New Top 10 Team Member - Jawgz

Jawgz enters Aussie Rules Footy's Top 10 pushing BulleenAnt1 back to 11th.

As soon as Jawgz makes the 50k points milestone, all of our top 10 team members will have contributed over 50,000 points each. Congrats mate!

Team members

Rank (within team)	User	Score	WU
1	Jens_Klausen	393409	876
2	smASHer88_PS3	313084	1252
3	Ravenge5	166003	745
4	RoXeD	132100	543
5	peterdiva	130630	181
6	Lahm_Family_PS3	124095	426
7	Ugly	114017	141
8	zoneur	87603	199
9	smASHer88	56995	194
10	Jawgz	46094	43

Possiblity for an Alzheimer's Drug to be made from new Folding@Home results

Vijay Pande posted on his blog back on the 18th December, 2008 about a Possible New Alzheimer's Disease Drug to be made from new Folding@Home results.

Vijay warns that although it's very exciting, this is still preliminary news:

"On Tuesday, we presented our results regarding new possible drugs (small molecule leads) to fight Alzheimer's Disease at a recent meeting at Stanford. This meeting was part of the NIH Roadmap Nanomedicine center retreat and was supported by NIH grants to Folding@home.

It's very early (so we are not publicly talking about the details until this has passed peer review), but we are very excited that it looks like we may have multiple small molecules which appear to inhibit toxicity of Abeta, the protein which is the toxic element in Alzheimer's Disease.

This is exciting in many ways. It's been a long road for FAH to get to this point, but we are starting to see the possibility of seeing these results published easily before our 10th birthday (October 2010). Considering all the technology development that had to be done in the first five years, these results have come very quickly (in the last 3 years), which is exciting. In particular, we are now looking to apply these methods to other protein misfolding diseases (we have pilot projects for Huntington's Disease underway).

Finally, I should stress that while we're very excited about this, it's still early and a lot can go wrong between where we are and having a drug that doctors can prescribe. Over the holidays, we will be double checking the experimental data, crossing t's and dotting i's to make sure there is nothing missed before we think about submitting this for peer reviewed publication. Also, there is still a long way from an interesting possible drug (where we are now) to something which has passed FDA clinical trials (where we'd love to be), and a lot can go wrong in clinical trials in particular.

Thus, this is an important milestone for FAH and we are very grateful to all who have contributed."

Hopefully all goes well and we can have a Alzheimer's Disease Drug on the market soon with Folding@Home to thank!

Happy New Year!

It's 2009!!! I'd just like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Hope yas all had a blast last night, as I did at Jawgz' place, Ugly there as well. Hopefully 2009 will deliver a top 500 team spot for Aussie Rules Footy, and let Folding@Home make some ground-breaking research papers!

Drop a comment to let us know your New Year's resolutions for 2009 - Mine will be to shed some pounds!

Points Milestone - poptart87PS3 - 2k

poptart87PS3 has passed the 2,000 Points Milestone!

Currently on 2,590 points from 9 work units, he sits 422,892nd out of 1,161,702 all-time folders. Good stuff mate!

New Team Member - newtronbom

newtronbom is our latest New Team Member!

Returning their first work unit for 548 points, thye sit 706,397th out of 1,161,702 all-time folders. Thanks for joining up!

Points Milestone - Ugly - 100k

Ugly has passed the 100,000 Points Milestone!

Now moving up into the 100k Points Major Milestone Club, Ugly is a vital team member, that has made a great contribution since joining.

Using his Mac and PS3 to fold, he's currently sitting 7th on the team, with 107,833 points earned from 133 work units. He also stands 43,789th out of 1,161,702 all-time folders.

Well done to Ugly on his achievement!

Folding@Home Stats Server updates to be quicker in 2009

Folding@Home's Statistics Server, used to provide all Team and Donor stats etc. will receive an update sometime in 2009 to speed up the time it takes to update the stats database, meaning that instead of waiting the first 45 minutes of each 2 hour update cycle just to see our Team stats page, it might only take the first 15 minutes, and hopefully with an hourly update cycle.

Currently you see this message in approximately the first 45 minutes of the current 2 hour update cycle:

Stats update in progress

External access to the Folding@home stats server is currently not available in order to expedite the stats input process. This was started on the hour and we expect this to take about 45 minutes. The stats updates run in 2 hour cycles.

An intention to update message is currently sitting beneath the lines above, telling us:

"In 2009, we will be upgrading our stats server such that the whole database will fit in RAM (this used to be the case, but FAH has gotten quite big over the last few years and the related databases require over 20GB). We expect that this new stats server should greatly speed up stats updates."

It's good to see that the Folding@Home team works to constantly improve their systems.

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!