06-27-2007, 03:22 PM
I'd like to take some names for the WiiLoaded Folding@Home team.
If you wish to join, then 77734 is our team number
TEAM STATS
Folding@home is a small program you download to your computer or Playstation 3, which donates unused CPU clock cycles across your internet connection to Stanford University's medical sector. The idea is that instead of Stanford buying huge supercomputers to do work for them, they just use the combined unused clock cycles of millions of donators worldwide and test their results.
So what's in it for you?
Well, you can help to aid the understanding of how proteins "fold" for medical science. Every day, more and more is being discovered about this process, thanks to so many people who take part worldwide. From understanding how proteins fold, it is possible we could be able to prevent and better treat diseases such as Cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, Multiple Sclerosis (which my uncle has) and many more terrible diseases.
And that's not all.
Many people like to form teams of contributors, so that all of the team's combined unused clock cycles can be entered in to one giant pool and donated.
But there must be something else, another reason why so many are involved. Yes there is.
These teams basically compete to see who can donate the most clock cycles. Each team gets a leaderboard and gets points for each thing they do, as standard.
A common question that is asked is:
Donating my processor's clock cycles? Wouldn't that make my computer slower?
The answer is: no.
The reason is because the folding@home application only donates unused clocks from your CPU. It first determines how much processing power your other applications need and then takes the rest for itself and donating them. So essentially, the more things you are running on your computer at once e.g. internet browser, iTunes, MSN etc. the less you are donating, because the folding@home application knows that your computer comes first!
I think it would be fun if a few people on WiiLoaded were to download this app for their PCs and we could see who, essentially, uses their computer the most!
To download this small, simple program go to
http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html
If you wish to join, then 77734 is our team number
TEAM STATS
Folding@home is a small program you download to your computer or Playstation 3, which donates unused CPU clock cycles across your internet connection to Stanford University's medical sector. The idea is that instead of Stanford buying huge supercomputers to do work for them, they just use the combined unused clock cycles of millions of donators worldwide and test their results.
So what's in it for you?
Well, you can help to aid the understanding of how proteins "fold" for medical science. Every day, more and more is being discovered about this process, thanks to so many people who take part worldwide. From understanding how proteins fold, it is possible we could be able to prevent and better treat diseases such as Cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, Multiple Sclerosis (which my uncle has) and many more terrible diseases.
And that's not all.
Many people like to form teams of contributors, so that all of the team's combined unused clock cycles can be entered in to one giant pool and donated.
But there must be something else, another reason why so many are involved. Yes there is.
These teams basically compete to see who can donate the most clock cycles. Each team gets a leaderboard and gets points for each thing they do, as standard.
A common question that is asked is:
Donating my processor's clock cycles? Wouldn't that make my computer slower?
The answer is: no.
The reason is because the folding@home application only donates unused clocks from your CPU. It first determines how much processing power your other applications need and then takes the rest for itself and donating them. So essentially, the more things you are running on your computer at once e.g. internet browser, iTunes, MSN etc. the less you are donating, because the folding@home application knows that your computer comes first!
I think it would be fun if a few people on WiiLoaded were to download this app for their PCs and we could see who, essentially, uses their computer the most!
To download this small, simple program go to
http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html
