Your computer's idle time is too precious to waste. If you are running your PC with idle CPU cycles (realistically everybody has an idle CPU most of the time since most CPU usage is in quick bursts), consider putting it to work for a good cause.
Google has a new thing called Google Compute that installs as part of the
Google Toolbar (Google Toolbar is highly recommended for the Google Search box
and pop-up blocker). It uses idle time on your computer to do an analysis of
proteins which are related to a variety of diseases (such as Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's Disease, and others) as part of
Stanford's Folding @
Home project (explains why they call this protein folding).
The point of all this is to give the Stanford team a very low-cost supercomputer
made up of all of our computer's idle time to speed their research and hopefully
benefit everyone in the process.
And if you have a lot of idle time, then consider looking at
deck designs, watching grass dry,
satellite images,
some ugly halloween costumes,
and/or these nifty
halloween decorations &
christmas decorations.
You should ask a few questions (we
did) about whether Google compute includes spy-ware and how it would
affect performance on your PC. Basically it's no more intrusive than using
the Google search engine and tests have shown about a 0.5 to 1% performance hit
even in demanding games (it is the lowest priority task and throttles back
whenever you need more power). Does running Google compute
and Google Toolbar make your PC less stable? Jon
found that it made his computer more stable - go figure! I
know my PC has benefited - maybe it is another benefit of a high protein
diet, but for PC's ;-) Check out this
Flash presentation
on the Folding project if you have a couple of minutes.
The Google client looks a bit different but the idea is the same. By default, everyone who signs up is assigned a random "ID" ... but you can
use our "username" and everyone's contributions will be "counted together to
allow all of us to see how much of an impact we are making. If you would like to
use our Google Compute user ID, then after you install it, click on the DNA
double helix icon on your Google Toolbar, select Configuration, and then change
the username to "powder2glass" and press the "Save Settings" button at
the bottom of the page. If you are running a firewall or Win XP SP2 you may
need to grant the "google_fah" or some variation on this name permission to
communicate over the internet. We realize this might not be for everyone, but we thought we'd let people
know about a good way to put your idle computer power to good use. There is ZERO
benefit to us personally ... unless you count a possible breakthrough from your
computing that could help find a solution to something such as Alzheimer's or
Parkinson's Disease. Things that most people would like to never see themselves
or their loved ones suffer from like we have seen in each of our families.
There is no way to know "who" is using the powder2glass Google Compute
User ID (only the Active CPU count goes up), so if you do decide to "sign up",
send us an Email.
P.S. There is a certain amount of "Geek Glory" associated with being a
high ranking team in addition to the help this provides. There are over 300,000
usernames as part of Team Google . But with your assistance, we have been
rocketing up in the rankings as seen in the two rank columns. With your
help, we are now in the top-10 of Team-Google and closing in on the top-5. You
can see
Stanford's hourly updates and you can also look at our
daily
folding summary which we are putting the highlights from in the table below. Roger from the UK put this
excellent Folding @ Home stats page together to graphically show our
progress vs. the other top ten teams and how we are moving compared vs. the 2
teams on either side of us.
Gary Cohen at CO2 Partners helps new and established leaders achieve peak performance for themselves and for the organization they are taking to new heights through a combination of
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So if you decide this is for you, surf to the Google Compute Page
and install it.
Alek & Jon - Google Toolbar Compute powder2glass team
ACTIVE WORK GOOGLE (PROJECT)USER
YYYY_MM_DD CPU'S UNITS SCORE RANK RANK Comment
2004_01_13 1 0 0 300,000+ 600,000? Started
2004_03_24 12 80 5,448 1,354 16,973 Started Auto-Tracking Stats
2004_03_28 14 94 6,440 900 14,557 Busted into Team-Google Top-1000
2004_04_05 14 120 8,283 456 11,489 Busted into Team-Google Top-500
2004_04_13 14 143 9,914 294 9,728 Busted into Overall Top-10000
2004_04_20 13 171 11,899 193 8,210 Busted into Team-Google Top-200
2004_04_30 14 203 17,225 95 5,722 Busted into Team-Google Top-100
2004_05_06 14 224 20,666 71 4,797 Busted into Overall Top-5000
2004_05_12 19 257 26,181 47 3,773 Busted into Team-Google Top-50
2004_06_01 36 364 45,607 19 2,210 Busted into Team-Google Top-20
2004_06_07 38 397 50,736 15 2,000 Busted into Team-Google Top-15 and Overall Top-2000
2004_06_26 44 514 70,823 10 1,468 Moved into Team-Google #10 spot and Overall Top-1500
2004_07_02 51 568 82,944 7 1,228 Moved into Team-Google #7 ... 21,000 points to position #6
2004_07_10 51 643 100,911 7 998 Over 100K points and busted into top-1000 overall
2004_07_18 52 701 114,622 6 880 Moved into Team-Google #6 ... 44,000 points to position #5
2004_08_17 61 905 161,751 5 653 Moved into Team-Google #5 ... 100,000 points to position #4
2004_08_26 59 1,007 184,323 5 560 Over 1000 Work units! Great job everyone!
2004_09_05 63 1,142 209,557 5 496 Top 500 Overall and 200K points!
2004_10_08 61 2,061 302,108 5 354 Over 300K points in 10 months & ~100K in a month!
2004_10_17 57 2,233 323,353 4 337 Moved into Team-Google #4! Great Job Team!
2004_11_06 56 2,705 374,395 4 298 Top 300 Folding @ Home overall and 374K points!
2004_12_23 65 4,114 501,404 4 247 500K points and Top 250 Folding @ Home overall!!!
2005_04_02 59 6,237 774,242 4 200 Top 200 and 774K points!!!!! Way to go team powder2glass!
2005_07_24 43 7,202 1,000,101 4 210 1 million points!!! Great job Team!!!
Looks like we will Have 1 million points sometime in August ( Got it in July!!!) Keep up the good work.
PPS. Some of you may be running Linux - Folding @ Home works just great over there also, and here's the little "trick" to get it work properly for team-google and powder2glass.
We have had people from all over the world contribute their idle CPU cycles for team powder2glass check out the list of powder2glass supporters here ... and when be sure to send is
your info to be added when you sign up! Also read about how we have given away a BUNCH of free gmail invites to publicize the cause which not only resulted in a major clickfest, but also some good comedy!
BTW, I've started a new career selling Steamboat Springs Real Estate. Steamboat is an amazing place to ski, bike, fish and golf, email me if you come into to town.
If you like to ski check out Justin's ski
blog or the Colorado Backcountry
blog. I recommend
Chip Raches, a great professional Los Angeles advertising photographer. Chip also works with several clients in Colorado and Montana.
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