Scheduled Maintenance at SU during the Holidays

Vijay has given us a heads up on his blog about some Scheduled Maintenance that is going to be performed over the Holidays period at Stanford University.

The Network Backbone is to undergo improvements between maintenance windows - Every morning between 4 AM and 8 AM PST, December 20 to January 4 (For us East Coast Aussies - every night between 11 PM and 3 AM AEDT, December 21 to January 5) and it is hoped that normal operations should not be affected at all by the works. If users experience troubles though, it should only last up to around 5 minutes.


PST = Pacific Standard Time = UTC-8
AEDT = Australian Eastern Daylight Time = UTC+11

Aussie Rules Footy is now in the Top 1,000 Folding@Home Teams!

Our team, Aussie Rules Footy is now finally apart of the Top 1,000 Folding@Home teams.

It has taken quite a while to enter this territory, as it's really competitive out there amongst all the teams. At the end of May earlier this year, we had just broken into the top 2,000 teams. Being apart of the top 1,000 is a real achievement for a team participating in this Project. But it's one thing to break in, it's another to stay in there, and keep pushing up the stats! So guys I want to thank you all very much for your efforts so far and I hope we can keep churning out more work units and making more an more points, pushing us further up the team rankings.

I am hoping by this time next year, we're atleast a top 500 team!

Team stats:

Aussie Rules Footy

Date of last work unit	2008-12-18 04:38:49
Active CPUs within 50 days	46
Team Id	52735
Grand Score	1724478 (certificate)
Work Unit Count	5831 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate)	998 of 149988

Points Milestone - brolli55 - 1k

brolli55 has now passed the 1,000 points milestone!

Currently on 1,425 points from 4 work units, he sits 521,886th out of 1,153,768 all-time folders. Well done mate.

New Team Leader - Jens_Klausen

Jens_Klausen is now top of the team leaderboard, moving to 1st position!

It's a bit hard to believe that Jens_Klausen only joined the team 3 months ago!
Moving up a bit quicker than I honestly expected, just under a month ago I mentioned:

"As of today, Jens_Klausen now sits 2nd on the Team Leaderboard, with quite a stretch to reach my ol' faithful - smASHer88_PS3!!! No doubt this guy will chew through the 100k points buffer in no time, i'm just not looking forward to reporting on my own de-throning!"

The writing was on the wall though in early November when Jens_Klausen added a 2nd GPU to his system:

"Future Team Leader, Jens_Klausen has recently added a second ASUS EN9600GT SILENT graphics card to his Computer, boosting his PPD (points per day) output even further!"

Giving up the crown, my Playstation 3 - smASHer88_PS3 had held 1st spot since around February this year. After I started folding on Boxing Day 2007, I set out a goal of 300,000 points within 12 months (PS3's PPD = 900~1,000 x 365 days = 328,500~365,000 ... minus some gameplay and a bit of downtime here and there = 300,000 points). Lucky I compensated a bit, I only had 8 days spare! I'd also like to point out (cheekily) that by looking up Kakao Stats Update History for both smASHer88_PS3 and Jens_Klausen, I can say my PS3 snuck in the 300k points mark a couple of hours before Jens_Klausen! Haha, some small consolation that is!

Congratulations to Jens_Klausen who has made a stellar contribution to Aussie Rules Footy and Folding@Home since joining.

Team members

Rank (within team)	User	Score	WU
1	Jens_Klausen	301541	656
2	smASHer88_PS3	300615	1212

New Team Member - poptart87PS3

A mate of mine has joined the team - poptart87PS3!

Obviously folding with his Playstation 3, he's returned 1 work unit so far for 110 points. He sits 948,716th out of 1,152,400 all-time folders. Good stuff mate!

Points Milestone - brolli55_ps3 - 2k

brolli55_ps3 has quickly passed the next major points milestone - 2,000!

Returning 6 work units for a total of 2,070 points, he sits 453,867th out of 1,151,601 all-time folders. Keep up good work mate.

Points Milestone - peterdiva - 100k

Our latest member to conquer the 100,000 points milestone - peterdiva!

He jumps up a category in the Major Milestone Club as our 6th team member to achieve the 100k points mark. Only joining in late September, he's become a vital team member for Aussie Rules Footy, producing heaps of points in only a short time. Only problem is, I still haven't been able to get in contact with the guy to thank him!

As i've mentioned before, he seems to be running a mix of an SMP client and a regular PC, single-core client, churning out about 2,000 PPD. Not too shabby I say!

So currently he's positioned 6th on the team leaderboard and 45,069th out of 1,151,601 all-time folders. This is a result of his 101,587 points contribution from 156 work units. Well done mate!

Points Milestone - brolli55_ps3 - 1k

brolli55_ps3 has passed the milestone for 1,000 points!

Currently on 1,590 points from 4 work units, he's placed 499,151st out of 1,150,843 all-time folders. Well done mate.

New Team Member - brolli55

As promised, brolli55_ps3's computer, brolli55 has made it another new team member today!

So far returning just the one work unit for 326 points, his computer sits 786,306th out of 1,149,702 all-time folders. Good stuff mate.

Important Update to Folding@Home's End User License Agreement (EULA)

Vijay Pande has posted on his blog a very important notice about an update to the Folding@Home End User License Agreement (EULA).

Straight from Vijay:

"We added the word "written" to this sentence:

"You may use this software on a computer system only if you own the system or have the written permission of the owner."

We felt that this was an important addition in order to avoid any confusion. There have been a few situations where donors felt that they had permission, but the owners of the computers did not. Having written permission is the best way to make sure that there is no doubt. It also gives protection to the donor in that he/she would then have proof of permission, avoiding problems involving oral agreements."

I'd like to re-affirm that you could find yourself in a situation of getting sued for installing and running this program unauthorised, as many people have gotten into trouble setting up multiple computers at they're place of work (such as a school I.T. Administrator setting up tens to hundreds of computers) when they weren't authorised to do so, and have in some cases been ordered to pay damages for things such as increases in power bills, internet bills etc. Also, not having sufficient knowledge about the program and how it can affect different computers etc. (such as Notebooks being advised to run at no more than 90% CPU usage due to their less than optimal cooling systems) can lead to a bit of a blame game as far as what caused the computer to pack itself in and who is going to pay for it!

So guys, make sure you get written consent to run Folding@Home on computers or machines that are not your own. And be sure to inform those owners or bill-payers of the potential to have slightly higher power and internet bills whilst running this program (not a big deal for one or two machines, but any more, the extra power and internet usage quickly adds up!). Providing you do the right thing by the owner, i'm sure they will enjoy helping out a Distributed Computing Project such as Folding@Home.

New Paper published on the Playstation 3 Folding@Home client

Vijay Pande's blog yet again brings good news with yet another Paper being published, this time about the Playstation 3 Folding@Home client - Accelerating Molecular Dynamic Simulation on the Cell processor and PlayStation 3.

A collaborated effort between the Folding@Home and Sony Development teams, this is the first paper resulting from the Playstation 3's involvement in the Project. The paper is more of a 'how does it work' with details about how the PS3 accelerates simulations through use of it's powerful streaming processor, the CELL Broadband Engine.

The abstract reads:

"Implementation of molecular dynamics (MD) calculations on novel architectures will vastly increase its power to calculate the physical properties of complex systems. Herein, we detail algorithmic advances developed to accelerate MD simulations on the Cell processor, a commodity processor found in PlayStation 3 (PS3). In particular, we discuss issues regarding memory access versus computation and the types of calculations which are best suited for streaming processors such as the Cell, focusing on implicit solvation models. We conclude with a comparison of improved performance on the PS3's Cell processor over more traditional processors."

Papers of this type not only help the Folding@Home team at Stanford, but can potentially help many others outside of the Project. Whether it helps out others involved in the field of Molecular Dynamics, or people that intend to use and program for the CELL processor, knowledge gained can be knowledge shared!

Work Units Milestone - ROO_BOY29 - 50

ROO_BOY29 has made the milestone for 50 work units!

Due to a bit of downtime, after needing a re-format/re-install, his computer unfortunately didn't tally any points for our recent November = 2nd Team Birthday Foldathon. However, his got 4 services of v5.04 text-only console client running on his quad-core again, and should see a pretty consistent return from him now.

Currently on 13,736 points from 50 work units, he sits 186,173rd out of 1,149,041 all-time folders. Well done mate.

New Team Member - brolli55_ps3

We have a new team member! Another one of my mates - brolli55_ps3 has joined the team currently folding with his Playstation 3. brolli55 will also appear on the team stats soon, as we await his computer to return it's first work.

With one work unit currently to his name, brolli55_ps3 has made 450 points, and sits 729,857th out of 1,149,041 all-time folders. Good stuff mate.

Another new Paper! Ribosome Gate

Only on Tuesday Vijay Pande announced on his blog that the Project published New Alzheimer's Disease Work. Now another paper, Folding@Home's 59th to be exact, has been published - 'Side-chain recognition and gating in the ribosome exit tunnel'.

The Ribosome plays a very important role in Protein research says Vijay:

"The ribosome is a fascinating molecular machine, responsible for the synthesis of proteins. For this reason it is of fundamental importance to protein folding (as the last step in the central dogma of biology) as well as to human health (since the ribosome is the target of a very large fraction of antibiotics)."

Vijay mentions that this paper has been made possible by the contributions of folders running 'bigWU' enabled classic clients stating:

"the ribosome is so huge that it would not run on regular classic clients."

It's certainly good to see a couple more important research papers come out lately, and only a day after another! I can't wait to see what other papers get released and how they can help us move forward in the Protein research field.

Points Milestone - Lahm_Family_PS3 - 100k

My 2nd Playstation 3 - Lahm_Family_PS3 is the 5th team member to achieve the 100,000 points milestone! Thus moving up a category in the Major Milestone Club.

Joining the team in late August, I was hoping to gain atleast 100k points by the end of the year, so i'm very happy it's achieved that. Pretty much folding 24/7 (with only occassional power outages and a bit of music playing in between), it wasn't overly hard to achieve. Now I want to set a target of 300,000 points by 27 August 2009.. which would mean a tidy 300k points per year.

Currently on 100,383 points from 343 work units, it's sits 5th on the team leaderboard, and 45,147th out of 1,147,479 all-time folders. No doubt i'll keep her folding as much as possible!

Top 10 Team Members Shuffle

Racing up the Team Leaderboard, Ugly has brought about another shuffle in the top 10 order, this time by moving to 7th spot, overtaking zoneur who now sits at 8th.

Current top 10 order:

Team members

Rank (within team)	User	Score	WU
1	smASHer88_PS3	293785	1189
2	Jens_Klausen	265299	569
3	Ravenge5	166003	745
4	RoXeD	132100	543
5	Lahm_Family_PS3	100383	343
6	peterdiva	94067	152
7	Ugly	66590	69
8	zoneur	65715	145
9	smASHer88	56240	193
10	BulleenAnt1	42574	145

New Alzheimer's Disease Work published

The latest news from Vijay Pande's blog is about the publication of a key paper relating to Alzheimer's Disease - 'Simulating oligomerization at experimental concentrations and long timescales: A Markov state model approach'.

Vijay comments saying:

"I am very happy to announce that a first key work from the Folding@home project on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) was just published"

"In many ways, this paper is the "tip of the iceberg" for the Folding@home activities in AD, with a lot more interesting results to come, especially in terms of experimental tests of our predictions and interesting new possibilities for new drugs and AD therapeutics. So, while we're excited that this result is now past peer review, we're even more excited for what's coming down the pipeline, waiting peer review. We'll keep you posted as more results become public, hopefully with some even bigger announcements in 2009."

Hopefully this will mean Folding@Home as a Project will start to see some real fruit for all it's labour!

UPDATE:

"It was asked which clients participated. This work started several years ago and took some time to analyze and then publish. So, it ran exclusively on classic clients. For the follow up simulations, we are using a mixture of GPU, SMP, and classic clients. Due to the large number of classic clients, they allow us to calculations not possible on the other platforms. However, the raw speed (but smaller number) of the GPU and SMP clients allow us to get a good rough idea quickly, refining later with classic clients."

Top 10 Team Members Shuffle

With the latest change to the Top 10 Team Members order, Ugly has now moved to 8th spot on the team leaderboard, overtaking my computer - smASHer88, which is now at 9th spot.

Current top 10:

Team members

Rank (within team)	User	Score	WU
1	smASHer88_PS3	290635	1178
2	Jens_Klausen	251679	538
3	Ravenge5	166003	745
4	RoXeD	132100	543
5	Lahm_Family_PS3	97053	333
6	peterdiva	89374	132
7	zoneur	65715	145
8	Ugly	57770	54
9	smASHer88	55491	192
10	BulleenAnt1	42445	144

Work Units Milestone - Ugly - 50

Ugly has now returned 50 work units to claim his first work units milestone.

Currently on 55,040 points from 50 work units, he's 9th on the team leaderboard, and 73,169th out of 1,145,122 all-time folders.

Points Milestone - Ugly - 50k

Ugly joins eight other team members on the Major Milestone Club list for achieving the milestone for 50,000 points!

Since joining the team in late October, Ugly has managed to gain 51,950 points from just 45 work units! How? Well as you'll read in joining post, he has been running the SMP client on an Apple MacBook Pro, which usually fetches him between 1,000 and 2,000 points per work unit! Of course his points to work unit ratio show hes much closer to 1,000 points / work unit. This could be because he's recently added a PS3 to fold under Ugly as well, bringing his average points per work unit down.

He currently sits 9th on the team leaderboard and 76,306th out of 1,144,455 all-time folders. Well done mate.