back to article Reg readers total 3,238 years against cancer

After almost seven years of harnessing volunteers' unused CPU cycles to find a cure for cancer, Grid.org is shutting down operations. The organization said today it has completed its mission to demonstrate the viability and benefits of large-scale internet-based grid computing and will retire from service. Grid.org was the …

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  1. peter

    already vulture central teams at WCG abd Folding@home etc

    there has been a team for Team Vulture Central VI team number 46400 on folding@home, also there is a team for WCG ... no real need to make another team,, hmmm , at least you guys publicise this good cause.. thanx retep57 is my handle in their forums

  2. Les Matthew

    Great effort

    from all the Vultures. ;)

    I'm on the folding@home now.

  3. John Dougald McCallum

    Network Computing

    Your item does not mention one of the ,in my opinion,largest community for network computing BOINC got to spread the Word

  4. Rob W

    But... was it worth it?

    Seems like an obvious question, but... was the information gathered by the project useful to scientists?

    These projects are *not* free -- people running these programs (and particularly people watching their stats...) tend to leave computers running overnight, during lunch breaks, and other times when they would otherwise shut down or hibernate. The electricity costs are spread out among a lot of people, but in the end the juice is consumed... and it'd be awfully nice to hear that some scientific progress was actually made (not just that it met its goal to "demonstrate the viability and benefits of large-scale internet-based grid computing").

    7 *years* on all those computers adds up to a lot. Are we closer to finding a cure for cancer?

  5. John Foster

    What about the other 43 (or 44) Vulture Central Teams?

    Vulture Central II had sunk to 5th at the time of closing, and hadn't been third for about a year, since being passed by Dutch Power Cows. One of the earlier users who racked up thousands of year was prosecuted for using corporate computers without permission. In the meantime, we have run nearly 70 legal years worth at Vulture Central III. The cancer project wasn't either started or finished, and there were also other things processed there, like Human Proteome Folding and Smallpox, not just "cancer".

    I tried to get the word out to the original cancerbuster article authors in your magazine, but it didn't sink in. Vulture Central II was only one piece of the Vulture effort. A few members from grid.org have moved over to world community grid to keep crunching. Yes, the BOINC effort is quite active. What team did you decide to START, 2.2 you say? That's team #69263. Vulture Central VI has been folding@home team #46400 for a couple of years now. That's one of the few I am not on. Wake up! Join one of these teams yourself and help the effort along, eh? It's been a lonely run so far. Vulture Central III especially would like to have your help, since many grid.org members are coming over and either remaining teamless or joining others.

    *** SCAVENGER LEAGUE ***

    Vulture Central I - SETI@home

    Vulture Central II - grid.org (non-BOINC) Closed April 27, 2007

    Vulture Central III - worldcommunitygrid.org

    Vulture Central IV - DIMES (non-BOINC)

    Vulture Central V - Find-A-Drug (non-BOINC,closed)

    Vulture Central VI - Folding@home (non-BOINC, BOINC announced)

    Vulture Central 2.2 - Folding@home

    Vulture Central VII - D2OL (closed?)

    Vulture Central VIII - Einstein@home

    Vulture Central IX - SZTAKI

    Vulture Central X - LHC@home (Large Hadron Collider)

    Vulture Central XI - SIMAP (Similarity Matrix of Proteins)

    Vulture Central XII - Predictor@home

    Vulture Central XIII - QMC@home (Quantum Monte Carlo)

    Vulture Central XIV - BBC Climate Change Experiment

    Vulture Central XV - Rosetta@Home

    Vulture Central XVI - Seasonal Attribution Project

    Vulture Central XVII - Climateprediction.net

    Vulture Central XVIII - BURP (Big and Ugly Rendering Project)

    Vulture Central XIX - PrimeGrid

    Vulture Central XX - uFluids (MicroFluids)

    Vulture Central XXI - RALPH@Home (Rosetta@home ALPHa project)

    Vulture Central XXII - XtremLab

    Vulture Central XXIII - HashClash

    Vulture Central XXIV - Rectilinear Crossing

    Vulture Central XXV - Chess960@Home

    Vulture Central XXVI - Spinhenge@Home

    Vulture Central XXVII - Pirates@Home

    Vulture Central XXVIII - VTU@Home

    Vulture Central XXIX - RenderFarm@Home

    Vulture Central XXX - Seti Beta (AstroPulse)

    Vulture Central XXXI - Leiden Classical (Dynamics)

    Vulture Central XXXII - TANPAKU

    Vulture Central XXXIII - NanoHive

    Vulture Central XXXIV - Project Neuron

    Vulture Central XXXV - Riesel Sieve

    Vulture Central XXXVI - Proteins@Home

    Vulture Central XXXVII - Malariacontrol.net beta

    Vulture Central XXXVIII - ABC@Home

    Vulture Central XXXIX - Orbit@home

    Vulture Central XL - Mersenneplustwo (WEP-M+2)

    Vulture Central XLI - Cunning Plan

    Vulture Central XLII - Distributed Rainbow Table Generator (TMRL DRTG)

    Vulture Central XLIII - Belgian Beer@home

    Vulture Central XLIV - ABC@home beta

    The work goes on, even if the sponsor (you) doesn't realize it.

    -- retsof, former moderator for grid.org, communitity advisor for worldcommunitygrid.org, team captain for many of these, and active member and statistician of Vulture Central III.

  6. John Foster

    Vulture Central III statistics at World Community Grid

    6 grid.org members have migrated over here since the closing. That makes 49 members, 3 others of whom have retired and gone on to other teams.

    We don't have enough carrion power to be in the top 10, but here's how things stack up:

    Total Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) (Rank) 69:348:02:56:06 (team rank #100)

    Points Generated (Rank) 19,704,891 (team rank #101)

    Results Returned (Rank) 77,332 (team rank #93)

    retsof:

    Total Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) (Rank) 4:237:19:05:11 (member rank #1,565)

    Points Generated (Rank) 2,315,227 (member rank #609)

    Results Returned (Rank) 12,293 (member rank #382)

  7. James Cleveland

    2ch?

    Isn't that a 4chan sister site?

    Meaning its a collection of internet weirdness?

    :o

  8. John Foster

    World Community Grid research results

    Re: Is grid computing useful

    Yes, grid.org closed at an arbitrary date (due to corporate influences) and some of the Rosetta phase 1 data was not used.

    Grid computing is a fairly new technology, and the scientists are just now finding out about it. In the meantime, other projects are getting results. World Community Grid research project areas note the publication of scientific papers from phase 1 of Human Proteome Folding. Since grid computing is the FIRST phase of the timeline of these kinds of projects, it can take many years to synthesize physical chemicals indicated by the computing (for medical related projects) and figure out what it all means. We have taken years of work off of the BEGINNING of these projects, not the END of the projects. The parameters can also be changed, and new hypotheses investigated quickly.

    The mathematical projects are discovering new numbers in the series that they are investigating.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ‘Reg readers total 3,238 years against cancer’

    Kudos to the teams. However, I wonder why they don't look for the cause. I think a like amount of processor time aimed at finding the cause would return far better results. Oh well, the powers that be still look more for money than truth.

  10. David S

    Sorry...

    Wish I could join in. In fact, I suggested that the (significant multinational) company for which I work might consider allowing its users to install the folding@home screensaver as an alternative. I was told that company policy forbad it; there was too much risk.

    It's a shame; there was a lot of potential processing power here. Still, one home machine is better than nothing, I suppose...

  11. Matthew Smith

    I want my money back.

    I am alarmed at the comment of 'The organization said today it has completed its mission to demonstrate the viability and benefits of large-scale internet-based grid computing'. Thats not what it was when I signed up. I signed up on the day after launch to find a cure for cancer. I have generated 7 years and 133 days of processing time. For what? I've left my PC on overnight when it would otherwise be switched off. So it has cost me money, and generated greenhouse gases. Grid.org really should issue a news release about what all these years of effort have been used for. Will the research be of use to anyone?

  12. Gordon Grant

    Well done

    Hmm I love the idea of distributed Computing projects..

    I started off doing Seti @ Home years ago, switched through DF, F@H, D2OL and now doing SoB for my team.

    I think I can say this on behalf of the entire Team @ Free-DC,

    Well Done you beat the "Treated with Utter Contempt" team that is DPC. The head grazers tell people what to crunch or it seams that way. We only jump on a project when asked to and only if we want - to protect our position or just to STOMP without mercy on the poor team in front, we don't mind doing this especially if it's DPC.

    Come over and say hi from Vulture Central on our forums - we host the official SoB forum and have hosted a few offical forums for other projects too.

    Once again Well Done, oh and mines a "hamburger with all the trimmings"....

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