I think you guys are being too negative, sure Sony probably made the whole Folding@Home crap, just like we have SETI@HOME a few years ago and everyone thought they will be finding alien contact some time. Well no.

But there differences in cost and operation of using PS3s as computational machines in research are great. We are talking about a sophisticated piece of electronics for under 1000 dollars. Just a few facts from Harpers:

Minimum number of PlayStation 3s whose spare processing power will be used next year for biological research: 10,000
Factor by which the interconnected game systems will be faster than the world’s most powerful supercomputer: 5
- Vijay Pande, Stanford University

If anyone is interested there is a great book called "America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier" by Robert Vitalis - recently published by Stanford University Press.

"America’s Kingdom debunks the many myths that now surround the United States’s “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia, or what is less reverently known as "the deal": oil for security. Taking aim at the long-held belief that the Arabian American Oil Company, ARAMCO, made miracles happen in the desert, Robert Vitalis shows that nothing could be further from the truth. What is true is that oil led the U.S. government to follow the company to the kingdom. Eisenhower agreed to train Ibn Sa’ud’s army, Kennedy sent jets to defend the kingdom, and Lyndon Johnson sold it missiles. Oil and ARAMCO quickly became America’s largest single overseas private enterprise.

Beginning with the establishment of a Jim Crow system in the Dhahran oil camps in the 1930s, the book goes on to examine the period of unrest in the 1950s and 1960s when workers challenged the racial hierarchy of the ARAMCO camps while a small cadre of progressive Saudis challenged the hierarchy of the international oil market. The defeat of these groups led to the consolidation of America’s Kingdom under the House of Fahd, the royal faction that still rules today.

This is a gripping story that covers more than seventy years, three continents, and an engrossing cast of characters. Informed by first hand accounts from ARAMCO employees and top U.S. government officials, this book offers the true story of the events on the Saudi oil fields. After America’s Kingdom, mythmakers will have to work harder on their tales about ARAMCO being magical, honorable, selfless, and enlightened."


The book is really very good and it offers a detailed survey of the origins of American imperialism in the Middle East. The book also challenges the prevailing idea that Wahhabi ideology alone is responsible for the wide-spread dislike of Americans in Saudi Arabia. Instead, the book identifies the racial discrimination which Saudis experienced in the Dhahran oil fields - including forced segregation - as a major factor in explaining Saudi attitudes towards Americans and other foreigners.

Stanford University breeds narcoleptic doberman pinchers for research on this horrible disorder. Millions of humans also suffer from it, and there's no cure in sight. They know that it's related to a brain chemical called "hypocretin," but the only treatments so far are anti-convulsants and stimulants. Very sad.