I am a bit confused

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:04 pm

I'm slightly confused... ok, I let a program use 50% of my processor all the time, and then it magically cures diseases...

I'm lost...

EDIT: But however it magically cures stuff, my 3.6GHz should do the trick

Amy · Post by **Amy** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:11 pm

The program is literally using your pc to do research on protein folding.

it uses your free CPU cycles to help understand how proteins are assembled, or folded. The project is put on by Stanford University whose goal is to find out how proteins assemble themselves and why they sometime misfold. This misfolding is related to many serious diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

By better understanding how the proteins fold and why they misfold, researchers will be that much closer to finding a cure to these diseases.

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:30 pm

So some program uses my processor to figure out how protiens fold and misfold??? what does that have to do with my processor?? I don't understand.... Aren't proteins in cells or something? What does that have to do with virtual information? Or is this more like the program Super Pi that calculates pi, is this "problem" that we are trying to solve just a math problem that needs a lot of computing power or what??? I'm in 10th grade here don't confuse me...

And why can't they use one supercomputer instead of hundreds of PC's?

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:42 pm

wha.... why did i get my own topic?

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:43 pm

many thousands of computers do this... Most supercomputers are being used for their main purpose for being around, so there aren't many "spare" super computers laying around.

It's a program that runs calculations on your computer... nothing more nothing less. So... Yes, it is kinda like Super Pi, solving a really hard math problem.

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:45 pm

how does it solve it? how do computers know where the last computer left off? Do you download this and then it keeps uploading info to the net?

EDIT: Can't they just go out and buy a super-computer?

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:55 pm

it sends you the work unit... you solve the work unit... send the whole unit back to them... I've had some take 1 hour to finish and others 2 full days.

Because this is cheaper and produces more results. Thats why they opened it up to the public. Right now they have over 33,000 teams donating working on work units... some teams have thousands of users!

You get the picture... Stop asking questions and start folding!

NAiLs · Post by **NAiLs** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:11 pm

My bro runs the SETI one. I may have to give this one a shot since I haven't been at my PC much recently. Women are a bit more important than playing computer games!

Amy · Post by **Amy** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:14 pm

Since Stanford is a college, I am sure that having a budget to buy a super computer is quite a problem. I mean, think about it! My school has trouble getting 6 new computers for the library's study lounges! Instead of spending a butload of money on a "supercomputer," Stanford has devised a method to get the calculations done by getting people to donate CPU cycles, which is easy to spare, instead of donating money. I think it's brilliant! I don't see how anyone loses in this situation!

Amy · Post by **Amy** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:16 pm

I may have to give this one a shot since I haven't been at my PC much recently.

Great! Now you can actually say that your pc is doing something productive instead of sitting and collecting dust :D

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:35 pm

Hmm ok, I kinda see how it works, it's still way over my head but whatever.

Two more questions....

What in the heck is a cpu cycle?

and when I download and run this program, will it keep auto downloading new packets or whatever and uploading the finished ones?

Post by **Illuminati** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:47 pm

A10Pilot3 wrote:Hmm ok, I kinda see how it works, it's still way over my head but whatever.

Two more questions....

What in the heck is a cpu cycle?

and when I download and run this program, will it keep auto downloading new packets or whatever and uploading the finished ones?

CPU cycles are just how CPU's work... a cycle is when a processor loads one piece of information from the L1 Cache, processes it, writes that back to memory, and then starts this cycle again.

to answer your second question... yes.

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:52 pm

Illuminati wrote:
A10Pilot3 wrote:Hmm ok, I kinda see how it works, it's still way over my head but whatever.

Two more questions....

What in the heck is a cpu cycle?

and when I download and run this program, will it keep auto downloading new packets or whatever and uploading the finished ones?
CPU cycles are just how CPU's work... a cycle is when a processor loads one piece of information from the L1 Cache, processes it, writes that back to memory, and then starts this cycle again.

to answer your second question... yes.

would that be equal to 3.6 billion times per second on my cpu or not?

and what do the numbers mean, like Apop has 3800 or something on our team... how long has Legit Reviews been doing this folding @ home thing?

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:58 pm

just so you know, yes I have downloaded it and I've been running it, I just like to know how/why things work.

Post by **Illuminati** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 5:01 pm

http://folding.stanford.edu/faq.html

This will answer a lot of your questions about this program.

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 5:01 pm

and if I install this on two computers and have them both running at the same time, can i use A10Pilot3 as the account name on both computers?

Amy · Post by **Amy** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 5:05 pm

A10Pilot3 wrote: and what do the numbers mean, like Apop has 3800 or something on our team... how long has Legit Reviews been doing this folding @ home thing?

The numbers are just a score. It's something like the bigger the protein you fold, the higher your score or something. It's pretty random, as far as I can tell, when it comes to what proteins you get to fold. All I know is that the longer they take, the better the score. I can't say how long Apoptosis and Illuminati have been doing this, but it's been at least a month. I just joined I think yesterday or the day before, so I'm low gal on the totem pole (Pretty_Lady). If you go to the site and sniff around a bit, I'm sure you will get the answer to a lot of your questions

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 5:38 pm

A10, this is a simmilar problem that one of my proffesors works on. The idea is to break down genetic code into simple opperations and mathmaticly build (fold) protiens. Protines are cool little things that are used to build stuff in your body and come in lots of diffrent shapes and have lots of differnt functions. The goal is to decode and learn how to replicate protiens for medical use. I think its cool that computer dorks around the world donate power and cpu time to this sort of thing, like Amy said it costs her nothing (minus the power but thats not much) and it can give back so much.

Amy · Post by **Amy** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 5:53 pm

Amy said it costs her nothing (minus the power but thats not much)

hehe...it doesn't even cost me power 'cuz I live on campus where power is paid for in our fees! hehehehe...no monthly power bills!

Amy · Post by **Amy** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 8:23 pm

Here's another link that you all might find very helpful and informational (for those of you who aren't science nerds)
http://folding.stanford.edu/education/