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kd2777

Golden Member
I have come to a point in my life that I want to help out. I have a decent computer and for what ever reason leave it on all the time (I have convinced myself it is better this way), so what I am wanting to do is put it to good use. I don't know if it is possible but I would ultimately like to help out mankind. I have been looking though the DC forum and have seen a couple that strike my interest but would like some suggestion (and reasons why) to a good project to jump on board with. If they are out there I would like to donate to medical research or something like that.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

KD
 
I'd like to recommend Folding@Home. It's a great project that does medical-related research, and is pretty stable. Only issue is that it's not entirely pain-free to run on dialup (it can be done - many others including myself do it, but it takes a small bit of dedication). If you have a connection that is always on, or that can dial on demand, then you'd have no trouble running it. The above link points to a little FAQ; the main site is here. If you have any questions about the project, we'll try to help the best we can. 🙂
 
I suggest you spend some time reading up on the different projects and find ones that you think will interest you. Then you can try a couple of them until you find one that you like. After this impartial suggestion I would suggest you run seventeen or bust because we need the help and are currently getting clobbered by the team over at arstechnica and will lose our #1 position really soon if we don't get some massive help.
 
Welcome to the TeAm, kd2777!

These are the Medical Research projects and the areas they work in, that I know of offhand:
United Devices - Cancer, HIV, ?
Folding@Home - Alzheimers, Parkinsons, ALS, etc.
Ubero -
D2OL - Anthrax, SARS, Malaria, Small Pox
Distributed Folding -
Community TSC - a childhood disease
Find-a-Drug -

Here http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=39&threadid=1151599&enterthread=y is the sticky at the top of our forum that gives more info on these projects.

If you like to hang around the forum, F@H, D2OL, UD, and FaD have stat pages and active members that hang around here too, that you can make friends with. 🙂

I always left my computer on also, and do medical research projects 🙂

Edit: I see you're humble too, 😉 just looked at your "decent" computer.
 
Another one that was left out is ClimatePrediction.Net It's a climate simulating project with a decent software and well worth a try, though one work unit takes about 20 days on fast machines, casue it'll simulate 45 years of climate changes --> that just takes time to compute 😉

I guess you just have to be aware of your internet using habits. There are some projects that require you to be online almost 24/7 like Folding@Home, cause it can't store work units. Than there are projects like Lifemapper or D2OL that can store 200 (LM) or even 2000 work units (D2OL) and thus you only need to get online every third day (LM) or even only every week or so (D2OL), depending on you CPU speed. Or you have a project like ClimatePrediction.Net (CPDN) that has just very big work units and thus only needs to connect every 20 days (even on you nice rig kd277).

At least for me that was a major decision to be made cause I'm not online 24/7 and thus Folding@Home often was just idle on my machine cause it couldn' download the next work unit, and that's just a bad waste of CPU power and I changed to another project.

Hope this helps you a bit 🙂
 
I don't know if it is possible but I would ultimately like to help out mankind
Click to expand...

how about aiding in one of the most important searchs in the history of mankind, the search for life beyond our planet

see my sig if you want to join us in this search
 
Heh, maybe aliens have a cure for cancer. 😉

I thought he was talking about medical projects mainly.

BTW, F@H can run in a mode where it doesn't need to connect to the internet as much (set Genome@Home WU preference or "gah" in the CLI under advanced preferences). You won't get real G@H work (that project has been shut down), but you will get work units that aren't time sensitive, and it will cache a certain number (8 or 10 I think, which is enough to keep most computers going for at least several days, or probably at least a week if your machine isn't really high end).
 
tHANKS GUYS, i'M READING THROUGH THE ARTICLES NOW AND WILL PICE ON IN A DAY OR TWO. i HAVE dsl AND IT STAYS CONNECTED ALL THE TIME SO NONE OF THEM SHOULD BE RULLED OUT.

THANKS AGAIN.

kd
 
Hmm, looks like we need a Distributed Make-Sure-Your-CapsLock-Key-Isn't-Accidentally-Stuck-On Project. 😉

We'll be glad to have you on the TeAm no matter what project you join! Every little (and bigger, in the case of your A64) bit helps. Most importantly, don't let it become an obsession, and have fun. 😀

:wine:
 
Originally posted by: jliechty
Hmm, looks like we need a Distributed Make-Sure-Your-CapsLock-Key-Isn't-Accidentally-Stuck-On Project. 😉

We'll be glad to have you on the TeAm no matter what project you join! Every little (and bigger, in the case of your A64) bit helps. Most importantly, don't let it become an obsession, and have fun. 😀

:wine:
Click to expand...

😀
 
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