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Folding@Home Announcement
- Thread starter BraveDude8
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Using ps3 for computation in 2020 would be a ridiculous waste of electricity. Today’s high end gaming GPUs have computing power comparable to room-sized supercomputers 15 years ago.
Its CPU is still relatively good (actually better than the ps4’s one), but GPUs are on completely different level thanks to their multicore nature being much easier to scale.
Its CPU is still relatively good (actually better than the ps4’s one), but GPUs are on completely different level thanks to their multicore nature being much easier to scale.
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@silvver I'm not completely sure about Google, but there are several quantum computers that are more or less open to the public to remotely use. Mostly at universities. You need to write programs over it though because as of current, they are just computers. If you believe that quantum computing is the way to go and you can tackle the issue of making it compatible with the calculations the supercomputer use (quantum computing is fundamentally different after all), you'll almost certainly become one of the biggest names in the field.
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I've known about Folding@Home for many years now, so it's kind of embarassing it took a worldwide pandemic to get me off my ass and actually download the damn thing. Nothing beats feeling powerless as the world grinds to a halt to kickstart some contributing, even if it's just the illusion of doing something, I guess!
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@_Dam Folding at home ist not about Bitcoins. It's a scientific program you can basically donate the idle computing power of your PC to.
This is then used to understand the structure and behaviour of proteins. This in turn will help in understanding how cells and diseases work and how to cure them. (e.g. the Coronavirus)
This is then used to understand the structure and behaviour of proteins. This in turn will help in understanding how cells and diseases work and how to cure them. (e.g. the Coronavirus)
@BraveDude8 I can't help but feel extremely uneasy about this Folding@Home stuff.
1) Why asking individuals with their cheap computers and internet connection? The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid seems better suited if computational power is really what's needed to fight the coronavirus (which is not necessarily the case). The WLCG has lots of supercomputers, and even a reserved part of Internet's international bandwidth! https://wlcg.web.cern.ch/
Moreover, it's a trusted network of trusted computers.
2a) If you have a look at the bottom of F@H's website, you see some pretty big IT companies, and you especially see Google. But you don't see any universities & hospitals. Interesting, isn't it?
2b) If Google wants a cure as fast as possible, they could shut down their search engine (other search engines exists, so it's no big deal) and offer a lot more computational power to the research. I fear they actually want to save their business and have lots of other people do expensive computation in their stead (although I have no proof of this).
3a) Letting someone remotely run software on one's machine may mean security issues. I haven't seen any link to the project's source code. So it's proprietary. So it doesn't sound very trustworthy. It also means you have no way to check whether they actually do research or just enjoy the free computational power for something questionable.
3b) Running computation on other people's computer also means some users may try to forge fake results or may have other problems of data integrity. So the scientific relevance of the results is questionnable, especially if it isn't open source (since it means worse tracking of bugs & security issues)
4) F@H's website doesn't seem to show any links to any results anywhere. If that's scientific research, then where are the scientific papers? If they don't publish anything (be it with open access or even with paywalls), it sounds like a scam. Or maybe it's an attempt to compete with pharmaceutical companies to steal their market. But it certainly doesn't look like actual research at all!
For a project supposed to be for the greater good of mankind, this is extremely surprising.
5) People pay taxes for such kind of research to be done. Since lots of states have decided to tolerate much more debts than usual because of the pandemics, is there really a need for the taxpayers to also pay the electric bill? (especially if it's in the stead of private IT companies rather than public biology labs, for instance)
1) Why asking individuals with their cheap computers and internet connection? The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid seems better suited if computational power is really what's needed to fight the coronavirus (which is not necessarily the case). The WLCG has lots of supercomputers, and even a reserved part of Internet's international bandwidth! https://wlcg.web.cern.ch/
Moreover, it's a trusted network of trusted computers.
2a) If you have a look at the bottom of F@H's website, you see some pretty big IT companies, and you especially see Google. But you don't see any universities & hospitals. Interesting, isn't it?
2b) If Google wants a cure as fast as possible, they could shut down their search engine (other search engines exists, so it's no big deal) and offer a lot more computational power to the research. I fear they actually want to save their business and have lots of other people do expensive computation in their stead (although I have no proof of this).
3a) Letting someone remotely run software on one's machine may mean security issues. I haven't seen any link to the project's source code. So it's proprietary. So it doesn't sound very trustworthy. It also means you have no way to check whether they actually do research or just enjoy the free computational power for something questionable.
3b) Running computation on other people's computer also means some users may try to forge fake results or may have other problems of data integrity. So the scientific relevance of the results is questionnable, especially if it isn't open source (since it means worse tracking of bugs & security issues)
4) F@H's website doesn't seem to show any links to any results anywhere. If that's scientific research, then where are the scientific papers? If they don't publish anything (be it with open access or even with paywalls), it sounds like a scam. Or maybe it's an attempt to compete with pharmaceutical companies to steal their market. But it certainly doesn't look like actual research at all!
For a project supposed to be for the greater good of mankind, this is extremely surprising.
5) People pay taxes for such kind of research to be done. Since lots of states have decided to tolerate much more debts than usual because of the pandemics, is there really a need for the taxpayers to also pay the electric bill? (especially if it's in the stead of private IT companies rather than public biology labs, for instance)
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@AB2000
1) Maybe you are more of an expert on this than me, but protein folding is insanely complex. Add to this that there are billions of different proteins out there and there you have your need for some big brain computer. Why not use the LHC Computing Grid? Well, Protein folding is not the only complex problem that needs a super computer to solve... Apart from that I'm not too well informed on that network
2a) So? FoldingatHome is based at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. (Also, just found this: https://foldingathome.org/about/the-foldinghome-consortium/)
2b) Google Sceptic? That's fair. Most people and companys could probably do more to counter this pandemic
3a) So, any proprietary code is not trustworthy? It's your decision wether to trust them or not.
3b) Can't really judge this, since I'm not gonna deep dive in my research on how this works. (Apparently they describe it on their Wikipedia Page) Got other things to do... If you are that sceptic about the whole thing, well probaly no one here can appease your doubts *shrugs*
4) Have a look at this: https://foldingathome.org/papers-results/
5) Hey, it's up to you wether to give to them or not. Maybe your government is spending their taxmoney on the right things in the right amount. In my experience, it never is enough.
🙂🙂🙂
1) Maybe you are more of an expert on this than me, but protein folding is insanely complex. Add to this that there are billions of different proteins out there and there you have your need for some big brain computer. Why not use the LHC Computing Grid? Well, Protein folding is not the only complex problem that needs a super computer to solve... Apart from that I'm not too well informed on that network
2a) So? FoldingatHome is based at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. (Also, just found this: https://foldingathome.org/about/the-foldinghome-consortium/)
2b) Google Sceptic? That's fair. Most people and companys could probably do more to counter this pandemic
3a) So, any proprietary code is not trustworthy? It's your decision wether to trust them or not.
3b) Can't really judge this, since I'm not gonna deep dive in my research on how this works. (Apparently they describe it on their Wikipedia Page) Got other things to do... If you are that sceptic about the whole thing, well probaly no one here can appease your doubts *shrugs*
4) Have a look at this: https://foldingathome.org/papers-results/
5) Hey, it's up to you wether to give to them or not. Maybe your government is spending their taxmoney on the right things in the right amount. In my experience, it never is enough.
🙂🙂🙂
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Tumbs up! See also BOINC.
Nah, scratch the rest of my reply, I cannot be bothered to argue, shitposting is grinding me down and slowly making me go nuclear.
Nah, scratch the rest of my reply, I cannot be bothered to argue, shitposting is grinding me down and slowly making me go nuclear.
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@AB2000
1) Yes, the world has trusted hardware and dedicated bandwidth. That's not the point of @home projects. Protein folding and @home projects at a whole are particularly suited well suited to highly distributed computing with only needed synchronization being a few uploads/downloads a day. You don't need a highly engineered super computing architecture for something this asynchronous. Not to mention that folding@home is currently more powerful than the top 7 supercomputers combined. Actually, the network is has doubled in power since that article and is now more powerful than the combined power of the top 100 supercomputers
2a)
Funding from Stanford:
"Internet 2 program, the Office of Technological Licensing, and an award of a Terman Fellowship to Prof. Pande."
Involved institutions:
[ul][li]Washington University in St. Louis[/li]
[li]Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center[/li]
[li]Temple University[/li]
[li]HKUST[/li]
[li]Notre Dame[/li]
[li]University of Virginia[/li]
[li]Stockholm University[/li]
[li]Colorado State University[/li]
[li]CSULB[/li]
[li]Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences[/li][/ul]
Sources:
https://foldingathome.org/about/the-foldinghome-consortium
https://foldingathome.org/about/partners
2b) Google could divert resources from free services (which would disclude obligations such as Google Compute Platform and various B2B services), but would you really want them too? Especially NOW?
3a) Some parts such as the frontend are opensource but that not what you're asking is it? F@H was and is lead by academics who's careers and reputation built over the course of decades of hard work, would be in danger if they were secretly using the project for even some other research purpose. Not to mention the massive publicity of the project and what how kindly the federal government take to a such a scandal. And in this case, open sources
3b) The statistical nature of protein folding gives a powerful useful tool to guard against bad results and bad actors. Which also brings up a question of not just means but motives
4) @Indigo, already linked to the easy to find page
5) Do you have any idea how scarce US funding is?
This doesn't even have anything to do with tax payments, it's a donation of resources. Temporary and at-will lending if you discount energy consumption.
A medical project asks for people to contribute resources to study disease and you're complaining that during a pandemic they have the audacity to ask for resources to fight said pandemic?!
1) Yes, the world has trusted hardware and dedicated bandwidth. That's not the point of @home projects. Protein folding and @home projects at a whole are particularly suited well suited to highly distributed computing with only needed synchronization being a few uploads/downloads a day. You don't need a highly engineered super computing architecture for something this asynchronous. Not to mention that folding@home is currently more powerful than the top 7 supercomputers combined. Actually, the network is has doubled in power since that article and is now more powerful than the combined power of the top 100 supercomputers
2a)
Folding@home was started at Stanford's Pande Laboratory. It was and remains a research project.
Funding from Stanford:
"Internet 2 program, the Office of Technological Licensing, and an award of a Terman Fellowship to Prof. Pande."
Involved institutions:
[ul][li]Washington University in St. Louis[/li]
[li]Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center[/li]
[li]Temple University[/li]
[li]HKUST[/li]
[li]Notre Dame[/li]
[li]University of Virginia[/li]
[li]Stockholm University[/li]
[li]Colorado State University[/li]
[li]CSULB[/li]
[li]Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences[/li][/ul]
Sources:
https://foldingathome.org/about/the-foldinghome-consortium
https://foldingathome.org/about/partners
2b) Google could divert resources from free services (which would disclude obligations such as Google Compute Platform and various B2B services), but would you really want them too? Especially NOW?
3a) Some parts such as the frontend are opensource but that not what you're asking is it? F@H was and is lead by academics who's careers and reputation built over the course of decades of hard work, would be in danger if they were secretly using the project for even some other research purpose. Not to mention the massive publicity of the project and what how kindly the federal government take to a such a scandal. And in this case, open sources
3b) The statistical nature of protein folding gives a powerful useful tool to guard against bad results and bad actors. Which also brings up a question of not just means but motives
4) @Indigo, already linked to the easy to find page
5) Do you have any idea how scarce US funding is?
This doesn't even have anything to do with tax payments, it's a donation of resources. Temporary and at-will lending if you discount energy consumption.
A medical project asks for people to contribute resources to study disease and you're complaining that during a pandemic they have the audacity to ask for resources to fight said pandemic?!
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@lonefire:
>imagine getting used to help someone else mine bitcoin
Read the whole thread and especially the sources and use Gurgle if you want a better answer... Otherwise:
So universities and international IT communities are mining hurfcoins sincefor 10 or so years with F@ H and BOINC without them knowing? And AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Google are part of the gonsbirazy? Seems legit. Yeah, totally. Imagine being this uninformed.
https://foldingathome.org/2020/03/10/covid19-update/
https://foldingathome.org/2020/03/15/coronavirus-what-were-doing-and-how-you-can-help-in-simple-terms/
>imagine getting used to help someone else mine bitcoin
Read the whole thread and especially the sources and use Gurgle if you want a better answer... Otherwise:
So universities and international IT communities are mining hurfcoins sincefor 10 or so years with F@ H and BOINC without them knowing? And AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Google are part of the gonsbirazy? Seems legit. Yeah, totally. Imagine being this uninformed.
https://foldingathome.org/2020/03/10/covid19-update/
https://foldingathome.org/2020/03/15/coronavirus-what-were-doing-and-how-you-can-help-in-simple-terms/
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Man, I got up to 5th on our rankings then it decided to stop giving me WUs 👀
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@FusedSlayer you're still in the top 10 though at least. I'm running SLI so as long as I get WU's I should be able to hold 3rd.
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It's funny how a moderator plugs something like distributed computing for scientific research - a post that most likely needed to be sanctioned by the Admins, first! - and a whole bunch of misinformed people act all autistic on us and cry out "BITCOIN MINING!"
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