seti@home

[Abbadon]

A while back someone (sleddog I think) proposed making a pc-guide seti@home team. Did this ever get of ground and if so can I join?

[jeeza]

How so, a seti@home team ?
As I understand it, they want you to donate some of your computer's idle CPU power to their project.

[Abbadon]

When you form a team, you can see your team-results (the sum of what each member contributes) on their site. Then you can compare to other teams and um... you can um.... well.... :confused:

Ok, it doesn't have any practical purpose, :D it's just more fun to do something like that together than doing it on your own. People are like that I guess.

There isn't much respons, but beeing the stuborn son of a stuborn man that I am I'm just gonna make a team anyway (in my own name, not in the name of pcguide). I'll post details here later, those who wish it can join.

[jeeza]

Will we have to wear uniforms ?

[BigBlue66]

Originally posted by jeeza
Will we have to wear uniforms ?

Yes. And, there will be a quiz, too.

[jeeza]

Abbadon, what do you think about STI - the Search for Terrestrial Intelligence ?
I even think there is a website about this, I don't remember where I saw it.

[bassman]

It appears as though the STI program has been scrapped because it was determined that it was an impossible mission. This has brought new life to the SETI program because in a comparable time frame, SETI was getting better results.
STI researchers, in an effort to continue working on an "Intelligence" finding program have joined the SETI teams and are now finding better funding for their research.
This is a real shame as I was so certain we were close to actualy finding something here.
I myself have devoted my research time to looking for three humped camels as I believe any intelligent extra terrestrial is far to smart and crafty for us to find. I would rather devote my energy and efforts toward a more realistic goal.

...

..

.

:D

[Abbadon]

Dropped SETI in favor of the cancer one (http://www.grid.org/home.htm) . Seems like a more direkt approach to some of earths problems.

[Dangerous]

So can we start a team on the Cancer grid program?

(I have a busy little network here at work just dying to be abused)

:)

[Abbadon]

I set up a group when I joined it (so far one member: me :D ) but feel free to join in.

team name is "Mr. V. Enterprises" (because a lot of my friends irl call me Mr. V., any name or reason is ok I guess :p )

[bassman]

Abbadon
I know some other people who are doing this. I am about to move to a new house, so when I get settled there, I will join your team and put my network to good use;)
I think this would be a great way for the members of thehttp://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif to stick together and help the world in another way :cool:

[Budfred]

I read through the different descriptions of how this works at that site, but I am still not clear if you need an always on connection to the web or if it does the work offline and then connects to the network when you go online. Does anyone know what the story is on this. I have a 2 hours limit which requires me to log off and then back on again, so I am not on all the time and my computer is off most of the time if I am not home.:confused:

[Abbadon]

an always-on connection is not required. The program downloads a piece of data, crunches the numbers on you pc (without any internet connection) and then sends the results back.

My program is crunching number right now and ZA shows no activity at all.

However, I do not know how large those data packages are that get downloaded. They're not big, since the downloading is done in a few seconds (I got cable), but an exact size I do not have.

[jeeza]

There ia another project like this, it's called folding@home.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/
It's about simulating the way in which various proteins connected to several human diseases "fold". You know, biochemically.
Over on the PC Mechanic forums they have a team.

This is what is says on the website :

What are proteins and why do they "fold"? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they remarkably assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, and Parkinson's disease.

[gracious]

There ia another project like this, it's called folding@home.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/
It's about simulating the way in which various proteins connected to several human diseases "fold". You know, biochemically.
Over on the PC Mechanic forums they have a team.
That is the one that I have running on my pc at work.
:)

[bassman]

Budfred
As mentioned, you do not need an "Always On" connection. Also as mentioned, the file size is not all that big. I think with "folding@home" you can pick the file you want by size. The program will run whenever your system is up, and will automaticly upload and download whenever you are on line.
I don't know about this one that Abbadon has shown us but I believe the "folding@home" setup evaluates your system resources and only works when it would be unobtrusive to your normal operation. In otherwords, you should never notice that it is running unless you are watching the charts. This is the same for SETI.

This is really neat stuff. Just think of the feeling you would have knowing your team had something to do with a major breakthru or even discovery in this research.
I have a couple of machines keeping the dust off some shelf space. When I get moved back into my office I think I will set them up just for this. If nobody sets up a team for folding before I get set back up, I will do that and we can help there too.:cool:

[jeeza]

Someone just found the largest prime number ever while participating in another distributed computing search of this kind :

A 26-year-old graduate student in the US has made mathematical history by discovering the largest known prime number.

The new number is 6,320,430 digits long. It took just over two years to find using a distributed network of more than 200,000 computers.

Michael Shafer a chemical engineering student at Michigan State University used his office computer to contribute spare processing power to the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). The project has more than 60,000 volunteers from all over the world taking part.
[...]
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994438

It's called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS).

[jeeza]

Check out this page for some links about computing grids, clusters, and projects similar to Seti@home...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/806410.stm
They can be found under the 'Internet Links' heading.