Team AnandTech FightAIDS@Home

[adeno]

Just found out about this DC project.. already 14 members!
All ya FA@Home people show your heads!

for the curious ones, here's a linky to what this DC is all about.

 

[MaxSiren]

Aids@Home uses Entropia, a client that intersperses commercial load testing with philantropic work. It's a for-profit system, one that I'm vehemently against. Distributed Computing was and still is a great idea, but companies jumping in and using this resource for profit, while attracting members by playing on people's sympathies (Aids, Cancer, Anthrax, etc....) is just plain disgusting.

This is only one guy's opinion, but frankly if more people thought along these lines and showed a bit more critical thinking, sleazy business people would have a much harder time taking advantage of misinformed individuals of good will. United Devices pushed me over the egde, and I'll continue to bash these so-called "projects" until they change their ways.

 

[IJump]

<< Aids@Home uses Entropia, a client that intersperses commercial load testing with philantropic work. It's a for-profit system, one that I'm vehemently against. Distributed Computing was and still is a great idea, but companies jumping in and using this resource for profit, while attracting members by playing on people's sympathies (Aids, Cancer, Anthrax, etc....) is just plain disgusting.

This is only one guy's opinion, but frankly if more people thought along these lines and showed a bit more critical thinking, sleazy business people would have a much harder time taking advantage of misinformed individuals of good will. United Devices pushed me over the egde, and I'll continue to bash these so-called "projects" until they change their ways. >>




I agree. No for profit DC projects for me.....

 

[adeno]

Wow.. didn't know Entropia was a profit-DC company.. :Q
Guess this says enough about my ignorance..

Maybe I can just hope that there will be a non-profit DC out there for fighting AIDS.. this is definitely a type of cause worth my computer processing power.

 

[TwilightZone77]

<< Aids@Home uses Entropia, a client that intersperses commercial load testing with philantropic work. It's a for-profit system, one that I'm vehemently against. Distributed Computing was and still is a great idea, but companies jumping in and using this resource for profit, while attracting members by playing on people's sympathies (Aids, Cancer, Anthrax, etc....) is just plain disgusting.

This is only one guy's opinion, but frankly if more people thought along these lines and showed a bit more critical thinking, sleazy business people would have a much harder time taking advantage of misinformed individuals of good will. United Devices pushed me over the egde, and I'll continue to bash these so-called "projects" until they change their ways. >>



You mean to say that the UD Cancer Research makes use of this? Strange, I never knew that. It's funny someone hasn't mentioned it before.

 

[RustyNale]

adelacru, come join us doing folding @ home, we're in a (one-sided) race against TechIMO, got to rub the sneer off their faces--and it's helping research to understand how protein's fold And as far as I know, it's a non profit setup...

 

[MaxSiren]

UD left themselves a PR backdoor by making it possible to disable commercial work, but to do this involves 2 logins at their web site, a maze of links, and a very discreetly placed option. Besides that, they have contests and prizes for users, but you're made ineligible for these if you disable the commercial work.

Also, I'm terribly sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but scanning proteins for compatibility with cancer cells or HIV cells won't cure these horrible diseases. At best, the work narrows down which proteins 'may' interact with cells, possibly allowing the development of new medications that do exactly the same job that many current medications accomplish. UD says that all results are published openly, which is true. But these results are useless until someone uses them to come up with a finished product, which IS patented. So, the results go to the university, who in turn works with whichever pharmaceutical company(s) they have contracts with. Then these companies refine the medication, patent it themselves, slap a catchy name on it, and sell it for the same exhorbitant price all the other pharmaceutical companies sell their equally effective medication for.

I've lost 2 relatives to cancer, 1 friend to AIDS. None of them could afford any medication that was still under patent, because none are covered by canadian medicare. Heck, most of these medications aren't even approved for use in Canada yet, because they don't have any real scientific data confirming that they actually DO ANYTHING!

 

[bunker]

Max, not trying to argue here, but would you have us not do any research then?

Someone's going to make money off of drug research. As much as we'd all like it to be totally philanthropic, it never will be.

 

[TNOguy]

I was doing FightAids@Home for a while in my own team, Trust No One, but got fed up with those people at Entropia and quit it. I even knew they were for-profit too. But for me, when the team had the project sanctioned and asked for contributors, well, I couldn't say no...until I got fed up with the Entropic BS. I still run three UD clients though because maybe I'm naive and actually think we are helping in some small way. And if any of the DC help in medical research leads to anything useful, yes indeedy someone will get rich off it, and I am well aware it won't be ANY of us. But still.

TNOguy

 

[adeno]

<<
Someone's going to make money off of drug research. As much as we'd all like it to be totally philanthropic, it never will be. >>



Sadly enough, that's actually true. :disgust:

 

[MaxSiren]

While I take issue with the idea that this research "must" be done, us doing it just saves the big companies that much more money. The truth is that the only drive towards any research is to make money. If it's not profitable, it's not worth it. The only exception to this is, and has always been, in the scientific community. I've never been tempted to try a project other than Seti@Home because it is the only one that in my opinion truly is a scientific endeavour. Collect data, examine data, draw hypotheses, etc...

The only aim of Berkeley's project has been the pursuit of knowledge, as it should be.


My point about the other projects is that our participation is not really needed for the philantropic work, only for the commercial work. The work we do on AIDS/cancer/anthrax protein checking can easily be done by the companies themselves. Why should we do it for them, if they're just going to turn around and charge us insane prices for the finished products? I think it's naive to believe that without our participation, it wouldn't get done.

 

[MereMortal]

Arrrghh. I was going to let you go because it seemed like you were just expressing a distaste for certain medical/biological DC projects, and you have a right to that opinion. But you had to keep pushing until you said something inexcusable.


SETI@home is the only truly scientific endeavor?

To make a claim such as that, you must:
1) not be very experienced in the world of distributed computing,
and/or
2) be extremely biased concerning certain distributed computing projects,
and/or
3) not know much about scientific endeavors.


Even if you consider none of the other projects mentioned in this thread as 'scientific', there have been other projects that fit on to the pedestal that you place SETI@home upon.

What about the various Optimal Golomb Ruler (OGR) projects?
How about the Xpulsar@home project?
And then there is the Distributed Particle Accelerator Design project, no?
Perhaps not as traditional as other projects, but still at least as significant as SETI@home is the NASA Clickworkers project.


If, for some reason, you still think that SETI is the 'only' real scientific project going, what makes SETI@home any more credible than the other SETI projects out there? There are others, you know---such as the ASRG SETI project.


Astrophysically, SETI has little merit. If there was a project to search data for natural radio sources, that would be beneficial.

Astrobiologically, SETI is viable because those astrobiologists need to have something to do.

Ok, rant over.

 

[Chipster22]

<< <<Someone's going to make money off of drug research. As much as we'd all like it to be totally philanthropic, it never will be. >> >>





<< Sadly enough, that's actually true. >>



Just adding my 2 cents: I don't think that is sad at all. As a farmer, I could see the same line of thought used against me. It could be said, "All people need to eat, so it would be wrong to make money on food." The Bible teaches the worker deserves his wages. Corruption and earning money are not always the same thing.

/me trying to screw the lid back on this can o'worms

 

[Robor]

MaxSiren Thanks for exposing another "for profit" DC project.