I don't care much for the prize money (only $150 even if 1st prize , amongst all Longevity Meme teammates or what?)
Thanks for your interest in F@H.
Currently the first prize of the F@H Prize is $150. This prize goes to the top registered folder (based on contributed points) with The Longevity Meme team. Looks like this will be Maciek_Kolodziejczyk,
see here. There are
12 prizes to be awarded, each prize goes to an individual contributor based on the accumulated number of points.
Prize money will be distributed to the top twelve competitors, excluding members TMichael and Maestro949 (organizers of the prize), on the Longevity Meme team with the following amounts awarded:
$150 1st
$100 2nd
$50 3rd
$25 4th
$10 5th thru 12th
...but I'd like to help w/ the research. i've only got a 4 year-old laptop. it's not that good, even spontaneously restarts sometimes (will exchange for a new soon). How much can i contribute anyway?
Laptop computers can be good contributors. They are more efficient (less electricity power) than desktop computers.
...I'd like to know the technical details since i'm not very good w/ computers.
Probably the best way to get a feel for what is going on is to downoad a client and start it folding. Performing the mathematical computations to simulate protein folding is very intense for the CPU in a computer. A computer only folds (processes) when it is powered on, so if your laptop is running on battery very much you may not be able to fullly utilize it.
The Longevity Meme has a brief description and setup instructions,
here.
When you connect to the Stanford site, based on your hardware and operating system, it will recommend a client for you to download. Just download the client and install and follow instructions. Choose your username well, because you cannot later transfer your contributions to a new name.
Spaces are not permitted in the username, if you use two names put and underscore between as a placeholder, like this:
John_Smith
Be sure to use the Longevity Meme team number (32461).
Once you start the client it will connect and download a work unit and begin processing. When the work unit is finished, the computer will attempt to connect to a Stanford server to send in the results. Once Stanford gets the results, after at most 2-3 hours, your username will first appear
here. Later your username will appear at all the Stats sites, such as EOC and Kakao stats. While connected to the Stanford server, a new work unit will be downloaded to your computer and processing starts again, and so on.
...by the way, my school has many computer labs with much more powerful computers than mine and they usually just sit there doing nothing esp during the summer. I'm here taking summer classes and working jobs so is there a way I can hook those to F@H? I wouldn't want to get into trouble with tampering school machines and i think some of them are programmed to restart and clear out temp files every so often
It is best to get permission to use public computers.
If it is OK with the computer owners, there are some ways of doing this:
- Some determined contributors set up folding on a USB flash drive and fold when the computers are available.
- Also, one can download the client and install to a computer without administrative privileges. The client installs in a alternative location without registry entries. In most cases, this works just fine.
Probably it is best to just see how the folding works on your laptop and go from there.