Echo Chronicles: Homelings Folding
by SealWyf, HSM team writer
I was building a cathedral, with a small but dedicated team of masons, raising the wall stone by careful stone. The work was for God’s glory, and for the pride of our accomplishment. But we arrived at the work site to find that a vengeful child had scrawled our wall with indelible paint. We stared at the wall in stunned silence. All that work, wasted! What could we do?
The cathedral was a dream, a metaphor. An emotional paraphrase of what had really happened in the not-quite-physical world of the PSN, where the Homeling Collective’s Folding@Home team stats had been hijacked by a hostile group.
You already know the Homeling Collective. But you may not know about Folding@Home, although it sits on your XMB as part of the Life With Playstation application. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project created by Stanford University to run protein-folding simulations. These are immensely valuable experiments, but they require massive processing power. So individuals donate processor time from their PCs and gaming consoles through the project, to become part of a gigantic, worldwide supercomputer. The data generated on your console are sent back to Stanford, directly aiding science.
This is real research, not a game-based fiction. Work done by your PS3 console may cure cancer or solve the tragic riddle of Alzheimer’s. All for the cost of a little electricity. It is a worthy enterprise. I encourage you all to join.
You can fold alone, as I did when I first started. Or you can join a team, combining your stats with those of other team members, and competing against other folding teams for glory. It’s the mildest of games — you simply sign on and let your console work while you aren’t playing. Stanford maintains stats servers, where you can view your progress. There are no trophies, no unlockable rewards. There is only the satisfaction of knowing you are helping humanity, and the pride of seeing your team climb up the charts.
After I joined the Homeling Collective, I encouraged them to start a folding team. But it was another member who actually created the team. Which meant that, from Stanford’s perspective, it belonged to him. This was fine with me — I assigned myself the task of reporting on the team’s progress, writing each day’s report as if it were a horse race. Nosdrugis and SealWyf are galloping neck and neck! Sherminenie sneaks up along the rail, passing Razorbax! It was fun, and the daily reports encouraged the team to keep on folding.
We folded for a total of 242 days — eight months of slow and steady progress. In the meantime, the team founder had left the Collective and joined a hostile group, which I’ll call “Hostile Group.”
We didn’t think much about it. The folding team continued, slowly racking up Work Units and climbing through the ranks. By mid-June, we had completed 4,312 Work Units. Our rank was 3,224, in the top 1.6% of all folding teams worldwide. It was a good ranking for such a small team. We were proud of our stats, and posted them on our folding blog, on the PlayStation Forums and our own website, Fluidic Space.
Perhaps it was that pride that did us in. Because one morning, we found our team had been renamed “Hostile~Group~Pwns-U”
Worse yet, the Hostile Group page on Facebook announced their takeover, and a video on their YouTube channel taunted us for losing our “once proud folding stats.”
It did not help much to remember that the work had been done — the science was secure. It was just our credit for doing it that had been hijacked.
And this is where the story becomes a distinctly Homeling one; a tribute to the spirit of a group used to adversity in Home. As cheerleader for the folding group, I felt personally responsible for finding a solution. We needed a story to rally around, a potent metaphor that would symbolize what we had worked to build, and our grief at losing it. And, somewhere between sleeping and waking, I found my image: a group of Medieval masons standing before a defaced cathedral. I wrote it as a story, and posted it on our folding blog and Fluidic Space. The moral was clear: cathedrals may fall, but they can rise again.
So, step by step, we set about rebuilding our stats. Nosdrugis created a new folding team, number 208165, and we contacted the members of the old team, advising them to move to the new one. By the second day, we had only folded twenty-seven Work Units. But we were climbing fast. As I write these words, a month into our reconstruction, we have completed over 1,900 Work Units. We are well on our way to reclaiming our former glory.
Recently, “Hostile Group” has offered to rename our old team and transfer ownership back to the Homeling Collective. Negotiations are pending. But our new team is growing. A few weeks ago, I posted a call for folders on the PlayStation Forums, inviting all Home users to help the Homeling Collective rebuild their position. Friendly non-Homelings jumped in, with enthusiasm. At present, our two top folders are visiting humans, HIPPE and LOTR99. I continue to encourage the team from the sidelines, posting the regular “sportscast,” which grows longer each week as more folders join.
What is it about this place, this Home, that generates such passion? By real-world standards, there is nothing to see here. The Homeling Collective generated some stats for science. Someone put their name on our wall. And so we started over. That’s the outer reality.
But the inner, emotional reality is intense and complex, and painfully passionate. One group acted with scorn, the other reacted with outrage. And, finding their inner strength, that group rebuilt their pride with patience and perseverance, and so became (from our perspective) the winner. It’s a story, a saga, a myth of death and regeneration played out in numbers on a screen, and the conversations of avatars.
There is something about this Home that taps into our deep selves, and makes us form structures and alliances. It’s why we join groups in Home, why we leave them and form new groups, and why friendships shatter over politics. It’s why there is pain and passion, even over something as simple as folding proteins for science.
But that’s why we love this place. It’s why we keep coming back, despite the lag and the crashes, and the virtual goods that are never quite what we expected. We love Home because Home is people, and people are endlessly frustrating, fascinating, and rewarding. And people form groups, so Home is about groups too. Groups are the natural habitat of humans. We are not solitary animals. We know how to form bonds and alliances, friends and adversaries. We know how to go to war. And, with luck, how to win a war with a well-aimed story. Because Home is about words too, words typed or spoken, or sent over the Internet. And words are what make us human.
But humans – especially gamers – are competitive. Now that we are back in the top 6,000 teams, the Homelings folding stats are being reported by the ExtremeOverclocking site. One of the features they offer is an estimate of when a team will overtake any other team, based on their current progress. I’ve just checked our numbers; ExtremeOverclocking estimates we will overhaul the hijacked team in three months.
But that’s just numbers. It says nothing about the human spirit.
I bet we do it in two.
July 27th, 2011 by SealWyf | 31 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer by day, and an officer in the Homeling Collective by night. She has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is utterly addicted to PlayStation Home.
Thank you for such an inspiring story.
ahh… folding. I jumped on that when it first started. My team got as high as 200th in world standing but we disbanded after a while. Mostly because our PS3’s started to die off. I stopped after my PS3 YLOD’ed. I really wish we could get some hard data on what all this folding is doing in real world applications.
Fantastic article Seal, you really captured the emotions and turmoil that the Collective went through when we found that our original team had been hi-jacked, and with your help and the amazing positive attitudes of the collective and non-homeling friends, managed to not only create a new team but double/triple the members on this team.
Folders amaze me, your article inspires me and I hope it inspires others to do the same.
OMG, Seal, I had no idea. I applaud you for keeping this to yourself instead of upsetting the entire rank and file. But I am glad to finally know what happened. The Hostile Group just lost any remnant of sympathy I had for them. To deliberately sabotage something as worthwhile and important as this Stanford project is just -- reprehensible.
Thank you, Keara. To repeat a point made in the article, the actual science done for Stanford was not impacted. In fact, our rebuilding of the group has greatly increased the amount of folding being done. So science is the real winner here. To my mind, this is as it should be. “Team spirit” pales before the glory of the human spirit, and the search for truth.
I’m probably about to make the entire Homeling collective mad at me but I have a slightly different view,not disagreeing with your view entirely about the hostile groups intentions but if the folding was actually the guys property I wouldn’t view this as a hijacking or sabatoge but rather an unfortunate situation where those who participated in this probably didn’t read the fine print about ownership and made some assumptions that turned out to not be true.I’m certainly not saying what the hostiles did was good or right,quite frankly taking other ppl’s hard work against their will is basically theft,but if the hostiles didn’t break any rules i’m not sure that anything could be done.In every “parting of ways” between ppl all dreams and shared projects that were planned and that were actually started will suffer to 1 degree or another.I hope you can work out a deal that will get your hard work back without breaking the bank,and also hope that there’s a way to combine the 2 totals so you end up getting full credit for your time.Sure what this guy/girl did was underhanded but these”parting of ways” happen all the time,indeed they should almost be expected and prepared for when setting up things such as this.I know,we all think friendships/relationships will last forever and that our friends would never wish us ill in the future,but the cold hard truth is they fall apart quite frequently.I hope your new folding account has multiple owners or is somehow otherwise protected from a repeat of this kinda thing.
Thank you for your comments, cthulu. I don’t think we are in any fundamental disagreement.
“Property” is a difficult issue when it comes to resources created for Home groups. Most virtual resources, such as web sites and Home clubhouses, need the name of an actual individual on the title deed. Folding groups are no different. The group may be created in the service of a club, but somebody’s name is attached to it, so Stanford will have a contact point. And, if that person leaves the club, and does not transfer the group ownership, there is the risk of the kind of action we experienced.
As you point out, community property is an issue in any messy divorce. When push comes to shove, it was “my house”, “my car”, “my dog”, even “my kids”. This is why the new Homelings folding group was created by Nosdrugis. We cannot imagine any situation where Nos would leave the Collective in a huff. And, if he does, we will have significantly larger problems than “who owns the Folding team?”
Indeed, Seal, as Nos is the only one with the key to the Bacon storage.
Another inspiring article, I just joined the Homeling folding group after reading it.
Thank you, MJG74! Your name will be appearing in the “sportscasts” shortly!
Perhaps I am biased being a ‘Ling myself, but I also am in awe of the Collective’s response in the face of adversity. It would have been quite easy to simply walk away from the whole project in disgust; instead we rose from the ashes, so to speak, and began anew…and are well on our way to greater heights. While the ultimate goal is to lend our resources to scientific studies, the journey is very much about camaraderie and determination. I’ve always thought of Home as a microcosm of the real world, but I find I’m often surprised at exactly what facets of humanity find their way into our virtual world. In this case, the surprise is unexpectedly pleasant.
Also, Cthulu is correct in his assessment of the property ownership of the original Folding group (speaking as a Homeling, I am not mad at you at all…truth is truth :>). That said, I agree with Seal’s usage of sabotage in reference to the loss of the first Folding team. The intent of the ‘hostile group’ was to harm the Collective by causing a disruption in something many of us were working on with an eye toward a greater good. Much like children in a playground where one kid takes offence to something and leaves with their ball, thus ending the game. Except, in this case, those remaining on the playground had an extra ball allowing the game to continue…which has only served to leave the ‘ball-taker’ on the sidelines watching the rest play, teeth gnashing as their spiteful dreams of malevolence were dashed and broken. Let ‘em have the old beat up ball…we have a new shiny one, and the game is better for it.
Nice article Seal. And welcome to the team, MJG…happy folding!
Well the reason I wouldn’t call it sabotage is that it seems from this article that the hostile/s are willing to give the thing back,albeit maybe for a price,so I’d call this more like extortion than sabotage,which still sucks for the Homelings.This was a minor word definition difference I was trying to point out and didn’t have any reflection on the hostiles intent,or lack there of,when they 1st did this.
Congrats Seal and team for taking the high road in this situation. Too many times when there is dissent in the ranks everything that was once worked for falls apart. To see that you all decided to just press forward through adversity and show everyone that you aren’t going to stoop to their level is commendable and was the right response. More power to you and your team as you work towards your goals.
I decided to go on youtube to see more about what’s really transpiring here,I’m not too sure I learned anything definitive but clearly this incident is but a small piece of what’s been going on between the Homelings and the “Hostile” group.So therefore I’ve changed my opinion a little bit,I still think this is a form of extortion but it seems to be part of a campaign in a war against the Homelings and therefore cannot be judged on it’s own,as far as morality goes.The actions of both sides would have to be examined and then it could be better decided if this was any worse than anything else that has transpired between the 2 groups.As I’ve mentioned before,in “fam” fights anything that can be used or done will be.Friendships will be broken,partners will deceive each other,spies will be running amok,accounts will get hijacked.Lies and slanders will be commonplace,the truth will be hard to discern,3rd parties will be manipulated,bribes may take place as well as extortions and sabotages.In short if some1 can think of a way to seemingly inflict harm on the other side it will be done.I could give you some horror stories about how bad these things can actually get but I think you get the idea.And don’t think for 1 min. that it will be confined to Home,as the youtube video’s prove,any and every avenue of attack will be used by a determined foe,so to conclude I must say that the Homelings non-aggression stance puts them at a decided disadvantage on the surface,true they may have secret “weapons” or connections that might even things up and to be fair the opposition claims they aren’t as non-aggressive as they claim to be so this is more of a fair fight than at 1st glance.I’m pretty sure I have friends on both sides of this”fam war”so I fully intend to stay neutral,getting involved into fights between friends is a sure way to lose some if not all of them.I wish both sides the best but fear the worst aspects of man’s ingenuity will soon be showing themselves in this situation.
War can only exist as long as two parties are willing to participate. If one reacts by simply ignoring the provocations of the other, not only will the war end, but the aggressor will have revealed their true nature, earning a most hollow victory at best.
I trust the Homelings to do as they always have, to remain true to themselves and their ideals in this, and to prove themselves the better people. Seal’s article shows that they’re on the right path.
I’m not too sure that 2 willing participants are needed for a state of war to exist,but that’s another topic.The main thing here,it seems to me anyways,is this:it APPEARS that the homelings are going to be the targets of the “hostiles”,the question before the collective,or it’s leaders,is how they will be handling this.If they do absolutely nothing then they will be basically hoping the “hostiles” are incompetent strategists and that the “hostiles” will fail on their own.It’s certainly 1 valid strategy,but pins all hope on the oppositions abilities,or lack thereof.There are many different strategies that could be employed by either side,not all of which would be considered “aggressive”.The problem with allowing your opposition even a hollow victory is this,IMO,there’s an old saying that goes like this:”To the victor goes the spoils.” meaning if you allow your opposition to have victory you allow them to have w/e it is they want,unless there’s some kind of negotiated settlement.Idk the real reasons behind this disagreement but if the points in contention are vital to the collectives future,and I’m not sure that they are,they would be surrendering their existence without so much as a cross word.I’m not trying to make those that will not fight to fight here,I really am neutral,I was just trying to prepare the collective for what APPEARS to be coming their way,those youtube video’s made it clear that the “hostiles” already have ppl on the inside of the collective.Btw I’m not so sure Seal’s article shows they are on the right path,in her own article she seems to indicate that the collective might be willing to pay a price to get this folding thing back.This might accomplish the short-term goal of getting it back but sends a message that the collective would rather pay,doesn’t matter what they pay in this case,than fight.This may be totally in keeping with their ideals but it also signals every wanna-be Viking or Attila the Hun that the collective is open for business.Another words,once they start paying to avoid conflicts there will be no end to the “requests” that others will be making.I guess it’s true that if 1 side ignores the other the war will end,eventually,but it might not end in a way that is liked by the 1’s that did the ignoring.
Cthulu--Homelings never had any intention of giving into the “demands” of these people, as their desires were as anti-Homeling as their actions. I must also beg to differ that the Homeling policy of non-aggression puts the group at any disadvantage. In order to succeed in harassing others, those others must be harassed. You cannot harass those who cannot read your harassment, and indeed I think this policy is part of what lead to the dissolution of the anti-Homeling campaign, along with the realization of some that real-world threats of violence and other excessive behavior was beyond what they intended. But, that is another story…
Excellent work, Seal.
1st you assume the anti-homeling campaign is over,I’ve seen no indication that has occurred.2nd you seem to equate doing anything with harrassment,this does not need to be the case.There are things that can be done that don’t involve harrassment in these situations.3rd I think you’ve done a smart thing by making it known that attempted extortion won’t work against the collective.4th by saying the things I said above about Seal’s article I didn’t mean to imply that I thought she did a bad job writing it,quite the contrary,what I was trying to make clear is this:there are some ppl that can’t be reasoned with,when you find yourself dealing with such ppl non-aggression isn’t always the best answer.I’m not saying the”hostiles”are such ppl,but if they are then the collective would be at a disadvantage.Like I said before,I know few if any details about this whole situation I’m speaking in generalities here.If a real world example is needed to prove what I’m saying then think about how well appeasement worked against Hitler.That’s only 1 of many examples that could be used to show that doing nothing or non-aggression doesn’t always work,especially when dealing with hate-filled madmen bent on revenge.Again I’m not saying non-aggresion is right or wrong,I’m only saying that it will not lead to success in every instance,as is the same of any policy.
*non-aggression
Also I should point out that Seal said in her article that negotiations were ongoing to bring the folding team back yet here you say there was never any intention to give into the demands.If both statements are true and accurate then I might infer that the collective was engaged in talks with the “hostiles” for reasons other than making a deal,could be a few different reasons for that none of which contradict what I’m about to say.Engaging in talks that will have no hope of creating a solution is 1 example of something that can be done to an opposing “fam” that prevents them from victory yet is not harrassing.Keeping an adversary “tied-up” can be a very useful tactic,and if the other side thinks a deal will soon be in the works they will be less inclined to go on the offensive.Like I said,there are alot of ways to deal with a situation like this without harrassing anyone.
Considering you are talking with one of the Generals in the Homeling Collective, she probably knows more about what is going on.
I have no doubt she knows more about what’s going on,nowhere did I claim superior knowledge of the situation,as a matter of fact I claimed I had hardly any knowledge of the situation other than to know some ppl involved from each side and what I’ve read here.I was merely pointing out that they themselves proved my point,about there being non-harrassing ways to do something in this kind of situation,IF the talks were a diversion.
Awed & speechless, Great article Seal.
As long as I’m at this article already I’d like to ask if this situation between the “hostiles” and the Homelings is the reason I haven’t seen many Imagine,the group,activities lately?
It is not unrelated, cthulu. Thanks for noticing.
I should note that the “negotiations” I mentioned never included the option of any sort of payment, physical or behavioral, in exchange for the folding group. And, indeed, the negotiations never actually happened. I mentioned they were “pending”, as in, expected or proposed. One of the Hostiles made comment about returning the group to one of our Generals, but the offer was not repeated.
We don’t mind. Our new folding group is making stunning progress. We expect to pass the old group by the end of August — about 70 days to duplicate the efforts of nearly 250. The new group is larger than the old group ever was, and new folders join us every week. The irony is that this strength and enthusiasm come directly from having been attacked.
It’s too bad about Imagine!, though. I’m glad someone remembers it.
It is too bad,I remember it as a good start in the direction of keeping ppl entertained by unconventional means.Kind of ground-breaking actually.I think the point I was trying to make is getting lost so I’ll try to explain better.I was pointing out that getting involved with talks with another group that there are “problems” with can be a useful delaying tactic,it would also be in keeping with the non-aggression stance of the Homelings.So I was kind of congratulating the collective for thinking “out of the box” by using that tactic for that purpose.Now because it wasn’t a planned thing and never materialized anyways I’ll take back that congrat but extend another.Congrats on re-doubling your efforts in the new folding group and making it bigger than it was before.It really is a shame about Imagine! I thought it was a great idea,maybe you can make that arise from the ashes as well?I think the pursuit of free,unpackaged fun has great appeal for many ppl.It also gave ppl an outlet for their creative energies,in a positive way.
I totally agree that Imagine!, or a similar organization, deserves to survive. I personally believe that dreams are never wasted. They may seem to wither and die, but the idea beneath them survives and pops up elsewhere, like an underground stream forming a spring. User-generated entertainment in Home is one of my long-term dreams. I’ll keep looking for ways to make that happen. Thank you for your support.
YW and yes dead or dying ideas can survive and flourish as long as 1 motivated person remembers them.Sometimes they pop up in unexpected places or from ppl that you wouldn’t expect to remember them.Good luck with your efforts in the pursuit of this idea.
Today at about 9 AM Eastern time, Team Homelings passed our renamed, hijacked team, “Hostile~Group~Pwns~U”. We did it in 64 days — eight months worth of folding surpassed in a little over two. And our current team is strong, active and enthusiastic. Who knows how high we can go?
I want to thank all our friends, those in and outside of the Collective, for making this moment possible. Today I am very proud to be a Homeling.
The collective is like the members. . .it is one of the many which makes it one. . .