Standford University, Folding at Home
I have been doing Folding at Home (FAH) since 2004-01-1. I learned about this worthy project from Team Helix and gained many benefits in this experience. Team Helix is a very social group of people I consider family. Often they may discuss frivolous things on their forum. Other times we are as serious as a heart attack. We know compassion, and we know how to have a good time.
From Team Helix, I leaned how to have my precious computer do valuable work while I ingnored it or was sleeping. Stanford University has a project called Folding at Home. The software you download will get a job assignment from their servers over the internet. This job is a math intensive piece of code. The code is really just a fragment of a larger project, and by combining the power of as much as a million computers world wide, this university can research the folding and mis-folding of proteins.
To quote DSLReports: "Welcome to the Team Helix Forum! Searching for cures, one protein at a time! Folding@Home published results: Cancer & p53; Alzheimer's; Huntington's Osteogenesis Imperfecta; Parkinson's; Ribosome & antibiotic"
That seems like something everybody would want to do! There are many Teams like Team Helix that have come together to encourage and support each other. Many like Team Helix(Team #4) have discussion forums. Some, like the Team Helix Foldinator Project, have special projects to raise money from donations. These donations are used to purchase fast computers that are ran by volunteers that hopefully accelerate the race to further Stanford's success. I have been a member of the Foldinator Project(FP), and have ran many computers as an Operator(OP).
I encourage everybody to drop in and say "Hi" at Team Helix.
CAVEAT: Running the FAH program will be a good workout for your PC. Most desktops can handle running the CPU at 100%. Your PC will not feel like FAH even exists. It steps aside nicely for anything you normally do. When the computer is not busy, FAH will run flat out doing its valuable work. You will use more electricity. Your PC will run hotter. But the majority of volunteers will not see much difference in their PC.
My late mother got very sick with a blood disorder. I do it for her. My late father had Parkinson's. I do it for him. I have grand children, and I do it for their future. I do it for you! If you help, even for a while, you are a hero in my eyes.
I hope this soapbox I climbed up on here with my hardly inspiring words did somehow inspire you. If you listened to all I said, then the world of distributed computing for the benefit of science and mankind will be better for your knowledge of the Folding at Home program. Thank you for listening.