Please join me in the battle against cancer!

My cousin just recently died of breast cancer :frowning: I can’t explain to you how important it is to find a cure for this disease. Millions of people die of cancer each year, yet! We are letting it happen!! Please join us in the battle against cancer!

Put your unused PC cycles to work, helping find a cure for cancer.

Download and install the application here:
http://www.grid.org/download/gold/download.htm

And then join the team I am in:
http://www.grid.org/services/teams/team.htm?id=26DDC55D-B3D2-4CD4-81B5-945DE1976087

I’ve got the software running on my three “always on” PC’s and haven’t found a problem yet (win 2000, 98, xp)

GO! FIGHT THE CANCER!

I’m very sorry about your loss, lakersgo. Good thoughts to you and your family.

Is there no one who is willing to help in this great cause?

First, my deepest condolences on the loss of your cousin. I lost my mother to breast cancer 16 years ago (she was 49), so I know how important this fight is.

However, I used to have one of those cancer molecule testing programs on 4 different computers (and Straight Dope had a team, too) and after numerous problems with errors and down time, and the fact that it sucked memory away from other applications (in spite of claims to the contrary), I finally uninstalled it everywhere. Perhaps the lack of repsonses here from others is due to the same, “been there/done that” factor?

Previous thread: A worthy cause? Cancer research…

I’m sorry about your loss.
I agree this is a good cause. I truly feel that curing cancer is should be the number one priority in medical research.
Can you tell us if it has caused you computer problems to have this on your computer?

I am sorry, I didn’t know this forum has a team already.

No, the program has never caused me any problem at all. It’s very transparent…it just runs in the background uses unused CPU cycle…you will have to see for yourself.

Shayna: I am sorry to hear that you dropped out of this great cause. It might use memory from the computer, but those should be the “unused” portion of the memory…did you really notice slowdown on ur computer? When did you have it installed? Maybe there was a bug back then, I don’t know. You should give it a try again. It has a built-in uninstaller, so if you still don’t like it…you can always delete it with no fuss.

Yes, I noticed a significant slowdown. While true that it uses “unused” memory, the problem comes in when you want to open more than 1 application and new apps can’t open because the memory that would have otherwise been available to do so is tied up testing cancer molecules. And yes, there were apparently quite a few bugs back then. At first I only occasionally got the little “pill” thingie in the systray flashing at me. Then it started happening more frequently, then it just wouldn’t ever connect. Having that thing incessantly flashing at me got so extraordinarily annoying that I simply had no choice but to uninstall it everywhere.

While I realize this is a good cause, I feel that I did make a significant contribution during the time I ran the program. It’s not like the research they were able to obtain from the work my computers did is suddenly gone and not available. At the time I quit, I had logged 1 year and 36 days worth of CPU time, returning 1,196 results.

And I contribute to the fight against cancer in other ways, too. For instance, I visit The Breast Cancer Site regularly (All clicks in October provide double donations!) and have participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure (even though I walk :wink: ).

Here’s a more direct link to the Straight Dope Team listing at Grid: SD Team.

I’m very glad that you’re not experiencing any of the problems I had when I ran this program a couple of years ago. I had a lot of fun with it (even making screen shots of my molecules and hits). I hope you have as much fun with it as I did.