Castle Cops Team Page : http://kakaostats.net/t.php?t=35586

Castle Cops Team Page: http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=35586

 
Thursday Team Tidbits vol. 3

Last week, we discussed farming a little bit. I still haven't found the definitive explanation to pass along. I hope to do so soon.
It has nothing to do with pharming, a new online threat similar to phishing ( [*Jaws theme playing in the background*] - just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water!) You may have heard of the one, but not the other. If that's the case you should check out Phishing, Fraud and Dastardly Deeds, where scams are discussed in detail and some of the staff analyze the methods being used. Some of the bad guys are becoming very sophisticated in their methods. Keeping an eye on this Front Page is also a good way to stay current and find out which of those scams you'll likely run into.
In any case, in regards to email, it is best not to click any links, especially if you don't know who the sender is, and in most cases, even if you think you do!

Speaking of links, Acheton, Forums Administrator, pointed out to me I should speak more about the program.
A few people have remarked about how scientific and complex this Folding is. Some have glanced at it, and turned away. "I don't think I have the skills to do this." Then they find out how little input is actually required from them and regret not getting started sooner!
Life is too short for regrets. Among the more than half million articles presented by the members of Castle Cops, there are several excellent ones about Folding@Home, one of the most compelling ones being, "A Personal Reason To" by OldGuy.


If you like sound and pictures, there are two short videos you can watch, produced by rival teams. Flash must be enabled within your browser to view these.
Foldflash2, created by F@H Team 93, ( home page http://www.short-media.com ) was the first to be discovered. Another one is, Folding For Our Future Presented by The Folding Frogs - Team 734.
To round out your reading, I recommend the most read story about CastleCops: Join Computer Cops Club to Find A Cure!  by Paul, Owner, and my first article, "WHAT IS FOLDING PROTEINS & FOLDING@HOME???  (Or Folding@Home 4 Dummies)"


MILESTONES

40,000 - vmax
30,000 - Remnant , Kraken and nwannabe
  5,000 - MadameX , and aug10bgo
  1,000 - jmschwartz, FisionChips, mctoo, and Louise

Not to overlook the Work Units done, several members have reached milestones of 100, 200 and more within the past week. Unfortunately, none of the standard statistics sites are geared to monitor this barometer of a member's contributions, and I am no exception.

Date of last work unit               - 2005-04-21 14:11:17
Active CPUs within 50 days     - 231                             - + 4
Grand Score                            - 1,712,201 (certificate) - + 68,768
Work Unit Count                     -      14,092                   - + 478
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) -140 of 37,588              - ^ 1

It was a surprise to discover that not every one of the team had ever clicked the link in "certificate" or even knew these were available for the team and personal stats not only for points, but also for Work Units! You can view ours by clicking "certificate" above.


Welcome New Member

No new members showed up since last week.


Forum Buzz

Without a doubt, the buzz has been graphics. Our local Graphics Guru has produced some new work and is finalizing some other projects. In addition a new source for signature graphics was uncovered. No fewer than fifteen of us have gotten them, so I'm sure you'll be seeing them. They are supplied by DynaSig, are highly customizable, and a plus -they are dynamic as opposed to static - they update every view.
One of the things registered members take pride in is their "signature". It's a way to pass the word about something they feel strongly about, be it Folding@Home, ASAP, or Microsoft MVP Windows-Security 2005 to name just a few.

I have a secondary signature I like to use occassionally. It combines several different slogans I have used or seen.

The point is that there is more than one way to show your support! Not everyone is (to quote a famous movie from a few years ago) "economically viable" enough to send a donation or to sign up for a Premium account. If a legal defense fund were to be set up tomorrow, I wouldn't be able to contribute.
At any given time, when you log into the home page of Castle Cops you'll likely see similar numbers to these:

Survey's show that millions of computers are sitting doing nothing for hours at a time. With more people getting broadband, the number of people always connected is astonishing. What amazes me is that more people haven't discovered a scientific program they'd like to donate some of those unused CPU cycles to.


Folding Fact Of The Week

Folding fact #1
In 1969 Cyrus Levinthal introduced the concept, later to be known as Levinthal Paradox, that a protein cannot find its native state by a random search through all its possible conformations, because such an exhaustive enumeration in theory would require eons of years, while proteins fold on a fraction of second.


BOINC  Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

The biggest news in the world of B.O.I.N.C. is that Folding@Home is this much closer to releasing their version for this client. I've been waiting since November and knowing this, was the deciding factor in starting a Castle Cops Team. I'll be announcing any updates in the forum, here.


Related Links

CCSP Folding Forum,  Castle Cops version of the Stats, FOLDING@HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS*
Thursday Team Tidbits - ( * hosted by MSN Group, The Castle Gate - right-click to save) vol 1, vol 2  Current article mirrored - Charlie's Other Web, In the Folding Forum
Folding@Home - Home, Computer Cops Team Page, Folding Facts, Fast Teampage URL, Downloads


We'll be moving to Tuesdays following this article.