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"Help save the world."

You see this is an appeal for you to join www.find-a-drug.co.uk You might have heard about SETI@home, you know the thing where a program runs in the background using your unused processing power to scan data from a satellite dish.

Well FAD is similar in operation, except that instead of looking for aliens it looks for molecules and proteins that can be targeted for further research and stuff in finding a cure for cancer.

I have been running distributed computing projects for over a year now.
It doesn't require much effort, you download a small program and a work unit (WU). Then the program runs in the background just processing. When it finishes that WU it moves on to the next in the queue of 2 or 3 that you download every so often from the net. When it is finished it gets sent back to FAD.

The program doesn't cause slowdown, it only uses unused power, as whenever you do anything else like type a letter it lets you do that and then starts processing again. After all other than in video editing or really high powered games you only ever use an average of 10% or so of your computers capacity. So why don't you donate it to a good cause?

FAD has several ongoing projects. Currently these are cancer, HIV, malaria, multiple sclerosis, SARS and bio terrorism antidotes.

If you do decide to join, I have now created a Special Reserve team. The team number for entering on the setup screen is 2072. So come on join up. So far there is 13 of us in the team. Out of 147 teams, Special Reserve is ranked 54. There is even a linux version now.

One day our efforts could make a difference. Imagine the lives that could be saved. In Britain, 1 in 3 people get cancer. Over a million people a year die in developing countries from Malaria, 3 times as many as AIDS kills. Even so, HIV is at epidemic levels and kills 100,000s a year all around the world. 40 million people in Africa have HIV, and in time it will kill them all.

This project doesn't require anything much of you, all you have to do run the program in the background. You can help to make a difference. It all builds up, just from lots of people running this. So far nearly 4,000 years worth of computer time has been spent scanning 27.62 billion moleculules.

There have been successes in finding growth inhibitors on several occasions in several areas. So come on, join us and help save the world.

Kiriyama wrote:
> And the point of that?

Basically, and research to create any kind of new medical cure involves processing a vast humoungous pile of data. Now you can either shove it all into a few powerful PC's, and have it take ages, or you can do a program like this, with loads of people doing small chunks of information more quickly IF they have enough people signed up.

Plus it's cheaper to write a program than it is to buy something like a Cray...

Plus a project like this is far more powerful than a Cray X1 anyway.

Clazon, what happened? It's possible you could run into problems if you have an old PC.

i have a new (year old) amd athlon, with ME, but its bloody awful for memory and processor. if it gets to a stage where there is too much, errors start occuring, one by one getting worse and worse, until the dll gets a problem and the computer needs going off at the plug. taking out and then turning on again. sorry, but i cant help.

Ah well, at least you tried.

Off the top of my head, more memory, a bit of housecleaning, any updates that need done and it should be OK. I use windows ME and it's better than most people give it credit for.

Outside chance - cooling problems. Athlons run hot.

i know about the cooling programs. it doesnt trouble it though. ive thought about cleaning stuff up, but there isnt really anything. the problem is that i have just under half (loads) of my ram (and i could buy more if i needed), but unforyunately my virtual memory isnt big and the processor isnt great.

ME is quite a good system, so i doubt thats the problem. its just that i was reluctant to not buy a dell (as ive had four, each with minimal problems), but people persuaded me to try an amd athlon, so i did. its rubbish.

With the amount of methane that i give off every day i think it would be impossible for me to save the world.

You could at least try to make up for the damage you do then couldn't you?

Actually Athlons are pretty good. For some things they are better, like this program. It has a better Floating Point Unit in the processor so it runs faster.

Any problems you have will be to do with the way the PC has been set up. Dells at least generally are reliable.

I could yes, but going to? No.

I may give blood when i am older and donate some money to a cancer fund.

This would likely do as much to help with the added benefit of A) Not making you feel ill afterwards and B) Not costing you anything.