Top of the morning to everyone!

There is this program by Stanford University that you can run on your computer which can aid in finding cures for cancer, alzheimers, parkinsons, huntingtons, and a number of others as well.

It's really simple to get started.

Download the correct client from here.
The Windows 5.03 version if you're running Windows (shortcut here).
The MacOSX SMP one if you have a Intel Mac (shortcut here).

Once you install it, enter in whatever username you want (I use vraa) and the team number (45431 for mbworld.org)

It literally takes about 2 minutes from the start of this thread to the end of install and you're already contributing to the effort.

The way it works in a nutshell is every few days it downloads a "workunit" from Stanford, processes it and then uploads the results. It's really compact and it runs in the background, I run it on all my computers and all the computers at the office I work at.

Go ahead and ask questions if you have them, I've been contributing to this project for more than five years. It has the support of many big name companies such as Intel and Microsoft as well as support from other well-known universities such as Oxford and Berkeley.

Tell your friends and family too, it's for a great cause.

If you want to see how much you've contributed to the effort, you can check here
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.c...php?s=&t=45431

As you can see, team mbworld.org is doing relatively well, but we could always use more help.

 

 

You have no mbworld.org pride?

 

no offense my man, but could you put this in the update thread? It makes more sense there. Everyone would see it anyways...right?

 

Individually it's getting a lot more responses than in one forum, originally I had it in Off Topic for about a little more than a year; about six folks joined in.

In the last 24 hours, more than 90 computers have joined our team.

 

I support what you are doing, but how long will it be here? It seems like you are just trying to get your rank up in the "leaderboards". Thats my opinion.

 

Actually I couldn't care less for the leaderboards, I've been working on this project for a few years now on and off, I've submitted proposals to my highschool (without success) to get their labs assissting the project, and soon I'm going to submit a proposal to my university to do a test rollout in one lab, and later on the rest of the labs. I have high hopes for the University

It may seem like I'm stressing the statistics side of the project because it's friendly competition, it spurs progress. Clublexus has a team and so does Ferrarichat.

Once the initial wave of new members have joined up, I'm going to remove all the stick threads and let them take their natural course, it'd a a waste for someone to miss an oppurtunity where they could help out with critical research

 

You win Its for a good cause. Good Luck

 

Haha, I didn't mean to come out that way... :o

Thanks for the kind words, I always saw many website forums with their Folding@Home teams crunching away, making a significant impact, I hope that MBWorld.org will also be up there soon -- kicking cancer where it hurts

 

Sorry, but drug companies make enough money poisoning the people of this country to pay for their own R&D. If you thing big pharmacy is looking for a cure, or even looking to "help" people, you're a little naive. There is no money in cures, only in treatments. I really don't feel like educating you on this subject, but you should research these things for yourself.

And seriously, can you name one tangible thing that this little project has done to "kick cancer where it hurts"?

This belongs in off topic, not spamming up the entire forum.

So I still say

 

I don't think big pharmacy is doing anything, but I do have faith in independent researchers though

You can see a lot of the results so far here.

I don't think this project is run by "big pharmacy" but -- I'm no where near an expert on this kind of stuff, so if you know something about it, please let me know! I don't want to be putting effort into something that's useless, especially after so many years!

As far as spamming I'll ban myself in a little bit.

 

OK, I'll give you one example of how the pharmaceutical industry, with help from the AMA have perverted healthcare and ruined the health of this country. If you want more examples, and they are legion, search the web, read a book, the information is out there.

So here's the example:

Back in the 50's there was a medical doctor who had discovered that people with high levels of a substance called homocysteine were at high risk for heart disease. In fact his research concluded that elevated homocysteine should be considered the gold standard for diagnosing those at risk for heart disease.

However, his research was going on at around the same time that the pharmaceutical industry was rolling out their new cholesterol lowering drugs - on the back of research (the Framingham Study) that touted high cholesterol as the leading indicator of heart disease. In fact, that study is the basis of "normal" cholesterol levels that are used today. They determined that if a person has a total cholesterol above 200, that they are at twice the risk of those with cholesterol below 200 of having heart disease. Wow, double the risk. And luckily, the drugs were ready for the market.

Unfortunately for the doctor who had discovered the correlation between homocysteine and heart disease, he had no pharmaceutical backing. Why? The way to lower homocysteine is not a drug. And because no one can patent an herb or a vitamin, the pharmaceutical industry, through the AMA, crushed that doctor like a bug - and his research right along with him. He was censured (which is a lot like being banned) and his research never got a lot of attention. His career was ruined. Info on homocysteine would certainly wreck the sales of cholesterol lowering drugs.

An interesting not on cholesterol lowering drugs - the next time you see a commercial for one, keep your eyes on the bottom of the screen. in fine print, you will see the following information: "not shown to decrease the risk of heart attack or heart disease". you'll have to look closely, but you'll see it.
Why would someone take a drug to lower their cholesterol in order to reduce their risk of heart attacks and heart disease if those drugs DON'T DO THAT? Who knows, but the drug companies make billions on those drugs every year. you think oil companies have it made? No way, it's the drug manufacturers.

BTW, why don't cholesterol lowering drugs reduce the risk of heart attack and heart disease? Because if you actually read the data from the Framingham Study, it concluded that cholesterol higher than 200 doubled the risk of heart disease. BUT DOUBLES IT FROM WHAT? Well, it double it from 1% to 2%.

And the ironic thing is that the people on those drugs not only have JUST AS MANY heart attacks as anyone else, but they also die more often than the rest of the population due to liver failure - a side effect of those drugs.

That's why the commercials always talk about "your doctor may check your liver function periodically" and "people with liver disease should not take this drug". Here's a quick translation of drug commercials: if it says people with X condition should not take this drug, it's because those are the side-effects of those drugs.

This is only one example among thousands of the type of abuse and non-scientific experimentation that is perpetrated on the people in this country every day.

If you want to find out more, there are TONS of books on this subject. The abuses of the drug industry and the AMA are well documented.

That's why I can't stand stuff like this.

Cure cancer my ***. Cures are used once, that's why they're called cures. Treatments are where the money's at. It's a shame really.

 

Wow that's some insane stuff, I knew that big *whatever* was screwed up, but I never knew the medicine industry was so insane!

How does this affect the Folding@Home project through? Stanford isn't big medicne though right?

 

MGW, thats my boy!, he really knows his *explicit*

 

The only thing you can cure with a computer is a chickens toothache.

 

But chickens don't have teeth?

 

Using a piece of software to cure human disease is like letting Microsoft write an operating system. The real reason they use millions of PC's around the world is to crack protection systems.

 

Well it's not technically curing the disease itself.
It's simulating the folding of the proteins so researchers can get information on them.

You can see a lot of peer reviewed papers with orgins from the Folding@Home project here.

 

My main issue with this post is not about the "good cause" that it pretends to support. My problem is that promoting websites outside of the sponsors of this forum is a violation of the TOU and is by definition, SPAM. Members have been suspended for having links to their personal, non-commercial web sites in their signature. Yet here we have not only a post promoting a non-sponsor, but it also:
1. Was posted in multiple forums
2. Was made a "sticky"
3. Was posted by a moderator
I mean, this is wrong on so many levels it is just ridiculous. The fact that I also find most medical research to be mere drug company propaganda only makes it that much worse.
I would again say move this thread to off topic, but spam doesn't belong there either. If this thread stays, then I want to start posting my web site in my sig and start advertising (for free) on this forum via spam posts.

Just let me know.

 

Whoa, when were personal non-commercial websites NOT allowed?
We allow personal non-commercial websites, you can see that in many moderators signatures and profiles and many members signatures and profiles.

Let me know if someone has told you otherwise. The TOU prohibits advertising (which has commercial intent).

Second, please please tell me how this is tied to drug company propaganda. I really want to know because I've volunteered a lot of effort and time into this project, running it, spreading the word, and in countless other fashions as well because I have a personal interest in this, my grandfather passed away from cancer. If I'm just wasting away at this, I really want to know.

 

Look, I appreciate that you posted this and participate in this for all of the right reasons. I don't doubt your integrity. That's the way these things work. The people with financial interests rally the troops with the fallacious battle cry of "fight to cure X". Everyone says, "wow I want to help cure X!". And the machine grinds on producing billions of dollars per year and never cures anything.

We are becoming a nation of sloths that want to do whatever we feel like to our bodies and then have someone fix it after the fact with some miracle drug. We want to believe that drug companies are searching for 'cures' because it allows us to continue in ignorance of the fact that the healthcare system in the US is non-functional. 75%+ of the money spent on healthcare worldwide is spent by Americans, and yet we rank outside of the top twenty countries for healthy life expectancy. Think about it - we have a shorter healthy life expectancy than some third world countries. Us - the US - have crappy life expectancies. Sad. Oh well, I'll just take a Tylenol or six, pick up some Wendy's, and watch TV until I pass out from carb overload.

As far as the web site issue, in recent memory I know at least one person was suspended for posting a link to his web site in his sig. I can't remember who because I don't know them personally, but MB-Bob stated very firmly in OT about how links to outside web sites were not tolerated.

And BTW, the site you posted could very well be construed as commercial. Most "University Studies" are funded by drug companies. Research your own study. They have to disclose the financial ties between researchers and any companies that may benefit from a specific outcome. the problem is that those disclosures usually come in the form of fine print at the end of the Journal article and are usually not discussed afterwards by the media or anyone else who might report the results of a "groundbreaking study".

If these concepts are new to you, you should really research everything before you get involved in something. At least do the research before you try to recruit others to join in.

Another side note - can I post a link to some spyware and tell everyone that the software will help cure ADD or autism or something else that sounds good?

If you can post this based on the fact that, although it is spam, that it's "for a good cause", then so should anyone else be allowed to post anything they want as long as it is "for a good cause". Spyware, viruses, bots, as long as it is shrouded in humanitarianism...

I'm not saying that your link will harm anyone, but you can't say "it's OK for me to post because I know where this comes from". You wouldn't allow someone else to post something like this, and rightly so.

 

I see the point your trying to make, but I'm still missing the connection between "big medicine" and Stanford University.

According to their website when asked "Who "owns" the results? What will happen to them?"
They replied
I'll talk to MB-Bob more about the website linking issue, but according to the TOU as long as it's not a commercial website you're perfectly fine. Moreso, it's impossible to construe a schools research departments website as commercially-intended -- especially in this case.

You cannot post a link to spyware, no matter how good you think it is, because it's spyware. Folding@Home isn't spyware. That's the difference. There is years of support for Folding@Home (Last check they had more than 200,000 computers contributing to the project) and it's a conscious choice to help or not.

If you don't want to help, that's perfectly fine. I saw this as an oppurtunity to strengthen some bonds between some members and help a great cause as well. I see many other forums with their own teams and I thought 'Hey, mbworld.org should get their own team as well, I bet with all our members we could really make a difference' and I think I was right to an extent. One of our members (Oxygen) is adding almost 90 cpu's to the cause and I know a lot of members have also joined in.

Anyways, I really like your skepticism, I think it's a good thing to be wary of lots of things in life. I was very skeptical at first as well. Why should I put up my idle cpu cycles to help a project but after a while I was convinced. It came to pretty much at a nocost to me and it did make a difference, results did get published, papers got published and there were outcomes.

P.S. I was just reading through our exchanges in this thread, and I get the feeling that you think Stanford is working towards a profit, when they really aren't. All their findings and results are published for others to see, as I quoted before from their website. If anything, I can see big medicine trying to shut down this project because like you said, there is no money in cures but only in treatment.

 

Our Beloved and dearest friend, Mr. Albert S.(AS_DESIGN)

No ****, can you guys explain why he was banned??

EDIT: sorry posted entire quote unintentional.

 

I can't find a member by AS_DESIGN, can you give me more information about him/her?

 

he was a TREMENDOUS part of our W124 community.

one day he posted saying he was going to start a new project (he specializes in fabrication) on a wide-body kit for the 500E500.

next thing you know he gives us a link to his site and he gets banned.



he was a great person and a very savy W124-anything kinda guy