26 replies to this topic

[Centurion]

I take part in predictor@home using a few spare computers sitting around.

[Live Forever]

Yes, I like the folding@home one as well. (especially since they have the Longevity Meme Team) In any event, as far as distributed computing projects that are more focused on life extension, as I have said before, I am very much in favor of ones more specific to life extension. Of course, these won't come out of the blue, there will need to be some life extension researchers that need a specific problem solved that can be done through distributed computing.

[JohnDoe1234]

I also started running folding@home recently, I have it running constantly in the background, and I've never noticed a speed decrease. I get a lot of (whoas, wows, and what-the's) when its running as a screensaver, though I wish I had more than one comp to run it on.

[Live Forever]

If you haven't yet, Joseph, you need to join the Longevity Meme team. A few months ago they passed the 300 rank, and are currently ranked 272. (or 273 depending on which statistics you look at)

[thumb]

[mitkat]

I've been into folding@home for a while now, but not wholeheartedly as I was still musing about running SETI. I'm past that now, and into folding@home fullsteam, baby.

[Lazarus Long]

I was into folding@home until my last comp took a nosedive, crashed and burned.

I wasn't sure if the problem was in my firewalls or in the standby function but something really began to choke and since that experience I have been reluctant to share processing power.

[Ghostrider]

I also started running folding@home recently, I have it running constantly in the background, and I've never noticed a speed decrease. I get a lot of (whoas, wows, and what-the's) when its running as a screensaver, though I wish I had more than one comp to run it on.

If you want your folding to proceed at maximum efficiency, shut off your screensaver had just have your monitor power off when you are not using your PC. This way your CPU will not be taxed by the screen saver...although if there is a lot of traffic by your computer, maybe leave it on so that other people can see it and might be interested.

[Ghostrider]

I was into folding@home until my last comp took a nosedive, crashed and burned.

I wasn't sure if the problem was in my firewalls or in the standby function but something really began to choke and since that experience I have been reluctant to share processing power.

Folding pegs your CPU at 100% utilization all the time. If your heatsink sucks, your PC might not be able to handle it.

[Ghostrider]

I take part in predictor@home using a few spare computers sitting around.

I have not heard of predictor@home, is this the evolution of GENOME@home? I noticed that it's run complementary to FAH. This brings me to my next question, regarding anti-aging research, which is the best program to run?

[maestro949]

which is the best program to run?

I put my spare machines back to work for the
LongevityMeme (Rank #264 and still climbing). I had them offline for bit while playing around with some clustering software but that wasn't going anywhere.

Betterhumans.com has a Rosetta@home team as well.

Though they have different goals, both of these are producing a great deal of knowledge that will help aging down the road so either would be a good place to put your extra cpu cycles to use.

[rahein]

I am a member of the ImmInst World Community Grid team. It is a BOINC project that wraps a few diffrent projects. I have 2 computer crunching all the time and 2 others that I have intermediate access to.

[maestro949]

People are selling folding points on ebay. If they are truly using the money to buy more hardware then I suppose that's a good thing.

[Live Forever]

People are selling folding points on ebay.  If they are truly using the money to buy more hardware then I suppose that's a good thing.

lol I saw that in the Folding@Home forums a few weeks ago. That is pretty wild that they could sell the points. Those running the competition and doing the research should sell some and raise money for new equipment and research and stuff.

[caston]

Could distributed computing help in the effort to build a quantum computer?

[maestro949]

That is pretty wild that they could sell the points. Those running the competition and doing the research should sell some and raise money for new equipment and research and stuff.

I bid on them just to kick start the market for, heh, folding points. Somebody tried to outbid me! Next thing you know it'll be like the iPhone rage. Everybody will want them.

Could distributed computing help in the effort to build a quantum computer?

Beats me. I still can't wrap my head around how they are supposed to work.

When you say help to build one, do you mean design one?

[AdamSummerfield]

I am afraid I do not, but I do intend to once I live on my own. The only thing close to distributed computing that I use is StarryNight Pro 4. It's an offline program that can display the constellations from any point on Earth, I am sure by now it is far out of date.
- Sezarus

[Liquidus]

I have an old machine that I have running folding@home amongst a personal winamp server and a constant connection to mlb.tv audio.

I never thought I'd need two computers, but in terms of using one dedicated solely to things that I don't need to have my hands on, having a second computer provides great help. I'd love to have an anti-aging/life-extension program running.

[dnamechanic]

A Folder-for-Hire has a website here.

He calls himself "Folding Farmer" and provides a bit of info related to his services and his hardware.

[Ghostrider]

Humm...$399 for lifetime service. Does not make sense. He could only expect to earn about $36 per year of guaranteed interest on that money minus taxes. It will surely cost more than that to run a computer 24x7 in that same year. And also, not sure how he defined a lifetime, but I really doubt that it will be a lifetime. He must have access to a bunch of computers at work or something that sit idle and powered-on most of the time.

[Live Forever]

Humm...$399 for lifetime service.  Does not make sense.  He could only expect to earn about $36 per year of guaranteed interest on that money minus taxes.  It will surely cost more than that to run a computer 24x7 in that same year.  And also, not sure how he defined a lifetime, but I really doubt that it will be a lifetime.  He must have access to a bunch of computers at work or something that sit idle and powered-on most of the time.

I am betting that a guy like that doesn't just have a pile of computers. He probably has a rack that is optimized and has individual processors or something. I have read about some pretty advanced setups on the Folding@Home message boards. Who knows though, maybe he is just taking whatever money he makes each month off the site and putting it towards his electricity cost, upgrades cost, and maintenance costs. (probably putting money into it out of his own pocket as well) If the money starts going down, he just performs less upgrades, or scales back the usage slightly, or whatever else to operate at even (or at a slight loss)....or maybe it is just a scam and he keeps all the money. Who knows.

[cyborgdreamer]

Does anyone know if these distributed computing projects can damage or overheat your computer? When it runs, my fan whirrs constantly and my computer still gets really hot.

[dnamechanic]

Does anyone know if these distributed computing projects can damage or overheat your computer?  When it runs, my fan whirrs constantly and my computer still gets really hot.

Hi cyborgdreamer. This is a good question. One form of a good question is one that I know the answer, or think I do

Distributed computing projects mainly use the CPU, and most clients are designed to use the CPU to the max. This causes CPU heating. The CPU is the main source of heat in a computer (can be well over 100 Watts). For comparision, check a 100 Watt incandescent light bulb. Some clients have a option in software to lower CPU usage to less than 100%. The option is not very obvious.

The fan in a computer is mainly used to cool the CPU, so your CPU generates more heat, the fan must try harder to cool it.

Folding@home, the one I am most familir with has a couple of folding cores that utilize the CPU so hard that they are used as a burn-in test by many overclockers. That is, if an overclocked CPU can stabily and reliably fold with those particular cores then it is unbreakable.

Heat and fast fan does not acutely damage your computer. Tho they can be unpleasant for the operator. Prolonged overheat can shorten the life of the computer. But, computers usually become obsolete before heat death.

[cyborgdreamer]

Thanks, dnamechanic

[nefastor]

I used to run the SETI@Home client in the background, several years ago.

Since then, PC's have gone from eating 100W to eating 300W, with a huge differential between idle and full use.

Thus, the cost (electricity) of helping projects like SETI has vastly increased, and so has the amount of heat generated as a result.

I'm not the only one here to have pointed that out, but it's worth repeating.

The problem obviously didn't exist back in the days of Intel 386 PC's, where the only fan in a PC was that of the power supply, and there wasn't even a passive heatsink on the CPU itself. Ah... those were the days !

Nefastor

[Mind]

Since someone voted in this poll and brought it back into the active topics list, I thought I would remind people about the F@H prize. The 1st quarter of the competition is coming to a close in a couple weeks. More money will be up for grabs when the scores reset on July 1st.

[Shoe]

I'm lending computer time to Artificial Intelligence System. AGI to the people!

[salyavin]

I'm lending computer time to Artificial Intelligence System. AGI to the people!

Right now AI systems seems to just be simulating neurons and deleting them at the moment, I look forward to their next stage but right now I am not sure if they are doing much of value. That is why I like BOINC, I can run various projects that interest me. Maybe MURG people would like Mind Modelling. Rosetta seems quite good, I have run it for years. I know most imminst people run folding@home and that is fine as it potentially greatly beneficial but just for myself I prefer Rosetta and various other projects that interest me on BOINC. Nothing wrong with F@H it may possibly help us extend our lives so if you prefer that great.