Whit4you | Sunday, June 02, 2002 - 02:11 pm     Got 5 minutes? You can help be a part of the cure for various cancers! Here's how it works - you download a little program and install..takes like 5 minutes - and then either run it as your screen saver.. or just let it run in the background if you have plenty of memory. What it does is perform calculations on molucules - wont get into the nitty gritty of that, but it's totally amazing to me that someone even thought of this whole idea. It's been going on a year and I didnt know! LOL. It doesnt cost a cent to you of course and doesnt use up any of your hd space - it just uses your spare processing power - instead of flying toasters your helping to put a dent in the cures for cancer.. really is worth the 5 min to install it I think http://members.ud.com/home.htm is the address - there is alot of "Q & A's" there if you are unsure what I'm saying or have questions. I think it's totally awesome myself - hundreds of thousands of people making a tiny dent adds up! Anyhow hopefully ya'all have a few minutes to check this out -  |
Whit4you | Sunday, June 02, 2002 - 02:24 pm     Ok - for those of you who have more then 5 minutes - read this post.. I thought it'd be cool to have a team of us... (like the walking log) at that website that you get the screensaver at they have a section for teams - so people can keep track of how much they have helped. It's free too of course - the whole thing is free - win/win just us letting our idle computers work to help cure cancer ya know? But anyhow - I made a team called TVCH cancer cure team so if you have time go here and join the team - there are alot of TVCH'ers we could be pretty proud of ourselves in a year Joining the team does nothing and helps nothing - just thought it'd be nice for us to keep track of how much time we as a group are able to help It's not like individually listed so it's not like a competition like "Whit's computer was on the most" or something - just a combined total. I dont wanna discourage anyone from taking the 5 min to set up the screen saver so trust me if this post is confusing you just ignore it - lol. Anyhow here's where you go to join our team http://members.ud.com/services/teams/team.htm?id=239D974B-2B9D-4561-BB04-F5B085814350 Whitney |
Whit4you | Sunday, June 02, 2002 - 02:49 pm     Folks - the 5 min setting it up was all you really needed - no need to read any more of this unless your interested in knowing more ok? LOL...for those who wanna know more though here's more.. OK I already had a question about the 'stats' lol - here's the gist of it... your computer works on a "Work Unit" they call them WU's (they being the others like us who are running this) Ok so basically your computer in it's spare time if you have it running in the background is working on some molecular calculations - some 'problem' that needs solved in some huge giagantic over all problem in finding a cure for one of any given # of cancers.. ok (I"m just telling you what I've gathered so far haha) ok.. so your computer is working on this problem... and when it completes one WU (Work unit) then it will update your stats on your computer. It'll send the completed solution to the research department apparently and your stats on the site update. Well anyhow - for most people they just set this little program up and go on with their lives lol but I'm really curious to know more about how it's helping so just sharing this info... my current "WU" is at 13% I got it running in the background on my computer rather then as a screensaver cause my computer runs 24/7 so might as well let this use any spare processor I have available eh? The closest person in the world to me died of cancer, and have had several friends die of cancer as well so this is pretty neat to me. I mean I fully grasp that I'm like one grain of sand here... but wow - it's like together all of us grains of sand could really make a difference. The people working on the cure dont have 100's of millions to spend on supercomputers to do these calculations but - as a group WE hat are involved in this are the equlivelant to a supercomputer. And who knows .. if one person tells one person who tells one person... we could be the equivelant to yet another supercomputer in the race to find a cure. I was deeply impacted once by a man I met. He developed polio AFTER a cure was found but BEFORE they released it to the public...and has spent all these years very disabled and having a very very tough life... all cause of a race for time on a cure. I think about him and that situation quite often...and now anytime I hear of any cures - I instantly think of all those who lost a loved one that year and how they felt.. knowing that the cure was probably alreday in exsistance BEFORE their loved one died. So to me - this little grain of sand of mine and the many others like it really do matter... I dont know exactly how many people are doing it now ... but I'm telling just one person who might tell just one person....and we really could make a difference..feels good Anyhow I'll say this again one last time - for those who are saying "WHAT??? the heck is she talking about??" Just drop over to that site ud.com download the software hit preferences if you want to run as screensaver instead of in background and your done and you are doing your part. This thread is just well to talk about it for those who would like to... Anyhow my work unit - is at 13% ... it'll be cool I am sure the first few that get done after that I'll probably never notice it again.. maybe our team can watch for milestones though like 100 work units completed or something Whitney |
Whit4you | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 10:15 am     Fist week stats: TVCH Cancer Cure Team 06/02/2002 - CURRENT 0:005:16:04:19 1,296 4 Well since I'm the only one on our team - stats moving slowing for now lol. I'm hoping some others will see this and join sooner or later. |
Theowl | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 10:25 am     Whit, I wish I could join your team, but I have WebTV, and that just won't work!! It is for a great cause, and I'm really sorry!!  |
Whoami | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 11:24 am     Whit, I'm afraid I can't join either. After having my computer in and out of the shop 4 times in the last month with major crashes that resulted in reformatting the hard drive, and being told I could use more memory (and that was a likely reason for the crashes), I dare not try. Can't afford to put more memory in yet, so I've been playing it very carefully. Just didn't want you to think you were being ignored. |
Pottedplant | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 11:29 am     I plan on getting a new PC later in the year, I will probably join you then. I am going on vacation soon, & this PC is 4 years old and it freezes alot even just loading new screens. So Whit, you are not alone. I have lost family to cancer, so I would like to help. |
Bob2112 | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 11:54 am     Whit, I've got another (older) computer that I can plug into my network at home and see if I can get the application running through my firewall. If all goes well, then it will be available 100% of the time and can run 24/7. It won't be as fast as only 20-30% CPU of my other 24/7 computer that I use when I work from home, so if all goes well I can look into running the app on that computer also. With the extra computer I can cover for Theowl and the other WebTV users. Just keep the entertaining posts coming and we'll call it even. The timing of your post is amazing. My mother-in-law is currently getting her first chemo treatment (as I type) for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and one of my co-workers left work last month and is in his finals days losing a year long fight with Hodgkins Lymphoma. My company has participated in similar distributed projects from distributed.net. They don't allow it anymore at work because one of the admins got a little over zealous and started running the process on some of our large database servers. Even though it doesn't really have an effect on performance, management wasn't very happy and outlawed it (along with personal web servers, chat hosting and our quake and doom server ) |
Theowl | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 12:14 pm     Oh Bob!! That is SO nice of you!! My life has been turned upside down because of my loved ones that died of cancer. I really did wish I could do that for Whit, and you are an for doing that for WebTVer's!! You really aren't a CraBob at all!! Thank you!!  |
Mssilhouette | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 01:30 pm     As I type I'm setting up this program..So i'll be on your team Whit |
Seamonkey | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 02:40 pm     Whit.. all of my computers are crunching data for seti@home.. and I'm on a team for that but.. it is just wonderful and amazing to have this concept used in various ways. I think the guy who developed Seti@home has created some of the other applications as well.. including the cancer research one. Anyone who wants to try this.. it can be very satisfying to let the hours rack up.. The beauty is that just about any computer can run these programs in screensaver mode. Seti has users in virtually every country in the world and they range from supercomputers to very old PCs. So.. JOIN WHIT!!! |
Sunshinemiss | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 03:11 pm     Webbie here, but I am hoping to upgrade in time for BB3 (maybe).. and I will be happy to join in then. Sounds like a worthwhile cause! |
Whit4you | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 03:15 pm     Well awesome that some people have found this thread! Whaomi - if you could find out precisely what type of memory you need - I have 3 mem chips just laying around my house - could send one your way if it will work for your machine (not so you can do this project just well since it's going to waste here LOL MsS - woohoo - now there are two of us lol. It'll be cool if bob can get his slave computer to work as well. Sea - great to hear your already involved - |
Sia | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 05:10 pm     Whit, that is very noble of you, but NO WAY! This is an attempt for someone to put spyware into your computer--at YOUR invitation. You might be setting yourself up for a Trojan horse here. I will find the article that mentions this possibility if I can and post a link to it in this thread. I don't believe that mathematical calculations will cure cancer, anyway; someone hitting on the right combination of chemicals/drugs will be the answer--and it should not require that a bunch of home p.c. users link their machines together to harness extra processing power. Does anyone remember the article about a big company planning to "wake up" computers with their secretly-embedded spyware? If anyone remembers this article, please post here what it was. Whit, nothing against you or against curing cancer; it's touched my life, too. My brother's best friend died last year of an inoperable sarcoma, my sister's m-i-l is currently battling IBC, and I had surgery last year for precancer. Several other friends/relatives of mine have died of this dread disease. Everyone knows someone who died of cancer. That is how this organization is able to hook people in! I advise you to check this out carefully before getting involved in something from which you might not be to extricate yourself--and your CPU. |
Car54 | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 05:29 pm     oh please. |
Whit4you | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 05:45 pm     Sia - you could say the same thing about any software you've installed on your computer from netscape to IE - heck for all you know Microsoft has spyware embedded in it's operating system lol. I believe in the legitimacy of this program or I wouldnt have suggested it here. The program's been running now on thousands of computers for over a year and a half. The orignal program was written by Oxford Universities science dept. As far as the molecular science I'm sure not getting into that with you - as I ain't a scientist but I'm sure the scientists who've found cures for cancers and other various diseases would beg to differ with you on that aspect of your post. But your correct any software out there including your operating system could have 'spyware' hidden deep within the code. Perhaps we should all go back to snail mail lol. |
Bob2112 | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 07:11 pm     Good News/Bad News GN: The TVCH Cancer Cure Team has doubled in size! BN: It went from 1 to 2. GN: After RTFM (reading the ___ manual :-) for my firebox, I was finally able to get registered and running. BN: I won't be able to remotely manage the firebox (not that I ever did anyway). GN: I plugged in the old computer and it connected to the internet on the first try. BN: It's running Windows 95, which is not supported by the UD program. GN: So I loaded the software on the faster computer and now have a reason to upgrade the older computers! I'll play with some of my other computers over the weekend to get them upgraded and see how well they perform. It will be interesting to see how a 90MHz Pentium compares to 233 PII and a 700 MHz PIII. I hope all my TVCH reading/posting doesn't slow down the computations too much.  |
Seamonkey | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 07:13 pm     Sia.. I've been on Seti@home for 2.9 years and crunched for 3.92 years of cpu time and not a single hint of a virus. The project world wide has taken over 1207.4 years of cpu time. They don't make email addys known and this isn't like napster where you are downloading stuff from anyone's home computer. It is safe. The program is very tiny. Now of course maybe the aliens are sending wicked signals to spy, but hey.. that is the purpose of the project search for extraterrestrial intelligence.. I've never heard anything against the cancer program either. The organization is simply distributing the processing to a far larger "network" than any organization could hope to afford. |
Whit4you | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 07:18 pm     Awesome bob - I have a network card laying around here too maybe i should send it to you and you could make some use out of it LOL. Let me know when you get your first "WU" (work unit) done - I'm on my 4th now - this one's taking a while lol. With MissS that'll make 3 so far She mentioned she'd downloaded the program - the link to the 'team' is in my 2nd or 3rd post  |
Bob2112 | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 07:31 pm     Thanks, but hang on to your card, I have too big a pile of old hardware components already! I spent 4 years as a software engineer with a small startup company. Since we were so small, they let me install and maintain the servers and network in my spare time. When the investors decided to close the doors, I inherited a bunch of parts. I was able to build the kids low end pentium computers (not so fast now, but 4 years ago...) and get a network set up at home. Oh, I'm 5% complete on the first result. The TVCH ranks should be moving up shortly. The rank for team members went from around 16,000 to 11,244. Come on MissS, I think we can crack 10,000! |
Mssilhouette | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 10:24 pm     Okay I keep trying to connect to the server and it's not letting me... I'll keep trying though. ...Scratch that just tried and it worked!! Whoohoo! I'm gonna go press the link now. I'm not really worried about getting zapped cause if it happens they'll be a class action suit a mile hile LOL |
Bob2112 | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 10:51 pm     The Global Metaprocessor (GMP) was offline for 48 hours for maintenance and a software upgrade and just came back up late in the afternoon. It was then bogged down with all the PC's updating with their results and getting another chink of work. Even access to their web site was hit or miss until the last hour. Members: 3 Rank: 8,387 Yeah! We made the top 10,000 based on team size. |
Mssilhouette | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 11:15 pm     Okay I double checked and if INTEL is backing it..it can't be that harmful Any from the tons of information we give just to buy some cold cream over the net...LOL what are they really gonna spy on? How much time I spend on message boards....I for one am not worried. Bob, from what I've seen it says we have 4 members unless I'm counted twice LOL |
Whit4you | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 11:23 pm     LOL We have a secret member! or at least one that hasn't mentioned signing up here yet! Members: 4 Rank: 6554 at this rate we'll be in the top 5,000 in no time lol. |
Bob2112 | Wednesday, June 12, 2002 - 11:24 pm     It does say 4 now, but the only names I see in the detail are mine and Whit. I'm going to go sleep and let the server get caught up. I wonder if either of us got registered twice or if someone else slipped in without posting. |