I was heavily involved in DC a few years ago running several machines including one built specifically just for DC. Got out of it for two reasons. One, as I looked into some projects and especially how much some management got paid, I personally thought it was unethical and misleading to those who participated at our expense. To anyone who has really looked close at many projects know what I mean. Two, like many, its just difficult waiting and never getting any real news about progress, most was just fluff and a never ending we're almost their routine. I know these projects are not overnight success stories and may take years and still then never solve any great issues. So don't take offense anyone who believes their project is the best or those who are doing DC just for the "feel good" cause, that's fine and a personal choice. My choice is to help a project that has very good chance at making a difference. Thats my choice and before I get back into it, I need to know I have a project like that.
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Looking for DC project that is actually making a difference
- Thread starter flyted
- Start date
Rudy Toody
Diamond Member
SIMAP catalogues proteins so researchers can search the data base for specific features. Work is limited to a few days around the 1st of each month.
You may not be on the defensive but you also don't speak for everyone. I'm being polite. Some defend their project, despite the realities of it, with their life. I have no problem with that. I support the right to put the effort and money into what they believe. We are all different. I thought my goals were fairly clear but maybe I should clarify more. A project with a good reputation that can withstand internal scrutiny and has a good chance of actually producing a usable result within a year or two. By scrutiny I mean a project that has internal controls and is transparent as to what is really going on, who's behind it and the pay. I could start a DC project today as well as anyone else, that doesn't make it a good one. Also, some projects are clearly more at odds with a solution to their quest than others, again personal choice, not a judgement. I just want something that I can reasonably expect real-life results in a year or two. Not something that I will put so much money and effort into for a 1 in 10 billion odds of finding anything.
petrusbroder
Elite Member
I do not have one specific project I care for especially. I am crunching many. Some for a month or two, while I learn about the project, some for several years because I like them.
Which projects matter? That is hard to know. I think that the "efficiency" of a project will be known a decade or two after the project has started (e.g. like in Rosetta@home or Folding @home, and others) when enough data has been processed. Other projects are the "needle in the haystack"-kind and the result or effect is a matter of not only processing enough data but also at the right time and the right place (e.g. Seti@home, Orbit@home, and others).
Some projects have already published data, others not. The impact of published scientific results is understandable in the long run and that may take quite a few years (I know that from my own experience: my own published papers from the 1980-ies are being much more apprecieted (and quoted) much more now than they were in the 1990-ies).
So it is very hard to see which projects will have an impact and which will not. And that is why I crunch many.
If I had to chose a project on that base I would probably look at World Community Grid. Some of these project are well described, have tangible goals which seem to be very well founded in science and they adress real-world needs. The projects seem ethical and I am not aware of any problems or hanky-panky either.
I do not have any idea how much the admins and devs and scientist are paid, but most of the time their pay is not enough for their efforts, knowledge and competence (OTOH: I do not think that any scientist worth his/her salt is being paid enough ... the ability to generate or confirm new knowledge is - IMHO - worth very much money).
I select my long term project for many different reasons which I may or may not write about some time. Included in these reasons is also my sense of the phantastic or odd, and not only the scientific basis, which is - BTW - very hard to estimate unless you are a Ph.D. in quite a few very different disciplines. I do understand the medical and biological projects some what better and the math projects somewhat less. Probably because i have a Ph.D. in neuroscience and a solid background in medicine, psychology and psychiatry. But this is not too much help because judging science even in one discipline is very, very hard. Probably some random project will - in retrospect - have the most interesting results ...
Which projects matter? That is hard to know. I think that the "efficiency" of a project will be known a decade or two after the project has started (e.g. like in Rosetta@home or Folding @home, and others) when enough data has been processed. Other projects are the "needle in the haystack"-kind and the result or effect is a matter of not only processing enough data but also at the right time and the right place (e.g. Seti@home, Orbit@home, and others).
Some projects have already published data, others not. The impact of published scientific results is understandable in the long run and that may take quite a few years (I know that from my own experience: my own published papers from the 1980-ies are being much more apprecieted (and quoted) much more now than they were in the 1990-ies).
So it is very hard to see which projects will have an impact and which will not. And that is why I crunch many.
If I had to chose a project on that base I would probably look at World Community Grid. Some of these project are well described, have tangible goals which seem to be very well founded in science and they adress real-world needs. The projects seem ethical and I am not aware of any problems or hanky-panky either.
I do not have any idea how much the admins and devs and scientist are paid, but most of the time their pay is not enough for their efforts, knowledge and competence (OTOH: I do not think that any scientist worth his/her salt is being paid enough ... the ability to generate or confirm new knowledge is - IMHO - worth very much money).
I select my long term project for many different reasons which I may or may not write about some time. Included in these reasons is also my sense of the phantastic or odd, and not only the scientific basis, which is - BTW - very hard to estimate unless you are a Ph.D. in quite a few very different disciplines. I do understand the medical and biological projects some what better and the math projects somewhat less. Probably because i have a Ph.D. in neuroscience and a solid background in medicine, psychology and psychiatry. But this is not too much help because judging science even in one discipline is very, very hard. Probably some random project will - in retrospect - have the most interesting results ...
VirtualLarry
No Lifer
Well, Seti is obviously out.
I crunch SeventeenorBust, it has a solid mathematical goal, and is steadily progressing towards it. It's also a very easy client to set up, and it runs without any maintenance (unless the server goes down, which is very rare).
Assimilator1
Elite Member
flyted
Hi 🙂, can't say I have an answer for you, but cutting down the results return to 1-2yrs is going to cut out a lot of projects!, you'd have a much wider choice if you were willing to go to 5-10yrs. (No I'm not counting SETI in that bracket 😉).
Well, in advance welcome back to DC & TA 🙂.
:laugh:
Hi 🙂, can't say I have an answer for you, but cutting down the results return to 1-2yrs is going to cut out a lot of projects!, you'd have a much wider choice if you were willing to go to 5-10yrs. (No I'm not counting SETI in that bracket 😉).
Well, in advance welcome back to DC & TA 🙂.
I dispute that, I'd say more like 1 in 10 million 😉😛
:laugh:
GLeeM
Elite Member
The following from here. It kind of addresses the points made that this stuff can take a long time, but it appears that results are coming.
December 18, 2008
New FAH results on possible new Alzheimer's drug presented
This is very preliminary news, but something I'm very, very excited about, so I'll give some advance news. On Tuesday, we presented our results regarding new possible drugs (small molecule leads) to fight Alzheimer's Disease at a recent meeting at Stanford. This meeting was part of the NIH Roadmap Nanomedicine center (http://proteinfoldingcenter.org/) retreat and was supported by NIH grants to Folding@home.
It's very early (so we are not publicly talking about the details until this has passed peer review), but we are very excited that it looks like we may have multiple small molecules which appear to inhibit toxicity of Abeta, the protein which is the toxic element in Alzheimer's Disease.
This is exciting in many ways. It's been a long road for FAH to get to this point, but we are starting to see the possibility of seeing these results published easily before our 10th birthday (October 2010). Considering all the technology development that had to be done in the first five years, these results have come very quickly (in the last 3 years), which is exciting. In particular, we are now looking to apply these methods to other protein misfolding diseases (we have pilot projects for Huntington's Disease underway).
Finally, I should stress that while we're very excited about this, it's still early and a lot can go wrong between where we are and having a drug that doctors can prescribe. Over the holidays, we will be double checking the experimental data, crossing t's and dotting i's to make sure there is nothing missed before we think about submitting this for peer reviewed publication. Also, there is still a long way from an interesting possible drug (where we are now) to something which has passed FDA clinical trials (where we'd love to be), and a lot can go wrong in clinical trials in particular.
Thus, this is an important milestone for FAH and we are very grateful to all who have contributed. Happy holidays to all!
LOL, might be but it is the fun of the chase 😉
December 18, 2008
New FAH results on possible new Alzheimer's drug presented
This is very preliminary news, but something I'm very, very excited about, so I'll give some advance news. On Tuesday, we presented our results regarding new possible drugs (small molecule leads) to fight Alzheimer's Disease at a recent meeting at Stanford. This meeting was part of the NIH Roadmap Nanomedicine center (http://proteinfoldingcenter.org/) retreat and was supported by NIH grants to Folding@home.
It's very early (so we are not publicly talking about the details until this has passed peer review), but we are very excited that it looks like we may have multiple small molecules which appear to inhibit toxicity of Abeta, the protein which is the toxic element in Alzheimer's Disease.
This is exciting in many ways. It's been a long road for FAH to get to this point, but we are starting to see the possibility of seeing these results published easily before our 10th birthday (October 2010). Considering all the technology development that had to be done in the first five years, these results have come very quickly (in the last 3 years), which is exciting. In particular, we are now looking to apply these methods to other protein misfolding diseases (we have pilot projects for Huntington's Disease underway).
Finally, I should stress that while we're very excited about this, it's still early and a lot can go wrong between where we are and having a drug that doctors can prescribe. Over the holidays, we will be double checking the experimental data, crossing t's and dotting i's to make sure there is nothing missed before we think about submitting this for peer reviewed publication. Also, there is still a long way from an interesting possible drug (where we are now) to something which has passed FDA clinical trials (where we'd love to be), and a lot can go wrong in clinical trials in particular.
Thus, this is an important milestone for FAH and we are very grateful to all who have contributed. Happy holidays to all!
LOL, might be but it is the fun of the chase 😉
Assimilator1
Elite Member
Of course 🙂, & if you don't look you won't find.
<--- will of been crunching SETI for 10yrs in October! :Q 😉
<--- will of been crunching SETI for 10yrs in October! :Q 😉
Thanks to all who replied. My time frame is certainly in the 1-2 year period. Wish someone like the BBB or Charity Navigator or similar would do research on DC which would not only get it publicity but allow those most promising to get more support and quicker results, while eliminating those that are more just for fun or points races. And yeah of course there would be times when the underdog scores ahead of a favorite but there has to be some more scientific close and valid projects. Tried F@H and felt progress was just too slow despite good communications. Really need a short termer to feel good about dedicated my resources to it. I'll keep looking and in the meantime if anyone hears about one that seems close, please let me know. Thanks
VirtualLarry
No Lifer
I really don't think that "short term goal" and Distributed Computing mix very well.
Most DC apps are more long-term, not in the least bit because it takes quite a bit of work to set up a DC architecture. Short-term goals would likely just run on a supercomputer, instead of DC.
So good luck, I don't think that you will find what you seem to be looking for.
Most DC apps are more long-term, not in the least bit because it takes quite a bit of work to set up a DC architecture. Short-term goals would likely just run on a supercomputer, instead of DC.
So good luck, I don't think that you will find what you seem to be looking for.
jonesthewine
Senior member
list of ingredients please...
GLeeM
Elite Member
You could check out MalariaControl on the BOINC platform. I didn't check it out like you might, but I thought it would have the greatest chance of helping lots of people soonest of all the DC programs.
Do they have frosting on them?
Walnuts or Pecans inside?
Are there any left?
I'll trade you two cookies for one 😛
:brownie;
Do they have frosting on them?
Walnuts or Pecans inside?
Are there any left?
I'll trade you two cookies for one 😛
:brownie;
Assimilator1
Elite Member
flyted
You're too impatiant 😉
Sid
Sounds good 😀
You're too impatiant 😉
Sid
Sounds good 😀
Alyx
Golden Member
I agree. If the project would only take 1-2 years then they'd probably not put the time investment into DC. Many projects don't ramp up to a decent number of crunchers for quite a while so they'd probably be better off going for a supercomputer.
Although WCG is a little different, many projects only run for a few months and have very set goals. You can look at their list of retired/finished projects, its getting quite a few. I think WCG is half distributed computing, half "cloud computing" where researchers make a case to WCG then get the ability to run stuff for a few months without all the initial setup or work that most stand alone projects incur.
Gleem, thanks for the idea about the Malaria control project, that is one who has had enough data for years that they may be getting close. To those who think 1-2 years is just too short, sorry but not everyone wants a 5-10 year project and clearly some solutions HAVE TO BE scientifically closer than others, that's just reality. In any case, any help from anyone is still help and still one step closer. Discouraging, if that's what it was is not compatible with what any DC project wants, they need help for however long they can get it. Despite our own personal preferences for projects and time frames, I hope we at least all have the same goal of making the world a better place.
Gleem- MalariaControl was a good guess, I checked it out and would probably participate but it seems like no work is available for some time and the program is up in the air for now. But we're on the right track as tons of work has already been done on this area and a case can be made that a solution is reasonably near as far as research goes.
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