Folding@Home
 

Just thought I'd throw this out there for anyone who hasn't heard of this and may be interested.

Folding@Home is a pretty cool little program that you can run in the background of your computer or Playstation 3. It is a low priority process so it will not preempt anything else you're doing; it just uses the unused cpu cycles when you're idle or you can set it to only run when the screen saver is going. I've been running it pretty much constantly on both of my machines for months and I've never noticed any sort of performance hit even when playing games, while editing video or anything else that requires heavy cpu use.

What it does is basically takes a project and breaks it into small work units that it assigns to systems running the program. You're computer works on its assigned unit in the background whenever you're idle then sends the completed unit back to be put into the big project. Basically it bands many personal computers into a sort of massive super-computer used to simulate protein folding, among other things, which is useful for a number things including furthering research on the cures for a number of diseases like Alzheimer's, Huntington's Disease, Cystic Fibrosis and a number of forms of cancer.

You can also create or join teams that rank it's members. Teams and ranks really don't mean anything though; just fosters a competitive spirit which can help people get more into it and get more done. The official FiestaFan.com Folding@Home team number is 90021 if you want to join it.

Anyway, I just think it's a really cool thing. It doesn't hurt anything and has the potential to do a lot of good. Check it out if you got a minute. They also have an FAQ or an article on Wikipedia if you wanna read more.

Longest MoS post ever! I'm a uni now and is going to head off to my lecture in about 1 minute, so I'll check it out when I go home. Just throwing that random comment out there.

I just like seeing long posts in MoS for some reason. :3

o-o Hrm~

coz a spam looks meaningful for once? keke

Well since it isn't anything about the game I figured in the context of this website it was spam. :)

I realised that Pritcher tends to make anything sound meaningful.

I've been running folding at home for over a year now. It's not hard to create a team, and it's for a good cause so I made an official FiestaFan.com Folding @ Home team. To join just enter team # 90021 as your team number. You can see the team page here: http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/m...&teamnum=90021

Cool.

Hmm that's nice. I'll go try it out now.

Interesting. It's for research on protein folding?

-Thinks about my protein lectures-
-Dies from boredom-

Still not sure how this works but I guess I'll see in a few minutes! Can you only join one team at a time?

Weeee just downloaded and installed. So I just let it run in the background?

Okay, I'm folding right now. 90021 is the team number for Fiesta right? Reminds me of that old drama 90210 a little. Now, I'm folding, what's it mean?

Ummm.... what the heck does this do?

Sorry for sounding so uneducated, but I've never heard of folding and just want to know a little more about it.

Thanks!!!!

thoughts this was about folding your laundry at home O.o

Basically they are running simulations of protiens to try and figure out how they work so they can cure diseases. The more people who run the software, the faster the simulations go, and the closer they get to possible cures.

-begins folding away-

Is the program a stand alone client?
Do I have to finish a work unit for my statistic to show on the Fiesta team page?

Edit: 104 days til I finish a work unit. Is this normal? Never mind, I figured it out. I just got a huge work unit.

Yes its a stand alone client.

Yes, you have to finish a work unit to show up on the FiestaFan team page.

104 days is a little long, it will probably speed up, what kind of computer do you have?

Never mind. It did speed up. It'll be another day or so. I think my system just screwed up the estimates at the beginning somehow.

Wth I have 96 days to go. D:

That doesn't seem right. I usually finish of a WU in a day or 3 depending on how big it is and how much free time I give my computer to work on it. Did you fiddle with any of the settings or anything? :confused:

Any way to allow the client to continue on a work unit after restarting?

It should pick up where it left off when you restarted. Or it will pick up from its most recent checkpoint anyway. You can change the checkpoint frequency, to make it save more or less often, in the advanced tab when you go into the configuration screen for the client.

o: REALLY! It was at 300 yesterday when I shut down and this morning it's back at 0. D:

Ah, I see now. I was running it directly from the winRAR archive itself. If you unzip it then run it, it'll back up the files into a "work" folder.

Haha, we have ONE active CPU unit and that's Pritcher. I still have a while to go. 1000/5000. @____@"

Yah, now I'm folding and it's not laundry!!!!

That made me laugh out loud, literally. LOL!

Bump! Wooooo!!

http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/m...&teamnum=90021

I'm on the list! I'M ON THE LIST! And dang I just realised I had a really big project compared to my second one.

:eek: Hurray! I was starting to feel lonely on the list there.

Yeah, some are a lot bigger than others. The biggest I've seen is 5000 and the smallest is 150.

Yeah, my first project as 5000! So it took forever to finish. My second one now is 1500~

Help!!!!!
 

Okay - by Sunday night I had 4700/5000 on my first unit. But, all day long yesterday, I kept getting some kind of download error and it just kept running all these byte numbers at the bottom, and it will not bring up all of my information. What happened???????? I was so close to finishing a unit!!!!!
Sunday night it told me I only had like 5 hours left. :(

Do you know what the error was? Like did it give a reference code or anything?

It is giving me a download error.
It will say - Core Download Error (#1) waiting before retry. Then it will try again and the ()number will change to #2, #3, and so on. It has been running for about 4 hours now, and is on error #15. At the top is says step 1429 - and this number keeps increasing with every retry.

Wooo Spirit's on the list now!

http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/m...&teamnum=90021

8D

oooh, ill be sure to try this out when i get home, assuming i remember

I'll remind yooo! >:3

Yes, but I am still getting that Core Download error and keep having to cancel the one that is in progress and start all over, so I don't know when I will get a new one upthere.

Pritcher!!!!!! Help me!!!! :D

Or Mr. Admin dude (sry - can't remember your name, I think Entropy)that started the team for us!!!!!!

Why do I keep getting this download error. It is happening on my son's computer also.

Dang I forgot about this, sorry. Ummm... let's see.

There's a few things I guess it could be. Do you have a firewall blocking it maybe? Try going into the F@H Control Panel and in the connection tab try checking box for "Use Internet Explorer Connection Settings" and see if that works.

If you're running Windows Vista try reinstalling it and set it to run the program as an administrator and see if that fixes the issue.
Instructions

You can also manually download the core files. This is a little bit more technical though and I think you said you're not so great with computer stuff so I dunno if you're going to want to mess with it or not.
Instructions

Other than that, I'm not really sure. Lemme know how it goes.

LOL Wow Loki hacks!~ Got such a high score already! Hahaha~

And yay the whole family is almost on the list!

I been meaning to bump this, but I kept forgetting.

:eek: I'll be overthrown in no time at this rate. She's got two 'puters on the job. So do I, but mine suck, lol. That's cool though, putting the kid's to work on it too. Like a little cancer curing sweatshop. :p