running it with less priority, but no matter what, it would eventually totally freeze my machine up.

Since I uninstalled it, the machine hasn't crashed since...

I like the concept, but they could optimize thier client MUCH better than it is.

[mom cat]

33. I have had pretty good luck with climateprediction.net. I have had

some problems before I installed it, but they haven't gotten any worse since then.
http://climateprediction.net/

[BrightKnight]

37. Many donors w/ large DC Farms choose FAH for stability.

I have been running FAH on a few of computers for years and never had any problems.
I have used NT, 2k, XP and LINUX. I am in the top 10 of a top 50 team now.

A lot of people with very large farms choose FAH because it is so stable.

--------

FAH like other DC clients puts a load on your PC. CPU and memory utilization are constantly very high. In a stable system this is not a problem. If you have a flaky memory chip or system board A high utilization program like FAH will bring out the problem. Also, a high utilization program like FAH will generate increased heat. Heat is notorious for bringing out latent hardware problems.

The solution may be as simple as reseting your memory chips and installing another case fan. There is also an option in the FAH client to disable the SSE/MMX functions. THis will slow it down but it will also put less of a load on your computer.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

40. Is your computer overclocked?

I found that the Windows F@H console client does not like my system when it's overclocked.

The clients are also optimised for Intel processors and the Windows OS (I guess they are targeting the biggest population).

[The Revolution]

34. Idle time?

My PC is either in use or off...there isn't much idle time to speak of. I had SETI@home for a while, but it took forever to process on piece of data. People who joined months after me would be ahead of me in like a week. :)

[corporate_mike]

43. when your PC is in use, it's using less than 10% of its capacity

[jim3775]

35. Other: It doesn't run through BOINC

I am running two physics related projects right now; Einstein@Home and LHC@Home. They both run through BOINC. The FAH community seems to hate the BOINC platform and are very hostile to it, which is strange because there are over 10 projects and 500,000 users that run BOINC and its not near as bad as the people in the FAH forums make it out to be. If FAH adds a BOINC client I will add it to my project list.

[BrightKnight]

36. Many FAH donors think SETI is wasteful and silly DC experiment.

Many people went to FAH because they thought that SETI was silly and wasteful DC experiment. FAH was around and stable long before BIONIC was dreamed of. I know that BIONIC is doing some real science now but I do not think that many will be persuaded to go back.

[RazzleDazzle]

38. Sorry, I don't want anyone using my computer but me -- been there

done that, and it was costly and a royal PITB to get it fixed. And yes, I know this is "different." (Tho not all that much.) That's my rule even so.

[burythehatchet]

39. cuz it sounds like that old comic book ad

that said "Make $5 an hour stuffing envelopes."

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

41. Great thread, Vox_Reason! K&R. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

42. Because I've forgotten most of my origami moves. nt