[systematic]

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 it works: 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 to starting folding for Team FreeRepublic: 1.)Download the folding program from Stanford University's folding download page (see link below). Type in your desired username. 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 he were given exclusive access to all of the world’s supercomputers, Standford 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.

[systematic]

Summary - Folding Links of Interest (as compiled by Klutz Dohanger on the previous thread)

1. Where to get the Folding@home client
http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

2. FreeRepublic.com Folder Stats
http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=36120

3. Extreme Overclockers stats for FreeRepublic.com
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=36120

NOTE:
Only the top 2000 teams are included on Overclockers, and when a team reaches the top 800, individual stats are included.

4. Our Competition:
a. Democratic Underground
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=48157
b. Daily Kos
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=48083

5. Another Statistics Page
a. Sortable Team Member Stats
http://fahstats.com/t.php?t=36120
b. Team Production
http://fahstats.com/tp.php?t=36120
c. Teams on the Radar Scope
http://fahstats.com/tr.php?t=36120

6. Third Party monitoring software
http://fahmon.silent-blade.org/

7. DU Folding Thread.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5672092

8. How much are those work units worth?
a. http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/allprojects
b. http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html

8. Stat Image Generator
a.Link http://www.statgfx.com/statgfx/getlink.cgi?service=folding

[jdm]

Lookin' good! Nice trend.

FreeRepublic.com

[Drango]

Bump for fun!

[processing please hold]

bttt

[eyespysomething]

OK, I'm in now.

[Drango]

Folding laundry is fun. Thanks to FR I can now fold all day and night.

[SamFromLivingston]

Just added another CPU, but it will take a few days for it to start posting WUs.

[Alexander Rubin]

My name isn't showing up on the teamlist. Username ARubin.

[Daus]

I just put my Dell Poweredge 1800 with dual 3.2 Xeons on the job running three processes.

I have 5 machines at home.... so I should be climbing the charts pretty quick. :)

[Paladin2]

We turned "green" on fahstats just now. Still "blue" on eoc, but will go green there soon also.

[Uriah_lost]

Yay us!!

[Malsua]

Ping your list. Jim Rob does not support this project. All should bug out now.

[twinzmommy]

So I signed up as twinzmommy :)

[Petronski]

Would you consider hitting your pinglists on this?

[Paladin2]

I'd just like to point out that the FAHstats website still has much better team member info than the Extremeoverclocker web site, even in the face of those who proclaimed that the EOC site was vastly superior.

For a good reading on the current situation [at least for a couple of days until EOC gets some detailed history built up] go to:

fahstats

and poke around.

The team is still crusin' though I'll point out that we are passing through the burnt-out remainders of former supernovas. Lots of teams seem to have had many active members, but interest waned and only a few continue to try to move the old hulks.

[Craigon]

I haven’t visited these threads since jumping on board last week. Haven't had time to read all the posts in these latest threads either. But while browsing recent posts I gather that the team name will have to change due to Jim’s reluctance (understatement!)?.?. :) To each his own…Unlike the Lib DUmmies who have zero tolerance for different points of view within their ranks! If that’s the case I fully plan on sticking around as long as there is a team Freep. I vote for a name with “Freeper” in it since that’s a name we’ve collectively given ourselves. No one officially owns that do they?