Be a Superhero with TeamCFC. Help us perform miracles.

[El_Machinae]

The likelihood of a cure being affordable is much higher after it's found. As well, since a cure is an information technology (in many ways), the price will come down over time. Even if it takes 30 years for the cure to be 'affordable', you still save lives by getting it made earlier.

I think this folding-thing is going to be a lot like sequencing the genome. A HUGE amount of work will be done to get the first bit done, and then as efficiencies and innovation kick in, the folding process will escalate. So, while it will take years to fold p53 (a very important protein), each additional protein will be done at a faster rate.

As well, I like supporting the concept of Distributed Computing. It's an innovation that can grow. Overtime, more applications will be available to tease people. For example, I believe that BOINC has a climate predictor running and being improved upon - Lambert might approve of supporting such a program with a small marginal cost.

I've made no secret about being a fair-weather folder. As soon as a good brain DC project starts up, I'm outtie!

 

[Abaddon]

Hell i do it to feel awesome.

Its no skin off my nose to do it, so why not?

The miniscule extra energy used.. i doubt it even registers..personally i dont leave my laptop to fold, it simply does it while im on anyway.

 

[Abaddon]

As soon as a good brain DC project starts up, I'm outtie!

Whats Brain DC?

 

[El_Machinae]

DC = Distributed Computing, which is the type of project we're working on here.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

No reply to me?

Sorry, just got a lot on at work, and I want to make sure I actually write a considered reply. After I read Sahk's comment, I was mentally replying to it already... no favouritism (), honest!

Lambert, I'm interested in what kind of scientific projects you support. What scrutiny do they need to go through in order to be allowed computing time?

Good question. I don't actively support any scientific projects. I have no issue with most of them being done, but other than giving a couple of quid to people rattling cans for cancer research, I don't actively support any. (My wife used to rattle cans door-to-door for kidney research, but that's probably neither here nor there.)

For the money & effort I'm prepared to give to charitable causes, I will normally choose third world charities, human rights organisations, and charities who work with the homeless and badly housed. I think there's a lot of lives to be improved and saved right here, right now (to quote Norman Cook), and the cumulative beneficial effect of that will well outweigh donations to scientific research.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

The likelihood of a cure being affordable is much higher after it's found.

Heh. Yes indeed. Though, to be fair, I wasn't making this a plank in my argument at all, other than using it to highlight what I considered a rose-tinted view of the potential results.

 

[ironduck]

Good question. I don't actively support any scientific projects. I have no issue with most of them being done, but other than giving a couple of quid to people rattling cans for cancer research, I don't actively support any. (My wife used to rattle cans door-to-door for kidney research, but that's probably neither here nor there.)

For the money & effort I'm prepared to give to charitable causes, I will normally choose third world charities, human rights organisations, and charities who work with the homeless and badly housed. I think there's a lot of lives to be improved and saved right here, right now (to quote Norman Cook), and the cumulative beneficial effect of that will well outweigh donations to scientific research.

Does that mean you're against government supported basic research programs? Because they're financed through taxes.

Also, given your concern for global warming wouldn't it make sense to increase research for clean power solutions? Because realistically that's the only way to cut strongly down on CO2 output.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Wonder if I'll get into trouble because I prefer replying to each post individually, and hence might have three consecutive posts in this thread ? Oh well....

I wondered this about the supercomputer too.
Link.

Yeah, I had seen that before. Maybe it's a style thing, but I end up less convinced by anything which makes that much use of bolding and exclamation marks! Just feels AS IF THEY'RE SHOUTING, rather than letting the words and facts do the talking. Put it another way, the answer there is from someone who is so clearly a convert, they have forgotten that they might be talking to someone who isn't.

But I think my point stands regardless of whether we're talking supercomputers or arrays of PCs. Glaxo Smith Kline have loads of employees, all (maybe most) with PCs, but I'm fairly sure they haven't bothered with any internal Folding projects. Same for the US and UK governments.

And yes I do take it completely on faith that this will even help anything at all.... ....I suspect you have a similar trust that your monthly donation to Oxfam actually helps those in need. We can choose with whom we place our trust, but from then on we often have to blindly trust them to proceed beyond that point without us knowing or understanding all the details.

Actually, Oxfam make quite extensive efforts to demonstrate to their supporters the results of their donations - check out their website and newsletters. Most charities do - they have to in order to keep the donations rolling in. The clarity of the consequences there far outweighs that of F@H, where it does rather appear, to be honest, to be based on faith

Perhaps this is all rose-tinted, but hey, I'm an optimist.

Nothing wrong with that. To be honest, I hope I'm wrong.

 

[ironduck]

But I think my point stands regardless of whether we're talking supercomputers or arrays of PCs. Glaxo Smith Kline have loads of employees, all (maybe most) with PCs, but I'm fairly sure they haven't bothered with any internal Folding projects. Same for the US and UK governments.

I'm not sure private corporations that want to protect their research want to make use of volunteers for their purposes. They could easily find themselves pressured to release the research free of charge, which is exactly what they don't want. Makes much more sense to do the research privately in their case. As for governments - the only two computationally intensive programs I can think of are space and millitary. Millitary isn't likely to happen, and space - why not?

Or are you just unconvinced by the concept of distributed computing altogether? Processing is processing, no?

The clarity of the consequences there far outweighs that of F@H, where it does rather appear, to be honest, to be based on faith

Peer reviewed articles in regarded publications don't count as clarity?

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Does that mean you're against government supported basic research programs? Because they're financed through taxes.

Also, given your concern for global warming wouldn't it make sense to increase research for clean power solutions? Because realistically that's the only way to cut strongly down on CO2 output.

Hey! You stopped me having three consecutive posts! Thanks! (Note to self - 3 exclamation marks ? You'll be using bolding next...)

Am I against government funded research ? No, not in general. I have enough issues with other aspects of my and your government's activities to spend time worrying about which science projects they choose to support. I'm also generally quite socialist, and accept therefore that governments can't keep everyone happy on everything, but nonetheless have a mandate to make decisions on the basis of a broad mandate. (Wait a second, do I agree with that because I'm a democrat or because I'm a socialist ? Anyhow...) This is a part of the mandate that I'll generally go along with, if they echo my views on 3rd world debt, workers' rights, women's rights, gay rights, racism, and the environment.

Increased research for cleaner power ? Yes, generally I'm in favour of that. Does F@H offer this ?

But waiting for clean energy reasearch to make a big difference is, IMHO, a terrible mistake - we need to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions now, with the technology we have, and rely on political and personal will to drive the needed improvement, rather than just hoping a technological deus ex machina will save us.

 

[ironduck]

If you're not against government funded basic research, are you for it? After all, you're paying for it.. I'm strongly in favour of it. Basic research is very important because it creates the foundation for our scientific progress, and it's rarely done by private enterprise since the gains are all very long term and generally unknowable until after the fact.

Increased research for cleaner power ? Yes, generally I'm in favour of that. Does F@H offer this ?

No, but if a distributed computing program started up to increase the efficiency of solar panels or fuel cells, you might be interested?

But waiting for clean energy reasearch to make a big difference is, IMHO, a terrible mistake - we need to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions now, with the technology we have, and rely on political and personal will to drive the needed improvement, rather than just hoping a technological deus ex machina will save us.

As I mentioned earlier, it shouldn't be either-or, but rather opting in on both counts. We need to push non-polluting energy on a massive scale, but we also need to improve the technologies behind it to make it economically favourable for everyone to stop burning fossil fuels altogether. If it's not economically advantageous to switch away from them, too many countries will burn them for a long time to come.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Sorry, ironduck, been away for a while. While I don't like not replying to people's queries, you do tend to respond with another barrage as soon as I posted, and I'm not quite sure what you're trying to achieve - whether to "win" in some sense, convert me (not that likely ), defend your position or what. I think you've answered my queries well enough, and I really hope I didn't come over as attacking your activities too strongly - after all, I think you're wasting your time and an amount of energy, but, compared to my friends at Exxon, you're still on the side of the angels.

To try to answer a couple of your questions, I accept Government funded research without being passionate about it. I think we can do more for the common good with the money elsewhere, but I think it would be foolish to stop investing in it, as it's not something that you can easily switch back on. Back in my heady (and youthful) days as a government funded scientific researcher on, err, road maintenance options (hey, I never said it was as exciting as curing cancer, did I ?), we kept investing in relatively uneconomic concrete roads (rather than going for a 100% tar macadam strategy) because it was seen as key to keep the technological ability and civil engineering capacity to do concrete roads. Decide to stop doing it, and basically it's a one-way road. (heh - geddit ? Ah, please yourselves... )

I think you missed the point I was trying to make about distributed computing projects - if this was currently a good way of solving problems, I'd expect to see the approach used in commercial and state organisations - not necessarily for this research you're currently tangentially involved in. I quite accept this might change in the future.

Lastly, on clean energy research, sure, by all means have both. But I stick to the gist of what I was saying previously - energy research isn't going to be a silver bullet for climate change by almost any stretch of the imagination. It's personal and political will that is required to avoid a potential catastophe.

 

[ironduck]

I just figured we were discussing some fairly fundamental thing regarding the utility and need for research, and since this is a debate forum.. but I'll stop debating further then. I would like to point out that my main reason for government funded research is that it's used for fundamental research that is often not otherwise carried out.

 

[RFHolloway]

Why did I join?

- it might do some good (the guys doing the research seem to think so)
- it doesn't cost me anything
- I am a little competitive by nature, and climbing up a league table like this diverts a few minutes of a lunch time.

my efforts probably won't change the world, but then again they just might.

 

[Sophie 378]

Hello Helpdesk, A comment/suggestion has been submitted under the Computing Category from the Tell Us What you think website. The comment:

Why do we not run any distributed computing projects? We could use the spare and wasted processing power of all the hundreds of idle computers that get left running 24/7 to do good! The computer clusters often have nobody using them for hours at a time - just using energy to no benefit - and even when they are in use, the projects can still run without disturbing the use. http://www.distributedcomputing.info/projects.html has a good list of choices. I recommend Folding@Home (http://folding.stanford.edu/) and Seti@Home (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/).

Hello
Thank-you for your suggestion.
Overnight our cluster PCs are updated and reimaged and it is best not to run a screensaver such as SETI@home in case this vital maintenance work is affected.
Best Wishes

Any suggestions for how I can try to persuade them? IglooDude?

 

[ironduck]

What does it mean that they're reimaged?

 

[Sophie 378]

I have not the faintest clue.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Any suggestions for how I can try to persuade them?

I don't know anything about your college or about how much pull the alumnus have, but here's a possible idea of another approach. If your parents are alums and make an annual donation a suggestion from them to the higher-ups in the administration may carry a great deal of pull. Colleges are always looking for ways to endear themselves to the alumnus, especially ways that don't cost them any money. If the admin types told the computer department that they thought a DC project would be a good idea, you can bet that the system guys would fall all over themselves making it happen.

If you don't know any alumni perhaps you could bypass the computer department and go straight to the administration yourself. Pull some examples from the team list of other notable colleges and universities that donate and ask them why your school can't donate too. You know, good for the world, positive publicity, something to put in the next fund-raising newsletter, etc.

And welcome to the world of politics.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Re-imaging the PCs would normally mean that they get wiped each night and a clean installation of all relevant apps is applied. I believe this is pretty common in university & school type situations where a group of PCs are made available to a large number of different people - it ensures that yesterday's oh-so-smart registry hack doesn't screw things up for people today. From an IT department's perspective, they need to ensure that they do job 1 - provide the necessary computing resources for the university and its students - before they start considering public service activities. It's probably not politics, but just a matter of their priorities.

Sahk, UK universities don't work on the same basis as US colleges, at least as far as the weight alumni have. It wouldn't harm for almuni to mention this to the university, but it probably would get a token reply.

 

[IglooDame]

Lambert beat me to it. They're wiping/reloading the OS and applications every night, meaning that if you're running a Folding job that takes more than 24hrs to complete, you're outta luck anyway.