Hi-- I'm a reporter for Chemical and Engineering News, the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society. I'm writing a story about distributed computing, and I've got a few questions for volunteers. My deadline is noon Friday March 23 EST.
What made you choose this particular project?
Do you have a science background?
How many other projects are you participating in?
Are the message boards and online communities an important part of volunteer computing?
Thanks very much for your input--
Elizabeth Wilson
Senior Editor, West Coast
Chemical and Engineering News
pubs.acs.org/cen

Why this project? I've been involved in several life science DC projects, and after FindADrug finished, teammates moved here. The fact that Rosetta beat an earlier project I was running at predicting structures helped draw me here. Rosetta seems like one of the best places to be helping to develop code that can be used by projects dedicated to finding treatments/cures to the diseases that are personal to me. Plus.. there was a rumour that this was a great way to attract playful ladies of a licentious and salacious nature. *snicker*

My science background: I am not a molecular/chemical biologist, but did spend time in chemistry thinking up "safe" ways to make nitroglycerine using the local WWII bunkers, 55 gallon drums filled with water to dump the acid mix into if it began getting too hot. With the mishap(s) that happened due to black powder experiments, it's a good thing I never got ahold of the necessary acids. :) As a comp jock, it's much safer for me to help out others with my donated cpu cycles.

I take part in Rosetta (focusing on basic research, and our soon to be applied research on various ailments) as well as donating cpu cycles at Folding@Home which performs similar but different research.

The online communities and messages boards are an important part of the dc experience for me; although if the project leaders ignore us - we're likely to run off. I tried out a project for about 6 months and never could find the bragged about proof that it was creating results that were useful - while the project leader basically ignored us with one or 2 month departures.
One of the most fun parts of the DC experience for me was competition; having joined a team and finding ways to climb through the ranks of that team while helping the team climb against other teams. Running systems for a few more hours a day, or running an extra system to overtake the person above me - was addictive.

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What made you choose this particular project?
I started with SETI, which evolved in to BOINC. I then would try various projects, curious to learn what is being studied. Once Rosetta came online and I got in to what the project is all about, I'm here to stay.

Do you have a science background?
Yes, computer science. The rest of what I know is just personal interest.

How many other projects are you participating in?
Zero. All Rosetta all the time.

Are the message boards and online communities an important part of volunteer computing?
The boards is where I saw Dr. Baker himself interested in the project participants, and sharing information about what they are studying and why it is important. And this is a key element of what convinced me to drop the other projects I used to crunch with.

Good luck with your story and your short deadline. Be sure to let us know when it is published, and drop us a link to it.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Thanks very much everyone, for your very helpful responses! The story will appear in the April 2 issue of C&EN. pubs.acs.org/cen
best,

Elizabeth Wilson

not sure if its to late, but if not, i read about this project in the seattle times and joined up shortly after that.

i'm in it to help try and find the way around the cancer gene and cell.
but in the meantime i am running this project just to help with the fight against diseases that are the worst for a human to have.

science background, no

other projects, no

i found it interesting to read how a single powerful computer could not do what the power of a few hundred or thousand home computers could do. plus this project is also a tie to back home. i spent about 14 years in seatle before moving in with my girlfriend here in belgium. i like to help with projects that are based back "home"

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this is the link.

http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/85/i14/html/8514sci2.html

Elisabeth can you get en offical post of the story because its only for members of cen

thanks
rechenknecht123

Thanks very much everyone, for your very helpful responses! The story will appear in the April 2 issue of C&EN. pubs.acs.org/cen
best,

Elizabeth Wilson