[Sussex] In support of Foldit gamers and devs

[Fay Zee]

Hi All,

After reading today's Reg article on gamers' successful solving of 
the real-world puzzle at 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/19/gamers_crack_structure_of_aids_protein_in_three_weeks/
I wanted to add my congratulations and admiration of all involved.

I'd vaguely heard of it before but this prompted me to find out a 
little more

To quote from the article:
"The solution of the virus enzyme structure, the researchers said, 
"indicates the power of online computer games to channel human 
intuition and three-dimensional pattern matching skills to solve 
challenging scientific problems.""

And to quote from Wikipedia:
"Foldit follows the games-with-a-purpose paradigm in which players, 
as a side effect of playing, help solve problems that computers 
cannot solve very well."

Yeah, humans do that better than computers. I love the fact that
someone developed a project like this and turned it into a game that 
problem solvers can play and presumably enjoy doing so and racking up 
scores.

Do we have any Foldit players on the list?

A Slashdot poster brought up the subject of patents, but as far as I'm

concerned, if the end result is drugs to control a disease or 
condition, that must be a good thing. Its now down to investment, and 
if all proceeds well, it will eventually be good news for so many, 
both sufferers and relatives.

The page for the co-creator and lead designer and developer:
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/scooper/

Of the other projects listed on his page, "Active Learning for 
Real-Time Motion Controllers" interests me as a Blender user.

 Best Regards,
Fay
East Grinstead Linux User Group
www.eglug.org.uk


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