I really think that is a really catchy sentence. When all you have to do is leave your computer on and it'll work for cancer and other diseases.. effortlessly help the world, thats what its called.
This is Rise, StarCraft 2 commentator, suddenly talking about his mother, how she died from Cancer, and what he did to help. Its a touching story, and many people have been affected directly or not by Cancer. If you don't want to hear what he's saying, but want to participate, go here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=4353068#post4353068
Follow the instructions precisely and with a little effort, you are now actively helping along with half a million other people (in many other groups part of the World Community Grid).
It doesn't matter who you are and if you care or not about SC2 - but I consider him a better relay for the cause than myself, so thats why I point to him.
Basically, you'll register at 2 places, download a program, follow the instructions, and then the program can run on your computer (only when its Idle if you want), working on various things and sending them back when they are done.
Seriously, I'm posting this here hoping to catch if even only 1 person to actually follow this cause. I can see no reason whatsoever -not- to be part of this. I've been afraid of diseases and Cancer, for myself or for relatives to one day have it diagnosed. If the world truly worked together, we would already have a cure, I bet my life on it.
I'm not great at that kind of speeches, so I'll just end it there. You can be a part of this, something that could save lives, and you have to do so little for it. There is nothing else to say! I didn't know about it before, and I want to spread it where I can.
There's a big community behind this, if you check it out. Xtreme systems might seem strange, but its just one group out of many others (that one only has 1500 people or so). There are plenty others part of the WCG.
There's a lot of information about it around and a lot of people actively participating. If this is all fake, then thats a damn good fake.
Air, either you didn't actually check out the links and made an (incorrect) assumption about how this works - or - you said something totally unrelated. This has nothing to do with radiation, and based on some research I've done in the past this actually seems pretty feasible.
More than 400 scientists gathered at the Global Grid Forum this week to discuss what may be the Internet's next evolutionary step.
Though distributed computing evokes associations with populist initiatives like SETI@home, where individuals donate their spare computing power to worthy projects, the Grid will link PCs to each other and the scientific community like never before...
...As with the Web, the initial impetus for a grid came from the scientific community, specifically high-energy physics, which needed extra resources to manage and analyze the huge amounts of data being collected.
With a whole bunch of computers around the world connected via the net and specialized software running in the background, you could be donating your excess processor power to this organization to run calculations and process data that their own computers are unable to handle.
Personally, I'm always wary about installing new software on my computer, so I'll be looking into this a lot further before I install anything that downloads and uploads data from my computer. Still, I'm just trying to point out to the posters so far who've been saying "this is unlikely" that it actually is likely. Of course, that doesn't mean it's true, but I think we can at least have a look into it and give it a chance rather than just dismissing its potential to do good.
For those concerned about how this works. Research centers need to calculate very complex algorithms at very high speeds in order to understand protein folding. Protein folding is, essentially, trial and error calculations based on theoretical models. When a protein combination has been successfully folded, researchers can use this information to narrow down on possible medications, treatments, and even cures.
Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.
These calculations, as Jetrall has explained, are very difficult and slow. Server farms can't handle the load. So they offer a program that anyone can download, sign up for (just like registering to a forum), and automatically the program will begin folding proteins and sending information to remote databases. Hundreds of thousands of people run Folding@Home, one such distributed calculation program. You gain points by uploading more information. You can join a group of other uploaders (for instance, if a DFans Folding@Home group existed, you would be able to join that group and contribute to the group's total point score [which serves no point other than friendly competition]).
On September 16, 2007, the Folding@home project officially attained a sustained performance level higher than one native petaFLOPS, becoming the first computing system of any kind in the world to ever do so, although it had briefly peaked above one native petaFLOPS in March 2007, receiving a large amount of main stream media coverage for doing so.
I run Folding@Home and leave it on 24/7. The Folding@Home team has gotten much more information than they would have if they had used traditional computing data farms.
Unless I'm mistaken, what the XSystems forum is wanting users to do is sign up for an extremely similar task. It is probably a more focused algorithm. The program is not linked to the XSystems forum in anyway. You can download it and run it independently of the forums (registration was only encouraged to join that community's group).
Ohhhhh, now I seriously don't buy this. Protein folding is well understood if I'm not mistaken. It's responsible for prion and mad cow and disease, and is there in cancer, but I don't get what fucking calculations it needs. Ultimately, I'd rather donate 5$ than "give them my CPU power" which is by FAR that most RIDICULOUS request I have EVER encountered in my ENTIRE life.
Uploading computed information to data servers is simply the equivalent of those number of processors in a confined room. Which is what nearly every online company does to crunch numbers.
You are correct that the misfolding of proteins is the cause of many diseases. If you cannot grasp why it is important to discover how exactly these proteins misfold, then perhaps it would be prudent to consider freshmen college biology once more.
In any case, the program is not being forced upon you, and your disregard for the science behind it will not be a cause for concern for anyone.
There are several hypothesis regarding why the proteins misfold, and because it's such an important subject, proper research is - and I'm pretty sure of it - taking place, without the silly need of using people's processor power to "crunch numbers". I know the program isn't being forced upon me, but no one can hold back the fact that I can express my own opinions anywhere, and anytime.
Nonetheless, your opinions (which are scientifically and morally wrong) are not welcome. Nobody can force us to want to hear you belittle scientific research that could save thousands (if not millions) of lives just because you're so stuck in your own apathetic jaded image that you either won't do the research that proves its a valuable use of time out of your own apathy OR that you simply deny it in an effort to continue cultivating said image.
Of course research is going on, but it will be completed FASTER this way. Don't you understand, Mephisto? This is about non-selfish human beings helping get the research done faster so we can save lives sooner. Sure, they don't NEED our help, but is that enough reason not to give it? It's not a 'silly' project.
This is human lives we're talking about here. I can't believe how cold-hearted and jaded someone would have to be to be able to call such work silly or brush it aside as being phony or unimportant when SCIENCE says that it is important and necessary.
This is a legitimate and worthwhile use of our time. Science says so, millions of people say so, human compassion and morality say so. What more does it take?
Dude, are you fucking serious? Is any of those sources even remotely credible? If it's such a big deal, how come the news isn't all over it? How come a frikkin' Diablo Forum is the first place I'm hearing about this "miraculous scientific breakthrough" ? Why isn't it everywhere? Right, because there's no credible source backing it up. ALl I've seen so far are some random websites and Youtube. Consequently, you can take your little webster dictionary, and use your big words on somebody else, since I'm not just fucking around and insulting scientific research, because as far as I'm concerned, this is as scientific as lollipops.
Prove to me that it's not a silly project. Prove to me that my quad core can help, even REMOTELY, in saving or in the process of saving lives. Give me credible sources by credible people. Give me something concrete. All that's given to me thus far is AIR.
SCIENCE. WOW. SCIENCE. I can give you 100 sites on the spaghetti monster being the next fucking messiah, and 200 more "scientific" nonesense saying that the spaghetti monster is real. IT AIN'T CREDIBLE BABY.
What science? What millions of people? I'm not compassionate towards things that I don't perceive as completely plausible and real. What more does it take? Actual proof.
Which link is it again? Is it a video? I'm serious, I'm not being sarcastic. Because if it isn't a video, how believable is that again? Now let us presume that all of this is completely correct and that all along I'm been a selfish pig, how useful would a SHARED 128 Kb/s internet connection be, precisely?
The connection-speed is unimportant, since all that is being transmitted back and forth are relatively small packets of data (numbers, in this case). What is important is the processing power of the computer. The calculations involved in many scientific mathematical formulas are incredibly complex and take an immense amount of computing power to solve. When you farm out certain portions of such equations, though, it doesn't take as much to compute those numbers (so even a relatively shitty machine would be of some service). The point is that every little bit counts.
Quote (Wikipedia):
“Distributed” or “grid” computing in general is a special type of parallel computing that relies on complete computers (with onboard CPU, storage, power supply, network interface, etc.) connected to a network (private, public or the Internet) by a conventional network interface, such as Ethernet. This is in contrast to the traditional notion of a supercomputer, which has many processors connected by a local high-speed computer bus.
The primary advantage of distributed computing is that each node can be purchased as commodity hardware, which when combined can produce similar computing resources to a multiprocessor supercomputer, but at lower cost. This is due to the economies of scale of producing commodity hardware, compared to the lower efficiency of designing and constructing a small number of custom supercomputers. The primary performance disadvantage is that the various processors and local storage areas do not have high-speed connections. This arrangement is thus well suited to applications in which multiple parallel computations can take place independently, without the need to communicate intermediate results between processors.
This is the case with scientific research such as this, as there are many smaller calculations capable of being handled by non-super-computers that are then, later, re-assembled together after being solved independently.
There are also some differences in programming and deployment. It can be costly and difficult to write programs so that they can be run in the environment of a supercomputer, which may have a custom operating system, or require the program to address concurrency issues. If a problem can be adequately parallelized, a “thin” layer of “grid” infrastructure can allow conventional, standalone programs to run on multiple machines (but each given a different part of the same problem). This makes it possible to write and debug on a single conventional machine, and eliminates complications due to multiple instances of the same program running in the same shared memory and storage space at the same time...
Grids offer a way to solve Grand Challenge problems such as protein folding, financial modeling, earthquake simulation, and climate/weather modeling. Grids offer a way of using the information technology resources optimally inside an organization. They also provide a means for offering information technology as a utility for commercial and noncommercial clients, with those clients paying only for what they use, as with electricity or water...
As of August 2009 Folding@home achieves more than 4 petaflops on over 350,000 machines.
Now that that's more-or-less out of the way, there's the matter of Tim Berners-Lee's involvement. Technically, it's not his personal involvement so much as the company he helped build (CERN) that is directly involved in the creation of this new project. Here are a handful of articles in which it talks about Grid computing and CERN's role:
If "the man who invented the internet" were to come out in a press conference and talk about it, it would be rather convincing. You're a smart guy, can't you see that there's a chance - how ever small said chance might be - that this is all just a hoax? You seriously give me proof out of Wikipedia? Let's just settle this by saying that I'm an apathetic dickhead who wants everybody dead as long as his quad core isn't put to use.
Well that's something I've been aware of for some time now, it's a step forward that you're finally starting to admit it now that there's a pile of evidence that is pushing down on your little shitpile you tried to throw in our faces.
Is there a chance that this is all a hoax? No.
Is there a chance that this is incorrect or is for nothing? Of course. There's always a chance of that. But there's no chance there is a hoax. Nobody in this world - save maybe you - would joke about trying to cure cancer.
Now, unless you intend to start praising this program for its good intentions or download the program in support of it, I recommend you get out of this thread and move on to greener pastures. Nobody wants your senseless trolling in here, so take it elsewhere while you still can.
Lol! Are you seriously threatening me because you support this and I don't? Last I checked, this isn't a dictatorship, and as long as I'm on topic, I can still post here. If you're such a mad miss sunshine and you're getting all worked up over this, feel free to quit arguing. Last I checked, I wasn't trolling. I didn't insult you, nor did I say anything insulting. As a matter of fact, you're the one who is blatantly doing that, and last I checked, you're a powerful moderator or something.
Admit it? Everybody's known it since I joined this place. All I said is that I need proof. You failed to provide credible proof. Wikipedia isn't proof, it's a joke, and you know it, you just can't face that you can't prove a word I'm saying wrong. You think I'm trolling you? Please show me where I have insulted or attempted to insult you in my passed posts in this thread. Right, I'm not trolling. You're just mad because I don't support this little thing that you in turn support, and that you can't prove me wrong or supply me with the logical things I asked, and are consequently threatening to use your moderator wand against me in this little pissed off fit that you're having. Whatever.
This is what got me into this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egU2MyA3Pbk
This is Rise, StarCraft 2 commentator, suddenly talking about his mother, how she died from Cancer, and what he did to help. Its a touching story, and many people have been affected directly or not by Cancer. If you don't want to hear what he's saying, but want to participate, go here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=4353068#post4353068
Follow the instructions precisely and with a little effort, you are now actively helping along with half a million other people (in many other groups part of the World Community Grid).
It doesn't matter who you are and if you care or not about SC2 - but I consider him a better relay for the cause than myself, so thats why I point to him.
Basically, you'll register at 2 places, download a program, follow the instructions, and then the program can run on your computer (only when its Idle if you want), working on various things and sending them back when they are done.
Seriously, I'm posting this here hoping to catch if even only 1 person to actually follow this cause. I can see no reason whatsoever -not- to be part of this. I've been afraid of diseases and Cancer, for myself or for relatives to one day have it diagnosed. If the world truly worked together, we would already have a cure, I bet my life on it.
I'm not great at that kind of speeches, so I'll just end it there. You can be a part of this, something that could save lives, and you have to do so little for it. There is nothing else to say! I didn't know about it before, and I want to spread it where I can.
And I know little about how this works, the software is called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), and there's more info here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=230613.
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
I kind of expected some people to say that.
There's a big community behind this, if you check it out. Xtreme systems might seem strange, but its just one group out of many others (that one only has 1500 people or so). There are plenty others part of the WCG.
There's a lot of information about it around and a lot of people actively participating. If this is all fake, then thats a damn good fake.
But believe what you want.
Look into > The Grid
With a whole bunch of computers around the world connected via the net and specialized software running in the background, you could be donating your excess processor power to this organization to run calculations and process data that their own computers are unable to handle.
Personally, I'm always wary about installing new software on my computer, so I'll be looking into this a lot further before I install anything that downloads and uploads data from my computer. Still, I'm just trying to point out to the posters so far who've been saying "this is unlikely" that it actually is likely. Of course, that doesn't mean it's true, but I think we can at least have a look into it and give it a chance rather than just dismissing its potential to do good.
These calculations, as Jetrall has explained, are very difficult and slow. Server farms can't handle the load. So they offer a program that anyone can download, sign up for (just like registering to a forum), and automatically the program will begin folding proteins and sending information to remote databases. Hundreds of thousands of people run Folding@Home, one such distributed calculation program. You gain points by uploading more information. You can join a group of other uploaders (for instance, if a DFans Folding@Home group existed, you would be able to join that group and contribute to the group's total point score [which serves no point other than friendly competition]).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home
I run Folding@Home and leave it on 24/7. The Folding@Home team has gotten much more information than they would have if they had used traditional computing data farms.
Unless I'm mistaken, what the XSystems forum is wanting users to do is sign up for an extremely similar task. It is probably a more focused algorithm. The program is not linked to the XSystems forum in anyway. You can download it and run it independently of the forums (registration was only encouraged to join that community's group).
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFcp2Xpd29I
Uploading computed information to data servers is simply the equivalent of those number of processors in a confined room. Which is what nearly every online company does to crunch numbers.
You are correct that the misfolding of proteins is the cause of many diseases. If you cannot grasp why it is important to discover how exactly these proteins misfold, then perhaps it would be prudent to consider freshmen college biology once more.
In any case, the program is not being forced upon you, and your disregard for the science behind it will not be a cause for concern for anyone.
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
Of course research is going on, but it will be completed FASTER this way. Don't you understand, Mephisto? This is about non-selfish human beings helping get the research done faster so we can save lives sooner. Sure, they don't NEED our help, but is that enough reason not to give it? It's not a 'silly' project.
This is human lives we're talking about here. I can't believe how cold-hearted and jaded someone would have to be to be able to call such work silly or brush it aside as being phony or unimportant when SCIENCE says that it is important and necessary.
This is a legitimate and worthwhile use of our time. Science says so, millions of people say so, human compassion and morality say so. What more does it take?
Prove to me that it's not a silly project. Prove to me that my quad core can help, even REMOTELY, in saving or in the process of saving lives. Give me credible sources by credible people. Give me something concrete. All that's given to me thus far is AIR.
SCIENCE. WOW. SCIENCE. I can give you 100 sites on the spaghetti monster being the next fucking messiah, and 200 more "scientific" nonesense saying that the spaghetti monster is real. IT AIN'T CREDIBLE BABY.
What science? What millions of people? I'm not compassionate towards things that I don't perceive as completely plausible and real. What more does it take? Actual proof.
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
Quote (Wikipedia):
This is the case with scientific research such as this, as there are many smaller calculations capable of being handled by non-super-computers that are then, later, re-assembled together after being solved independently.
Now that that's more-or-less out of the way, there's the matter of Tim Berners-Lee's involvement. Technically, it's not his personal involvement so much as the company he helped build (CERN) that is directly involved in the creation of this new project. Here are a handful of articles in which it talks about Grid computing and CERN's role:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article3689881.ece
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/spotlight/SpotlightGrid-en.html
http://www.circleid.com/posts/cerns_the_grid_broadband/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cern_officially_unveils_its_gr.php
http://lcg.web.cern.ch/LCG/
Sorry that none of those are videos. I guess you can't believe everything you read, but anything you see in a video must be legit, right?
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
Is there a chance that this is all a hoax? No.
Is there a chance that this is incorrect or is for nothing? Of course. There's always a chance of that. But there's no chance there is a hoax. Nobody in this world - save maybe you - would joke about trying to cure cancer.
Now, unless you intend to start praising this program for its good intentions or download the program in support of it, I recommend you get out of this thread and move on to greener pastures. Nobody wants your senseless trolling in here, so take it elsewhere while you still can.
Admit it? Everybody's known it since I joined this place. All I said is that I need proof. You failed to provide credible proof. Wikipedia isn't proof, it's a joke, and you know it, you just can't face that you can't prove a word I'm saying wrong. You think I'm trolling you? Please show me where I have insulted or attempted to insult you in my passed posts in this thread. Right, I'm not trolling. You're just mad because I don't support this little thing that you in turn support, and that you can't prove me wrong or supply me with the logical things I asked, and are consequently threatening to use your moderator wand against me in this little pissed off fit that you're having. Whatever.
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
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