Do you belong to folding@home?
 

...Or one of the other research projects?

It would seem to be an easy way to contribute to solid research. Unlike stem cells, there's no controversy involved. And those cycles are being wasted if you do nothing.

I think Lorinda started a 2+2 team for folding@home. Should we start teams for other worthwhile distributed computing projects? Would you join?

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

Doesn't that use the same software that SETI@Home does? I stopped using them when they stopped being just screen savers and I had noticeable slowdown doing everything else on my computer.

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

I did a lot of folding at home until party kicked US players out.

but SRSLY, I do GIMPS instead.

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

I work with the project Einstein@home.. it's the biggest one after SETI@home. You should look into it.. much cooler than folding proteins IMO. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

I remain loyal to the first distributed project I got involved with, GIMPS... though I admit I did temporarily do ZetaGrid for a while 2003ish.

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I work with the project Einstein@home.. it's the biggest one after SETI@home. You should look into it.. much cooler than folding proteins IMO. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I run Einstein too, doing my part to search for gravity waves. From a distance the screen saver looks like the Death Star (it's actually a map of the constellations projected on a 3-D globe, with the Milky Way shunted off to one side).

I've never noticed any slowing whatsoever from these background programs. Can't say about SETI since I've never run it, but it's hard to imagine you'd have much problem with the larger projects.

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

Folding@home is not the same software as SETI@home. I know a few people in the Pande lab (who runs it). If any of you are actually spending compute cycles on SETI@home, what a waste.

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

It depends on your settings. I run both seti and einstein, which both run on the BOINC platform You can set it to run all the time, which will slow other stuff down some, or you can set it to run only when your computer is idle, which won't.

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Folding@home is not the same software as SETI@home. I know a few people in the Pande lab (who runs it). If any of you are actually spending compute cycles on SETI@home, what a waste.

[/ QUOTE ]

Out of curiosity, why do you feel that way (I don't run SETI FWIW)? After all, the real, literal waste would be if he didn't run anything at all and the cycles were lost forever.

Re: Do you belong to folding@home?
 

Assume for one second that alien life exists and is broadcasting radio waves in frequencies we're looking for. In all likelihood, those aliens would be FAR more advanced than we are, considering that we've only been capable of sending out radio signals for the last 100 years or so. If the aliens wanted to find us, they would have.

Of course, all that is a HUGE assumption. Your compute cycles would be far better spent on something with actual relevance, like projects that simulate protein folding or docking molecules into protein targets. Looking for aliens that just happen to be at our EXACT level of technology just seems [censored] stupid.