Invitation to AppleInsider for Folding@Home
Hey Appleinsider,
I've been a big fan of Appleinsider for a while and have frequented these boards for years. I wanted to put out a call for those of you unaware of or not participating in the Folding@Home project with your Macs.
Myself and my teammates (Team 3446 Macrumors) are utilizing our spare CPU cycles to fold protein models for the Folding@Home project. In short, these protein models may help researchers come closer to finding a cure/treatment for Cancer, Mad Cow, Alzhiemers, Parkinsons, etc. More information can be found at the Stanford University site.Folding@Home Stanford Site
The G3, G4, and G5 are all optimized for the Folding@home client using GROMACS. The G4 and G5 particularly excell in this process, even against high clock PC's.
Our Mac folding team is currently 19th and is rapidly closing in on the teams 18th through 12th. We are the top Mac team and we're passionate about folding because it is both a good cause and a great way to show our platform's power (ex. the Dual G5 rips through EVERYTHING in the folding rhelm). PC teams take notice of our progress and engage in "friendly" folding competitions all the time.
We'd like your help!
This is an open invitation for any Appleinsider member to join our team, create your own team, or fold as an individual. Every machine helps. You're fighting to help erradicate disease and you're fighting for the Mac.
Find information on how to start folding here.
Thanks and Fold ON!
-Macrumors.com Folding Team #3446
(If you decide to join our team, please post in our forums and let us know. We like to welcome new members to the community)
I've been a big fan of Appleinsider for a while and have frequented these boards for years. I wanted to put out a call for those of you unaware of or not participating in the Folding@Home project with your Macs.
Myself and my teammates (Team 3446 Macrumors) are utilizing our spare CPU cycles to fold protein models for the Folding@Home project. In short, these protein models may help researchers come closer to finding a cure/treatment for Cancer, Mad Cow, Alzhiemers, Parkinsons, etc. More information can be found at the Stanford University site.Folding@Home Stanford Site
The G3, G4, and G5 are all optimized for the Folding@home client using GROMACS. The G4 and G5 particularly excell in this process, even against high clock PC's.
Our Mac folding team is currently 19th and is rapidly closing in on the teams 18th through 12th. We are the top Mac team and we're passionate about folding because it is both a good cause and a great way to show our platform's power (ex. the Dual G5 rips through EVERYTHING in the folding rhelm). PC teams take notice of our progress and engage in "friendly" folding competitions all the time.
We'd like your help!
This is an open invitation for any Appleinsider member to join our team, create your own team, or fold as an individual. Every machine helps. You're fighting to help erradicate disease and you're fighting for the Mac.
Find information on how to start folding here.
Thanks and Fold ON!
-Macrumors.com Folding Team #3446
(If you decide to join our team, please post in our forums and let us know. We like to welcome new members to the community)
Comments
Folding@home is a worldwide distributed computing project run by the Stanford University with software written by Apple Computer.
It computes the way proteins "fold" into shapes to do the jobs required by our bodies. When these proteins "misfold" it causes a lot of diseases like Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (CJD), ALS, and Parkinson's disease.
What can you do?
Well if you have a OS X machine, you can download either of three clients; the console version (terminal), the GUI version (watch it work!) or the screensaver version.
For the terminal shy (like I was) I suggest the GUI/graphical version, you set it as a start up application in your accounts and it will connect to the internet when your on, download a protein, work on it and send the results back the next time your online.
You can watch it work or just leave it running in the dock. It uses your spare CPU to do these computations and scales itself down if you need more CPU. I run 4 of the console versions via terminal and can play high end games with out a problem.
There are Teams competing against each other and even though Wintel users far outnumber us, our Team MacOS X #1971 was #30 has since risen to #27 and ready to take the #26 spot away from Silent PC Review. (and we are not going to stop there!)
So come enjoy the fun, put your computer to good use, and keep the name of our platform in the eyes of the world!
Team Mac OS X #1971
http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
Apple says:
http://www.apple.com/scitech/stories/stanford/
Stanford University F@H site.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/
(Team Mac OS X is site neutral and only dedicated to contributing to Folding@home for the Stanford University, we accept everyone.)
Some healthy competition to recruit Folding users seems to be going on.
Apologies to those who consider this stuff spamming the boards. I didn't mean for this thread to be a recruitment competition or advertisement for Mac folding teams.
Just wanted to get the word out about Folding.
Good luck to all teams/users.
We could really use the help.
They are laughing at us, calling us "MacHeads" and "Cultists" while adding another 10 machines to their Folding operation.
"HANG ON FELLAS! _I brought 10 CPUs (Intel 2.4b) online Friday! _(Now I wonder if those G5s at CompUSA are internet-connected.... _*evil grin*) _We'll beat you with your own brand name stuff if we have to! _
Randy Clements
Salt Lake City, UT "
see what I mean?
Join Team Mac OS X #1971 and lets put the "silence" into Silent PC Review!
http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
i went and checked out their boards and they do seem to be sweating lol! id love to join but im still on a pc
Originally posted by futuremac
hey this looks like fun!
i went and checked out their boards and they do seem to be sweating lol! id love to join but im still on a pc
oic at your forums you DO have some windoz users, great ill join!
did i say their board site was slow?
they really need to get that fixed or moved from his server to a dedicated online bbs
Originally posted by fred_lj
I was interested in them also -- but is the "folding server" -- per se, I don't know -- down right now? Or are there special proxy settings that need to be entered?
the folding@home server itself is slow it took forever to get started just give it time, i closed the client and re-opened it and it dl the first work unit quickly. try that
however im talking about team 1971 bbs site is hosted on the mods server and it is really s l o w http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
the mod needs to move it off his home server and get an online bbs. i have broadband and was surprised at how slow it is and i still haven't recived the registration email...
i would think this email registration stuff would all be automated...
Originally posted by futuremac
im going with team 1971 (if i can ever get registered on their boards that is, their board site is slow too) they have a good rivalry with the silentpc team i belive you can only be on one team at a time
...
Indeed it is the thought that counts.
If Team Mac Os X wants wants to try and recruit folding members thats fine, but I am going with the strongest team and site team I like a lot.
Feel free to join our Team MacRumors because we want to crush those other PC teams.
--MrMacMan--
Folding FAQ
Noah has been tweaking the boards, making improvements, it's just a matter of time and he's going to need to place it on a larger server.
Our Team has been growing quite a bit in the last couple of weeks.
So I think he knows it's just a matter of time and putting the final touches on the site. The front page is new as well.
Please bare with the hiccups.
Growing pains. : )
its been well over an hour now and i still haven't recived any registration email. this is what i get when i try to login:
The following errors were found:Sorry, we could not find a member called futuremac, are you sure it's correct?
apparantly it must not be an automated bbs registration since he runs the bbs from his home.
fred_lj have you been able to get registered on team 1971's bbs? http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
Originally posted by Sailfish
Team Mac OS X is a grass roots setup and normally they don't get a whole bunch of traffic.
Noah has been tweaking the boards, making improvements, it's just a matter of time and he's going to need to place it on a larger server.
Our Team has been growing quite a bit in the last couple of weeks.
So I think he knows it's just a matter of time and putting the final touches on the site. The front page is new as well.
Please bare with the hiccups.
Growing pains. : )
sailfish since you guys are growing so fast now has he considered putting his bbs on an online site instead of hosting it on his home computer?
i thought the site was dead when i visited it, it was almost crawling, i thought it was on dialup or something.
Originally posted by fred_lj
I was interested in them also -- but is the "folding server" -- per se, I don't know -- down right now? Or are there special proxy settings that need to be entered?
The proteins are downloaded from Stanford University and sometimes their servers get overloaded, so just try again later.
Happened to me a few times.
After all there are over 500,000 active processors worldwide and the weekends and nights gets the most activity.
....
You can just leave the GUI version alone, it will connect by itself or you can force it by restarting the application.
It's designed to operate with as little impact on your life as possible, you can really just leave it alone and set it as a startup application and/or better yet leave your computer on at night and set your display to sleep (not for laptops, obviously) this way at 3-4 AM your automatic Unix cron scripts can run and keep your machine running fine.
If anyone has Dual processor machines and would like to know how to run 2 console versions (one for each processor) via the terminal (and double output) please ask me or in our forums.
Of course the console version is no pretty graphics...
Fold on and thanks for joining, come see us in our forums.
http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
Fold on!
And one of these days we will take that lousy Silent PC Review down!
Originally posted by futuremac
sailfish since you guys are growing so fast now has he considered putting his bbs on an online site instead of hosting it on his home computer?
i thought the site was dead when i visited it, it was almost crawling, i thought it was on dialup or something.
He probably just got slammed by AppleInsider...
Don't worry try back later.
Growing pains.
As long as you got the Folding@home app and entered #1971 for the Team, you'll get in later if he is blocking those Silent PC Review slime from flooding his board.
Keep up the Fold and thanks for coming to our rescue, the more the merrier!
We need a few hundred more folders if possible.
Fold on!
Originally posted by futuremac
fred_lj have you been able to get registered on team 1971's bbs? http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
Yup -- just got the email @ 10:55 p.m. (CST) tonight. But I'm registered, and 6% done with my first protein! This is really cool...looks really "official" (my major is biochem, too, so something so relevant to research is equally impressive because this is next generation of exploration - that is, proteomics. We've got the genome, now tracking ALL those different pathways and learning about the proteins that make them happen...Way cool!!)
Originally posted by fred_lj
Yup -- just got the email @ 10:55 p.m. (CST) tonight. But I'm registered, and 6% done with my first protein! This is really cool...looks really "official" (my major is biochem, too, so something so relevant to research is equally impressive because this is next generation of exploration - that is, proteomics. We've got the genome, now tracking ALL those different pathways and learning about the proteins that make them happen...Way cool!!)
well i registered before you i presume and i just checked my email again and still no bbs registration email. its been sevral hours now...
i will re-register and if that doesn't go through i will look for another team.
i just re-registered and this is what i got:
"Ikonboard Message
You are NOT logged in"
no mention of sending a registration email...
in the top 50 you have
MacNN at 11.6k
MacAddict4life at 9.1k
Team OSX at 13.9
MacOSRumors at 22.6k
together, you'd be pushing 57.2, which would put you within the top 10 teams in a few months.
as it is, no one team is likely to crack that barrier any time soon. you folks running the Mac based teams ever sit down and talk about combing them? it'd be nice to see a Mac based team in the top 5.