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Fight Aids at Home (www.fightaidsathome.com)

dcdomain

dcdomain

Diamond Member
Did a search for this, and it looks like no one else mentioned it before. Was reading through the newest issue of Wired magazine, and came across a small blurb about this. On page 82 of the January 2001 edition.

http://www.fightaidsathome.com/ Just another distributed computing client, using your idle processing cycles to help fight Aids by processing calculations on new drug variants, to see how they bind with a protein to combat the virus. Be aware though that some of your (10 percent of the donated CPU cycles) will be used for commercial tasks. If someone wants me to type up the article it's not that long, I'll do it...

Gotta do some research on the ERD disk for my Win2k rig though... damn Win2k...
 
It has been mentioned in a few threads, and looks like an interesting and worthwhile project, but I've heard (not confirmed) that their client is fairly buggy, and the stats leave much to be desired. I wouldn't mind that 10% going to commercial projects if ALL of the money from those projects were put directly back into the AIDS research, but it would be nice to be able to choose which secondary project to work on...
 
DC,

You can still use rdisk from NT4.0. It will store it in the usual place \winnt\repair, the only catch is that it is compressed. You can expand it manually so you can use it from the recovery console. I have also used NTFSDOS to get to the files.

Hope this helps...

-GWN
 
It was mentioned by Pyro recently in 1 of his 'why do it?' threads.
We didnt get any detail though ,so any extra info would be welcome🙂
 
-from page 82 of the January 2001 issue of Wired Magazine-

The CPU Cure: Distributed Computing

Wish you could use all those wasted CPU cycles for something other than detecting extraterrestrials?

FightAIDS@home, a project run by Entropia, a San Diego-based distributed computing company, aims to do for AIDS research what SETI@home has done for alien watching.

PC Users can download free software from Entropia (www.fightaidsathome.com), and then donate their systems' idle processing power to help researchers generate and test millions of drug compounds to fight AIDS. In the first 30 days after the program's September launch, users contributed more than half a million CPU-hours to the effort.

"What we're really interested in looking at is a huge number of potential drugs and targeting a huge number of proteins," says Arthur Olson, director of the Molecular Graphics Laboratory at the Scripps Research Institue, a biomedical research organization in La Jolla, California, that's collaborating with Entropia.

The AIDS virus is a particularly difficult target because it can mutate quickly into strains that resist existing drugs. By tapping into Entropia's network of PCs, Scripps researchers can rapidly process calculations on millions of new drug variants to see how they might bind with a protein to combat the virus. If a drug design run by a participants's PC proves effective, Entropia acknowledges the user on its site.

But not all your extra power is going to AIDS research: About 10 percent of the donated CPU cycles are routed to commercial tasks such as pinging Web sites that pay Entropia to test their ability to handle traffic. "We can make money," says CEO Jim Madsen, "and make the world a better place, too." -Aaron Clark
 
GWN- Thanks for the idea, but I don't have any access to any NT based boxes around here... all ME and 98SE boxes. It's ok though, some friends coming back tomorrow night that have Win2K boxes. Waited two days, I can wait another one... 🙁

It's great that some company like Entropia is helping with the AIDS research. But it's not like they are really doing it to benefit AIDS research. They get to use our processing power for commercial purposes. I don't like how the CEO, Jim Madsen states, "We can make money, and make the world a better place too." So I guess making money is his first priority... which makes sense coming from a business perspective, but I feel that if I volunteer my PC's time, it should all go into helping with the research. If AIDS and us distributed computing peeps weren't around, Entropia wouldn't be around... like leeches.
 
dcdomain

I suppose they have to fund the project somehow ,I guess giving that 10% up is how they do it.I don't think that is too bad.

So are you going to start a TA aids@home team?
 
I've said this before.

Rest assured that if a productive aids research team needed computer time to help "crack" the code and find a cure THEY'D HAVE IT! They wouden't have to beg for free cpu cycles. Millions if not billions are put into aids research each year, do you think if they needed some stuid computer time they coulden't get it?! Throwing a mass of distributed computer time at the fight for aids is not what's needed. I really question what kind of aids research there doing. Why don't you see places like the Aids Foundation and others supporting this project? Do you think these billion dollar drug companies that are working on finding a cure for aids and other illnesses have a crack rack set up with some left over computers in a closet somewhere, hell no!

I don't want to sound like I'm downing there effort or anyhting. I just can't see why on earth they need to beg for cpu cycles using a internet based distributed program.

Ok.. let me sum it up. I feel if they needed cpu power to work out some huge problem there would be a massive call to arms by the media and aids support groups encourging people to run this software. It would be the talk of the town so to speak.

sorry for spelling I'm at work with no checker.

Bart
 
That is the key, money makes the world go around..or so Hollywood and the Media have programmed everyone to believe.

Anyhow, I digress. What is really going on? Those big companies want the money. College students are not really taught, they are brainwashed and shaped to fit a mold, to be slaves to the system. They are not trained for truly independent thought, or to be innovators. Think about it, with all the laboratories and "scientists", as compared to the resources other researchers have had in the past. Think about it, it is much easier to control you when they put the blinders on you. That is why Bill has Microsoft's army always looking so far and wide, since a brilliant independent thinker can change the whole power scheme and he wants them on his side, to control their creative powers. Unfortunately, in doing so, the incredible river of power flowing out of these people changes to that one last drip you get out of squeezing a wet towel really hard.

Oh, Yeah! I have a CS degree...so I know how to run some programs and a network!!! Gee, Wally, didn't you already know most of what you know by the age of 16? Well, Beaver, the more I think about it, the more I think you are right! So Wally, what are you doing wasting your life trying to figure out how to get around software and hardware bugs? They pay me well Beaver. But Wally, are you really making a difference...

Think about it kids, has it been the companies that have invented all the amazing life saving vacinations, or the individuals, like Pauling, Einstein, Janssen, van Leeuwenhoek, Hippocrates of Cos, Galileo, Pasteur, Newton, Galileo Galilei, Gilbert, Franklin, Bohr, and Planck, who have made a real difference in life?

Enjoy life and kick some DPC!
 
Think about it guys.

If Seti can find enough cash funding to look for ET being a NOT FOR PRIFIT org then don't you think that such a nobal cause such as aids@home could find some funding.... err.. that is if they were non profit, there a dot com. I think there in it for the $$ and I have my doubts about how much aids fighting there software does.

The head guy's statement is not what you'd expect form a company that should try to down play the money makeing part. There mission statement is summed up in his own words
1. make money
2. do that help thing.. ahh.. ya, fight aids.

A much better statement would be "we are commited to help find a cure for aids through our self supported distributed computeing project"

I could be wrong about aid$@home.. but I don't think so.

my 2c
Bart
 
Jarhead

>>>>. College students are not really taught, they are brainwashed and shaped to fit a mold, to be slaves to the system. They are not trained for truly independent thought, or to be innovators. <<<<<

Jesus! ,what planet are you from!? 😉 ,do you like conspiracy theories?.Anyway learning involves alot of 'brainwashing' in as much as your just going over someone elses work ,what's new?.

 


<< has it been the companies that have invented all the amazing life saving vacinations, or the individuals >>

that was a pretty stupid statement, what single entity owns more patents then anyone else in history? IBM does, and you know what IBM does with more than 75% of thier patents? GIVE THEM AWAY, FREE, see, not all companies are out to control and dominate. And as an individual, i dont feel, or have ever felt, from any of my current or past employers, that my computer programming skills have been directed or &quot;squeezed&quot; in any way, every manager ive ever had has encouraged me to be creative, innovative, original, to find better ways of doing things, and to research ideas that i am interested in. I feel my youth and enthusiasm was viewed as a valuable resource to the company, and i viewed the wisdom and expirience of the company as a valuable resource to me, If i were alone, neither of us would have benifited.

In contrast, it was my college proffesors who would not let me spread my wings, they were the ones who said there was a set way of doing things, end of discussion. I think they were just so used to teaching the same computer concepts year after year that they had gotten in a nice routine and didnt feel like changing it.
 
I dunno, both of my parents are medical researchers (in gene therapy delivery methods) and everything I hear daily from them about the academic world frankly sucks, peer review just results in corruption (people who dislike other people don't approve of other peoples grants when those grants are up for review in front of a board they are on), and instead choose the big labs, despite the fact that the big labs are not doing ground breaking research. I have little faith in this project, its a for profit, whi is not neccessarily a problem, look at openbsd, if they are for profit so they dont have all the book keeping hassels, but it just sounds like a way to generate money off of people who think they are helping aids research.
 
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