New Team Member - Valvak

Valvak is our latest New Team Member!

Joining before the end of '08, they have already returned their 1st work unit for 450 points. Sitting 738,437th out of 1,158,627 all-time folders, they have quite a bit of work in front of them! :)

Thanks for joining our Team Valvak!

Stanford's Winter Holidays Schedule

Vijay Pande has informed us of the Winter Holidays Schedule for Stanford University on his blog recently. SU will be closed until January 5, 2009, however Folding@Home will still be operating as always, but there is warning that should problems arise, the corresponding response will be slower than normal due to reduced staffing during the holidays.

Most of the F@H team finished up on the 20th, however they worked very hard to add more jobs to the Servers, clear out hard drive space of previously returned work units etc. so that this holiday period can be as problem-free as possible.

On behalf of the F@H team, Vijay writes:

"We'd like to wish all the FAH donors a happy holiday and thank all of you for all your great help with our project."

New Top 5 Team Member

We've got a New Top 5 Team Member, with peterdiva now occupying 5th place on the Team Leaderboard, nudging my 2nd PS3 - Lahm_Family_PS3 back to 6th.

Well done to peterdiva! Here is the current top 5:

Team members

Rank (within team)	User	Score	WU
1	Jens_Klausen	343177	757
2	smASHer88_PS3	307434	1235
3	Ravenge5	166003	745
4	RoXeD	132100	543
5	peterdiva	116514	168

Merry Christmas & have a Happy New Year!

Ahhh, what a wonderful time of year! Staying up late on Christmas Eve, posting on my blog early Christmas morning! Can't wait to get stuck into my presents later today!

I would just like to thank everyone involved in Aussie Rules Footy (team members & power-bill payers!) as our Team has made some real progress in 2008, and i'm glad we are now part of the Top 1,000 Folding@Home teams, that definitely is an effort!

As i've got plans to go away after Boxing Day, the blog might go for a week or so without any updates... bad news I know! lol But I will be sure to pickup the slack when I get back, hopefully flooding with new posts! I'll see how busy the 26th is, and i'll try to make a post or two then that i've been meaning to make.

Anyways I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, your Friends and Family as well. Have a safe Holidays, whether your travelling around or whatever, and also, have a Happy New Year!!!

EDIT: Feel free to add a comment to let us know how you are spending these Holidays!

Points Milestone - poptart87PS3 - 1k

poptart87PS3 has passed the milestone for 1,000 points!

Currently on 1,370 points from 5 work units, he's positioned 530,607th out of 1,156,939 all-time folders.

Work Units Milestone - Ugly - 100

Ugly has passed the 100 Work Units Milestone!

Sitting on 108 work units for a total of 89,484 points, he's placed 7th on the team leaderboard, and 50,419th out of 1,154,479 all-time folders.

Apologees to Ugly as this was meant to be posted yesterday, when he was at 103 work units! lol

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.