11/2 - Folding Rings and Proteins

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Thursday, November 02, 2006
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I asked my sweet wife what I should write about tonight, and she
told me a little story. So, I asked her if she would write it
while I put #3 to bed, and did a load of laundry. She accepted.

Son #4 had my little jewelry box with some heirloom
rings inside. I told him to put it back. He said,
“But mom, I need a ring”. I asked him why he ‘needed’
a ring, and he informed me that he had decided he
was going to marry a little girl in his kindergarten
class. I sat down and told him that if he wanted to
get married he couldn’t use one of my rings. I told him
that he needed to get a job and buy a nice expensive
ring to show the girl he wants to marry that he can
provide for her. And that he also needs to provide a
place to live with her, and not with mom and dad. His
little shoulders slumped and he moaned, ”Get a job?!
I’ll never be able to get married”

Be patient little one, be patient...

I was listening to the Kim Komando radio show the other day.
She talked about some software that I had heard about, but
had never looked into until last weekend. The best way to
explain what it does is to tell you that; if you ever looked at
what your CPU does, you’d find that 90-95% of the time, the CPU
just sits idle [Try it. After you do a ctrl-alt-del, click the
Process tab. Click where it says CPU to sort. Click it again
for a reverse sort. Look at the System Idle Process. It will be at
99% most of the time.]

Anyway, Stanford University has found a way to have you donate
your idle CPU processing power in a ‘distributed computing
project’. They’re making the world’s largest supercomputer and
studying the folding and unfolding of proteins. “When proteins do
not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious
consequences, including many well known diseases, such as
Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's
disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.”

The cancer part caught my eye, so I decided to try their software.
It runs in the background at low priority, and uses the CPU power
that you’re not. I haven’t seen any performance issues, and I’ve
tested it out for several days. Son #1 and I are trying to see who
can get the highest score.

If you’d like to give it a try, click here and read more
about it. If you download the software, join our team.
We’ve named it “Son #4's Tumor Buster Team”. We’re team
number 52688. See if you can help us out!

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

p.s. I also found a pretty cool cancer commercial on youtube last
week. You can see it on the web site.



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The summer after college graduation, I was living at home fishing
in the daytime, spending nights with my friends -- generally just
hanging out. One afternoon my grandfather, who never went to
college, stopped by. Concerned about how I was spending my time,
he asked about my future plans. I told him I was in no hurry to
tie myself down to a career. "Well," he replied, "you'd better
start thinking about it. You'll be thirty before you know it."
"But I'm closer to twenty than to thirty," I protested. "I won't
be thirty for eight more years." "I see," he said, smiling. "And
when will you be twenty again?"

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Nancy's nephew was 4 when she was pregnant with her first kid. She
allowed him to place his hand on her belly and feel the baby kick.
His little face scrunched and said, "How does the baby get out of
there?" She wanted to keep it simple so she said, "The doctor will
help." His eyes widened in amazement as he exclaimed, "You've got
a doctor in there, too?"
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One year at Thanksgiving - my mom went to my sister's house for
the traditional feast. Knowing how gullible my sister is - my mom
decided to play a trick. She told my sister that she needed
something from the store. When my sister left - my mom took the
turkey out of the oven - removed the stuffing. Stuffed a Cornish
hen and inserted it into the turkey - and restuffed the turkey.
She than placed the bird(s) back in the oven. When it was time
for dinner - my sister pulled the turkey out of the oven and
proceeded to remove the stuffing. When her serving spoon hit
something - she reached in and pulled out the little bird. With a
look of total shock on her face - my mother exclaimed.... Patricia -
you've cooked a pregnant bird. At the reality of this
horrifying news - my sister started to cry. It took the family two
hours to convince her that turkeys lay eggs ...YEP............
SHE'S BLONDE!