Theta - Edge Node intro's new feature - Folding@home to help fight CV-19
Earlier today I noticed my THETA Edge node had rebooted. So, when it came back online I checked out the GUI as it looked different. Sure enough a new panel was added to client Version 1.0.112, that panel is in the middle of the Theta Edge Node. In addition to the new panel there is a new menu option at the top right called Edge Compute. That pull down menu has two options
1) folding@home settings which is grayed out and thus you can't change any settings
2) Power Mode - this has three (3) sub-types: light, medium and full. I changed my setting from light to full to see the impact to my system. I noted the CPU fan ramped up as did the Memory (RAM) consumption.
So what is Folding@home? is a distributed computing project originally launched in 2000 to work on simulating protein dynamics, often involved in a variety of diseases including Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, cancer and others.
What is the goal? the goal to identify new COVID-19 drugs, therapies and their possible side-effects. Today, Folding@home is one of the world’s largest, distributed supercomputing systems achieving over 2.43 exaflops in April 2020, powered by over four million volunteer computing devices running AMD, Intel CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs and more. This reminds me of the SETI project in the early 2000's I participated in.
How does it impact my computer? Recall the Theta Edge node allows bandwidth sharing and thus utilizes minimal CPU and GPU resources. That means that Edge Nodes could also perform compute intensive tasks such as determining which drug designs could be effective COVID-19 antivirals. The folding@home features is leveraging CPU & RAM of your computer. You can utilize Windows Task manager to see how it is impacting your computer (if you are using Windows of course.)
Do I earn anything from this running? Yes, you earn Theta TFUEL just as if you were sharing your extra bandwidth with your Theta Edge Node.
Summary, Theta Edge node auto updated to latest client which brought in the folding@home feature set. I didn't have to change my compute setting but I did. I noticed quickly that I was earning TFUEL as the calculation was counting down.
Enjoy the Journey!
