FR Folding@Home Project Update -- We're in the Top 65 of all teams with 12.75 Million points

Stanford University ^ | 09-29-2006 | soccer_maniac

[soccer_maniac]

Time for a new FreeRepublic folding@home thread.

Our FreeRepublic team of 358 members comprised primarily of Free Republic members in good standing have banded together to donate their excess CPU cycles to a worthy cause. Via distributed computing, millions of computers around the world, contribute directly to scientific research, in the quest for a greater understanding of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Cancer, and Mad Cow (BSE).

Currently, the team is in 75th place (with 1,020 active CPUs - 70,500 completed Work Units and 12.75 million points).

This is an entirely voluntary program, and if you want to learn more, please see the links posted below (or read one of the previous 20+ folding threads)

[soccer_maniac]

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 does it work?: 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 do I get started folding for Team FreeRepublic?:
1.) Download the folding program from Stanford University's folding download page (Folding@home Client Download). 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.

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List of Relevant Folding Links
Why Fold - Watch This !!

Another Folding Clip

Folding@home Client Download

FreeRepublic.com Folder Stats

Extreme Overclockers Stats for FreeRepublic

Another Stats Page

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Competition (Not!!) Dummies ..Daily Kos

Dummie Folding Threads #7 #8 #9#10#11 #12

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Other Useful Stuff - Links

How much are those work units worth? And what are they?
All Projects Listed
Point Summary for Workunits

Stat Image Generator

Fahmon Third Party Monitoring Software

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Past FreeRepublic Folding threads

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #17 #18 #19 #20#21

[soccer_maniac]

FR Folding Ping !

Free Republic Folders - A Tribute to Ronald Reagan

Date of last work unit	2006-09-28 23:15:20
Active CPUs within 50 days	1020
Team Id	36120
Grand Score	12788349 (certificate)
Work Unit Count	70485 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate)	67 of 45639
Home Page	http://www.freerepublic.com

[soccer_maniac]

Our competitors' teams:

DUmmies: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=48157

DailyKos: http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=48083

Other conservative teams:

RedState: http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=48064

[ozoneliar]

Just downloaded and installed. You would think I would have something else to do at 3 a.m.

[sten]

ummm.. might want to worry about the possibility that it could be a password thief or a creditcard/bank info thief. no idea who wrote it, except for some students.

[soccer_maniac]

This is a legit program sanctioned by Stanford U and backed by the largest tech companies in the world: Google, Intel, IBM, Apple, HP, etc.

[soccer_maniac]

Welcome to the team!

Every CPU helps!

[ozoneliar]

Well I got a question. It seems that at the rate my CPU is going it will take 400 days to finish this WU. That seems way too long. Is something wrong here?

[Straight Vermonter]

Just wait a bit and it will adjust the estimated time downwards when it has a larger sample size to work with.

[Straight Vermonter]

We are closing in on the 1 year anniversary of FReeper folding.

So are we going to have a party or what???

[Drammach]

I went ahead and hooked up with the project..

A Question:
I want to attach this project to my BOINC manager..
It (BOINC) asks for a URL..
Would that be "http://folding.stanford.edu" or do I need to add the team # on there or something??

[IslandJeff]

Hafta thank you for your advice from a couple months ago: I'm less than 250th (finally) on Team Reagan, and, with taking down the processor usage to 75%, this little pig I'm typing on is running on 24/7 and is at about body temperature.

F@H doesn't even get offended if something hangs and I have to reboot - just takes up where I left off, most of the time.

Just wish I had more time to see what my protein folding actually is accomplishing...

[Drammach]

password thief or a creditcard/bank info thief.

These are accredited and safe..

I have run Berkeley's SETI and BOINC for years now, and never had any security problems.. ( We run anti-virus and Adware and security programs on a daily basis.. To the point we have been called "obsessive".. )

These programs are constantly monitored for hacks and hackers.. Their reputation is everything to them, and could cost them large chunks of their funding if anything went "wrong"..
These distributed computing projects are literally worth their weight in gold to researchers..
Volunteered computing time is priceless..
Heads would roll.. Seriously..

[NurdlyPeon]

A Question: I want to attach this project to my BOINC manager.. It (BOINC) asks for a URL.. Would that be "http://folding.stanford.edu" or do I need to add the team # on there or something??

I just tried to feed that URL into the join mechanism on my own BOINC, and was told that BOINC did not support the "folding" project. And so, with that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to remind my fellow FReepers about the contributions that some of your brothers are making in other computational arenas (as shown in the links below):

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=30594 http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/team_display.php?teamid=1619 http://predictor.scripps.edu/team_display.php?teamid=1450

Freepers rule.

[NurdlyPeon]

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=30594

http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/team_display.php?teamid=1619

http://predictor.scripps.edu/team_display.php?teamid=1450

Of course, sometimes, we don't always get our text right.

[Uriah_lost]

Try reading about it before you try to scare off volunteers.
Knee jerk reactions like yours make it harder for those of us that want to do something good1

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[Echo Talon]

The #1 Team: [H]ardOCP

[houeto]

BUMP "For The Gipper"! Thanks for your efforts soccer_maniac.

[Drango]

Proud to b "folding".