Topic: The Folding@Home Thread (was: I'm coming for you Harry)

[mephisto_kur]

The Hardfolding site doesn't show it yet, but I'm coming for you, Harry.

[Harry Lee Smith]

Yeah I saw that the other day.  I had a bunch of computers at work folding, but they stopped getting WU's.  I think my boss got wise and choked off their packets going to the internet.    So now they wont fold any more and now I just have like 2 or 3 comps folding when I had 9 before.

[mephisto_kur]

Hehe, that just means you have to go on a borging run.

[Harry Lee Smith]

what's that?

[mephisto_kur]

That's when you load the console client as a service on a bunch of machines you don't own - with permission, of course.  Convince friends, family, bosses, whoever you can to let you load it.

[Harry Lee Smith]

Oh yeah maybe I'll do that.

[Trlgg]

I went over and read about this stuff.  It'sall Greek to me.  Explain a little what the purpose is?

[mephisto_kur]

It's basically for research into how protiens (which are the basic building blocks of all life on this planet) form and mutate over time.  By doing this, Stanford hopes to find new treatments for illnesses, open new areas of study of human genetics, and explore how life may have formed on this planet to begin with.

Basically, your machine hits the Stanford site and grabs a work unit.  A work unit is a basic protien, and the permutations that need to be calculated to see that protien's logical progression of change.  Once it is done, it sends all of the data back to Stanford and grabs another work unit.  It only uses the resources that you are not, so it does not effect anything, for the most part.  There is debate that it may shorten the lifespan of your CPU, but no one has killed a processor by folding.  Attemping to overclock to get better speed for folding is a different matter...

I have been playing HL2 with my machine folding in the background the entire time.  The only issue I notice is that my monitoring program (Electron Microscope - an app that tells you what all the machines you have folding are up to) can cause lag when it can't see one of the machines it is monitoring.

[Harry Lee Smith]

I leave mine on while playing all my games and never notice a thing.   

[LadyShadow]

Yes, Carl put it on my computer to help the cause. I usually forget that its even there.

[Harry Lee Smith]

14 days!!!!!!!

[Archangel-06]

I just downloaded the client. What team should I join? Hrmmmm......

[mephisto_kur]

Team 33, and USE YOUR LOGIN WHEN YOU POST.  Geez.

[ArchAngel_06]

There we go.

[mephisto_kur]

Hehe, much better.