Why Fold?

[biff]

I'm seriously not trying to be a smart-ass. I realize the benefits of it, helping medical science and all, so to those of you that do fold "good for you".

But I have the impression there is more to it than just that. People seem to be quite involved with this and I even see occasionally people building folding specific rigs and more surprisingly buying 9800X2's just for folding... I'm assuming they're using the GPU to do some grunt work as well as the CPU. So there must be a whole lot more to it then what I realize. What's the attraction!?

This certainly isn't meant as an attack on those that do fold, and maybe I might get on board. I'd just like someone to enlighten me.

[Jon_di2]

[quote=biff;103820]I'm seriously not trying to be a smart-ass. I realize the benefits of it, helping medical science and all, so to those of you that do fold "good for you".quote]

This is the main reason!

But beyond that it is also a friendly competition among the hardware communities. You get points based on the amount of work you do so you work with a team to try and fold more then other teams (and you try and fold more then members in your own team). There are statistics pages that allow you to see how well your doing in relation to others as well as how well your team is doing in relation to the other teams. The competitiveness that is created is an incentive to fold more!

Think of it like the terry fox run or Run for the cure events, why host the run? Why not just ask for money from people? Creating a community with friendly competition is a very good method of getting people to join. Fewer people would donate time to Run for the cure events if it wasn't for peoples interest to join in competitions, and it is the same for this.

so....People join because it is a good cause and by nature people are also very competitive.

[joeperson]

A lot of that and a little crazy just to make things more interesting.

[Alwaysrun]

I'm starting to wonder the same thing myself. Other than the satisfaction of contributing to the "cause", all I can really say is you get 2 extra entries into HWC contests and a sweet folding tag. Ohh and don't forget you get a higher electric bill and you get to put your hardware through 100% load 24/7 thus probably reducing it's life expectancy. But I guess the number one reason with computer enthusiasts is that it's all about the epeen.

I've only been folding now for about 10 days and already I've found myself not playing games, leaving the computer on at all times, using my laptop exclusively to download and surf while my new rig sits chugging away for fear I won't get that last work unit in under the bell and my points per day average will slip. I think the number one website I visit now is the Hardware Canucks Folding stat page.

Perhaps I'm taking it all to seriously and should just let my rig fold away when I'm not using it but the siren call of points and a higher rank awaits and I'm such a sucker for the old "Carrot on a stick" but hopefully I'll mellow as the novelty wears off.

I'm sure the more altruistic folders out there would beg to differ about my assessment of folding but really with all the stat pages and forum posts dedicated to maximizing PPD and the 100s of thousands of PSX3 folders dominating the scene I find it hard to deny that Epeen > Altruism where folding is involved.

Now I'm going to go hide from my fellow folders.

[joeperson]

In the light of running (wasting) extra electricity while I'm not using the folding computer I've stepped back and generally just fold in the background. The gpu does most of the work and the quad uses some of that unused quad goodness. (just not all of it)

[Tazer-[X]]

The real attraction is that I can build my own BOINC server using debian linux, and get a bunch of clients who think they are doing the fight aids at home thingie, but, reaaallllly, what Im getting them to do is crack teh HSBC database:P

[3.0charlie]

Helping Science, and hopefully (stupidfully is probably better) I won't loose another Friend to Cancer.

And yes Folding / Crunching is addictive. I used to have a small farm, and realized that all this hardware was basically in the corner of the house doing nothing but calculating numbers. Now my rigs are still folding as strong as ever, but I made sure that I can use them while they're Folding / Crunching.

[sswilson]

Everybody's reason for folding is going to be different from one person to the next, but for me, aside from the altruistic "helping a good cause", I think being part of a community is a big part of it.

On the hardware side.... I've always been more of a hardware weenie than a software weenie, so I really don't have much in the way of practical applications to put my hardware obsession to good use. Folding 24/7 gets my hardware working towards a good cause, and trying to get the best PPD is an extension of my hobby through the tweaking required to squeeze the best possible performance out of my gear.

I'm not a heavy FPS gamer, so without something like folding as a goal, I'd have no real need for the high overclocks I strive to obtain.

Besides all that.... it can be quite addictive once you start....... :)

[kruzn4evr]

I do it for all the above, I lost my father to cancer in '90, my best friend of 25 yrs just over 2 yrs ago as well as my sister-in-law just over a yr ago so I am definately in for the cause. I'm also sort of like sswilson in that I'm not really into FPS (mostly because I suck!.. I prefer racing and flight sim) so this is a great way to stress my hardware and help a great cause. Once you do get started it does get sort of addicting and the community freindly competition is fun to watch, I too find myself checking the stats page 4-6 times a day just to see the progress. I'm sure the novelty will wear down and I don't think I'll run this rig 24/7 once I move it to the coffee table but I will most likely build a folding rig sometime soon.
Finding a cure by making it fun and easy to contribute?...everyone who owns a comp should be doing it IMHO

[chrisk]

For me its about putting my computer hardware to good use, as sswilson points out. I find I do less and less gaming now, and this is something that I can use to keep my hardware hobby going. Still I am kinda new at this, and the learning about this is fun.

Pushing my hardware to cure diseases I feel is better than getting a great Futuremark score, both of which could increase my epeen size if that was my main motive. I would also like to see a Canadian team at or near the top of the folding charts, and this forum seems to be full of mature sensible folk so I think this is the team to fold for. I used to fold for Anandtech (cpu only a few years ago for a few months), but that team is pretty established and now I want to fold for a Canadian team.

PS: Oh yeah...my landlord has not spoken to me yet about the utility bill lol...