FoldingAtHome

Hi Whoever Besides Me Is Reading This,

Hard to believe my last post was on NYE at Terrapin Station. Now that I've been 'Sheltering In Place' since the beginning of March, and it's now mid-June, the idea of being inside, dancing and hearing live music seems like a distant memory. These days my in-person social contact is limited to the occasional weekend cocktail hour w/my next door neighbors here in Richmond. Of course socially distanced and with everyone bringing their own drinks, and wearing masks. I have been blessed with good neighbors on both sides of me. It's one of the best things about living here.

So especially when the pandemic started, I felt a bit powerless about how to combat it in an active rather than passive way. One way I've found is that I'm creating a neighborhood pantry to give out food and supplies to people who need it. That hopefully will be ready on Sunday of this week. Some final assembly is needed. Perhaps I'll post a picture here.

Another way I've chosen to actively fight against the pandemic is to donate CPU cycles to the FoldingAtHome project. They have one of those apps that runs in the background and uses your cpu and gpu to conduct simulations on folding proteins. These simulations discover weaknesses in the COVID-19 viral structure, and ways in which drugs may interact with COVID-19 to prevent or slow it's replication. They also have ongoing projects for a variety of other diseases including cancer.

So I bought a gaming PC and monitor from Costco, admittedly an investment, but I also fired up my old Macs and my own mac laptop (I have a mac mini, a mac pro tower - pre trashcan version, and my powerpc laptop). So now all of them are running FoldingAtHome at the same time, whenever I'm not using them. The picture above is the web interface to folding at home, as it doles out information for me to grind thru. The process racks up points just so I can see what progress I'm making. Currently I'm on a team with other ex-ILMers and we can see each other's point totals. Other than the electricity and the cost of the one new computer, it costs nothing and I get to contribute to the science behind hopefully finding a cure.

I mention it here, not only because I'm excited by contributing in this way, but to encourage others to do the same. Just click the link above to go to their website and download the software for folding at home.

I hope anyone who is reading this good health and happiness!

Bob P.