Ever wonder what happened to the big dogs in the tall grass?

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Pocatello

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I do all the time. I have wanted to write a thread about this topic for about a year but I did not know how to say it without sounding critical.

I have almost 8 million points. I don't put out tons of PPD right now... about 6,000 PPD. That is the best I can do with the charges for electricity in the summer.

But I am passing guys that passed me earlier in my folding career. Guys that used to put out lots and lots of points. And where are these guys now? Why did they stop folding? What happened to them?

I won't mention any names here. No reason to. If you look at our top 100 folders (by total points, not PPD), you can see for yourself those who put out little, if any, points at this time.

When I see them on my overtake list I am amazed. I remember getting run over by them not so long ago.

What makes people commit so strongly to the cause, and doing so for a long time... long enough to get millions of points... and then leave? In case you are one of the guys that have left folding, if you don't mind, let me know in this thread.

Are you still DC'ing (but not folding)?

I hope I don't sound critical. I don't intend to be. I am just curious where you are and what are you doing? It is rare when someone says, "hey, I won't be folding any longer... and here is why."

Thanks for your past contributions. I hope you contribute in the future to some worthy endeavor.





 
Great post Pocatello...I've wondered the same thing a lot. I know I stopped folding hardcore for many months starting around October / November of last year due to some changes in life and financial strains, but never stopped completely. I always contributed just a little bit, never really going away.

It would be good to hear about some of these giants that got me excited about folding in the first place.
 
Cliffs on the big dogs gone:
1. Workable windows client
2. Attitudes
3. Servers down / out of work units

I personally didn't like having 1k in folding hardware waiting for buggy clients, and the attitude Stanford had "if you don't like the program, leave"
 
gwarren007 said:
Cliffs on the big dogs gone:
1. Workable windows client
2. Attitudes
3. Servers down / out of work units

I personally didn't like having 1k in folding hardware waiting for buggy clients, and the attitude Stanford had "if you don't like the program, leave"
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Really? Folders and Stanford staff butting heads? I never would have guessed. Was/is this a widespread or ongoing issue?
 
Other projects, other teams, people are still contributing.
 
I'd be surprised if all are doing other DC projects. I know the one big dog here left to the devaluing of the single core processor. He had something like 800 clients going. I felt bad because with just a dozen clients I was out PPD'N him. He is a folding god in my book the shear effort he had to put forth is amazing.

The rest of us try to do what we can when we can. Life sometimes shrinks our points, but things come around over time.

And as always stay away from the official F@H forum.
 
wadec22 said:
Really? Folders and Stanford staff butting heads? I never would have guessed. Was/is this a widespread or ongoing issue?
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I believe, IMHO, it is ongoing.

I don't know about widespread as I stay away from their official forums. They are not very friendly.
 
Pocatello said:
I believe, IMHO, it is ongoing.

I don't know about widespread as I stay away from their official forums. They are not very friendly.
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Since Razor got the powers that be to finally reel in 7im, it's a lot more civilized over there. But it's not just the forum that a lot of people have had issue with, it's the "You'll take what we give you and you'll like it" attitude that starts at the very top of the project.

I'd cite some examples, but the forum search doesn't go back far enough to get some of the classic relic and BillR rants. :D
 
The "devaluing of the single core processor" has already been mentioned, but another issue that is starting to become more important is the hassle of GPU2 crunching with modern hardware and software. Multi-GPU F@H is easy in XP, but Vista and above leads to driver headaches, dummy plugs, problems with GTX 295 cards/SLI, etc. Most of these are OS/driver problems, but I've also found that it's much easier to get BOINC up and running on multiple CUDA devices (and keep it running) than it is with F@H. The good news is that I think the graphics card makers (EVGA, for example) realize the value of F@H for selling hardware, so they have an incentive to get things like drivers fixed, but they're still somewhat limited by the client software from Stanford.
 
SazanEyes said:
...but they're still somewhat limited by the client software from Stanford.
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And then we get back to panda lab's attitude of STFU and GTFO when you dare suggest their precious client is at fault when its so much easier to just tell you that you're hardware is unstable no matter what the problem is.
 
I slowed my pace significantly due to my first $250+ electric bill, I will probably ramp back up when the fall and winter come...

 
brokenarrow03 said:
I slowed my pace significantly due to my first $250+ electric bill, I will probably ramp back up when the fall and winter come...
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wadec22 said:
what hardware pushed you that high? if i top 200.00 this month my gf will throw a fit. :)
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I was $277 last month. Ouch. That was running 3 or 4 GPUs and 3 or 4 Quad SMPs. I responded by turning the air conditioning a little hotter for the entire house and turning off all of the SMPs. My computer folding room is bearable now... it used to be too hot all of the time. Those SMP units really crank out the heat in my room.
 
osrk said:
Electricity prices vary a great deal. He's probably folding in hawaii.
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Nah, if you have half a dozen quads folding and the same amount of video cards you can hit $400 a month even in states with cheaper electricity.
 
It is slow and steady that wins the race.

Many people thow a bunch of money at it, build a bunch of clients, but don't have the funds to keep that many going. Instead of slowing down they quit and fade away.
 
ND40oz said:
Nah, if you have half a dozen quads folding and the same amount of video cards you can hit $400 a month even in states with cheaper electricity.
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Not completely true. I must preface this by saying I have some the of lowest electric rates in the country. With that taken care of, the electric bill at my former apartment was $37/month with no heat or a/c running and no computers running. Occasionally, a smaller TV got used but most of the time it was just my receiver with music going. Also, everything in the apartment is electric. Add in three Q6600's around 3.6Ghz as well as 3-4 slower machines and my electric bill went up to around $70-$80/month under the same conditions. It was actually the heating and cooling costs that killed me. However, the heating costs weren't nearly as bad once I got the three quads since they were more efficient heating the apartment than the crappy furnace was.

Some of the reasons some people have stopped follow:

Costs too much.
Most or all of the crunching was done with borged systems they no longer had access to.
Problems with Stanford.
Problems with clients.
Problems with Stanford regarding clients.
Absolutely terrible points structures between the different clients.
Real life took more time and effort than before.
Switched teams.
Switched projects.
Interests moved away from computers.
Couldn't afford the upgrade pace anymore.

That's a sampling of some of the reasons.

 
Alright... I saw this earlier and figured I'd skip responding as I was and never will be a "big dog".... I mean honestly, I am one of the co-founders of the [H]Mowed|Over Club;)

Here's my take on it... so much has changed over the last year, GPU1, SMP, GPU2.. how the hell do you keep up? How can you justify spending the money on a voluntary project? Is it worth it?

I'm sitting here right now, it's 6:30 pm in Denver and about 95f, and my one singe boxen that's folding here at home is making my feet sweat...

Not everybody is going to keep up, they loose interest, don't see any "reward" in it, and figure fuck it... at least that's my opinion. Of course, I'm probably full of shit, but who knows.. unless some more of the true big dogs chime in, we'll never know.

And Kendrak, slow and steady is all perspective... you do remember when we were neck and neck racing to 250K;)

I should hit 2 million some where around December or January if my borg holds up:p

Beers and tamales guys....
 
wadec22 said:
Really? Folders and Stanford staff butting heads? I never would have guessed. Was/is this a widespread or ongoing issue?
Click to expand...
A lot of the people at Stanford have lost touch with what it's like for the average person to get F@H up and running. I don't think it's out of malice or lack of caring; I think they just don't realize how much trouble it is for some people to get up and running with the more advanced F@H clients at this time. And because of their closeness to the project, they can't look at it objectively and therefore end up placing the blame on the users, and not on the software itself. It's a sticky situation, but that's why you have to come to places like this, where we care more about the end result and not whose fault it is that you're having trouble with F@H.
Kendrak said:
It is slow and steady that wins the race.

Many people thow a bunch of money at it, build a bunch of clients, but don't have the funds to keep that many going. Instead of slowing down they quit and fade away.
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Very true. I've been folding for almost 5 years, but up until last fall I didn't have the means to make a real push and so I was only putting out a few thousand points per month. Now that I was able to build this PC, my production has gone up considerably and I'm putting out about as many points in a day as I used to in a month. The project lives off of the average folder who has a bit of hardware to spare, not the power folders who come around, pump out a ton of points in a short period of time, and then disappear for good.

And if, once in a while, one of those average folders gets ahold of some money and decides to start contributing more, then all the better. But by and large, those people don't make that much of a difference to the long-term success of the project.
 
Been here for about a year. I hope I don't resemble the short term big doggers that were previously described. I started out making a few hundred ppd, then got my laptop GPU going for about 1,800 ppd, then eventually got a couple borgs rockin. I'm now about 50th in ppd for the team at 10-11k. I am looking at buying a house but I hope that won't interfere with my folding as it is right now. It might slow down any future hardware for a while.
 
SmokeRngs said:
Not completely true. I must preface this by saying I have some the of lowest electric rates in the country. With that taken care of, the electric bill at my former apartment was $37/month with no heat or a/c running and no computers running. Occasionally, a smaller TV got used but most of the time it was just my receiver with music going. Also, everything in the apartment is electric. Add in three Q6600's around 3.6Ghz as well as 3-4 slower machines and my electric bill went up to around $70-$80/month under the same conditions. It was actually the heating and cooling costs that killed me. However, the heating costs weren't nearly as bad once I got the three quads since they were more efficient heating the apartment than the crappy furnace was.
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I'm not sure how you can say it's not completely true. I've had $400+ electric bills in CO where the price of electricity isn't very high. Granted you're in an apartment so your electricity use is probably less to begin with since cooling one with AC most likely won't cost as much, but in the summer if I had 6+ machines folding including their GPUs, my bill went from $150 a month to over $400. I can attribute at least $250 a month directly to folding, through the use of power of the machines themselves and the increased use of electricity for the AC.
 
ND40oz said:
I'm not sure how you can say it's not completely true. I've had $400+ electric bills in CO where the price of electricity isn't very high. Granted you're in an apartment so your electricity use is probably less to begin with since cooling one with AC most likely won't cost as much, but in the summer if I had 6+ machines folding including their GPUs, my bill went from $150 a month to over $400. I can attribute at least $250 a month directly to folding, through the use of power of the machines themselves and the increased use of electricity for the AC.
Click to expand...

Actually, the a/c was practically non-existent. Even with no systems running I was lucky to get the temps inside under 80F. If memory serves me correctly, my electrical rate was around $0.055 per kwh. Trying to do even that would increase my electric bill by $50/month or more which was more than what my folding machines were using.
 
I personally did not have time to babysit the finicky F@H clients so I changed over to the WCG project. The remaining F@H clients I still have going fold for another team becouse of the C.C. B.S.
 
ND40oz said:
Nah, if you have half a dozen quads folding and the same amount of video cards you can hit $400 a month even in states with cheaper electricity.
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Exactly, here in the midwest we have cheap electricity but I was 24x7 with 4 9600GSO's, 2 8800GT's, and 3 GTX260's with 2 notfred VM's on my Q6600...

All the heat from the computers plus a hot and humid summer really fought with the air conditioner...

I will probably ramp back up in the winter so I dont have to run the furnace :D
 
For me personally.... a few reasons in no particular order.

High electric costs at a bad time (my home electric even now runs about $400 per month in the summer here and over $500 here at my shop)
Buggy ass clients that need too much damn babysitting
Backwards stupid installation requirements that often did not work on the first try
Stanfords seeming lack of willingness to address the clients
Stanfords attitude toward contributors
Real life time issues

I've not stopped for good though and I do have some clients still running off and on here and there. I'll not be going to any other team, thats for sure.
 
I haven't quit, not planning on it, but it has crossed my mind more and more lately. and here is why


Problems with Stanford's attitude toward us.
Problems with clients being terrible to install and Stanford shrugs and says get over it or get out.
Absolutely terrible points structures between the different clients.

it all basicly comes back to VJ's caviler attitude towards people who are donating time and money to help him on his project as opposed to people he hired to work for him. Because that is how he treats us.


 
well i havent seen one major reason i know a few people left...

real life

sometimes things happen in people's lives that leave them unable to spend tons of money on electricity or running/upgrading tons of machines etc...

some people have the means and desire, some have the means but no desire, and some have desire but no means... take your pick lol

i actually posted a good explination of what happened to me over on OCAU after some of their members were ripping on me for the reasons they thought i left...
 
Our mod is illiterate? There's no hope for this place.
 
What do you mean??

I'm illiterate and everything has been okay for me so far, or maybe it's all the beer... I dunno:confused:
 
+1 on the alcohol.

damn vodka lemonades make this place very entertaining in the summer. :) (cab in the colder months if anyone was curious).
 
Well, not having to read our crap is probably a good thing. :D
 
Well I never left. And for a while I put up a fight for #1 PPD (years ago). What happened for me was changing jobs. My old job allowed me access to around 50 desktops that I got to spec out, and money was no object. When I left that job the clients continued to fold (running in the back ground as a service). and I finally think the last of them quit sometime this year. That job had lots of toys and a huge budget, but toys at work while poverty at home sucked. Now I have zero budget at work, but bring home 2x as much.

And I dont fold at home more because of the electric bill. I'll run more at home durring the winter, but I live in TX and I dont need to add any heat as it is!!!!
 
I was never a major player, but I did break a million before the GPU clients really contributed- I did most of my work in the SMP days.

I stopped when my 81-year old grandfather died of liver cancer- no, not alcohol-related. I reassessed my feelings towards healthcare, and came to the conclusion that:
a) cancer is an all-encompassing description.
b) as life expectancy goes up, new ailments are naturally going to appear. Our cellular make-up was designed to keep us going for 20-30 years, and we are focusing too much on improving lifespan without improving quality of life at the end.
3) humanitarianism and the urge to help strangers- even lost causes- has allowed us to put 7 billion people on earth. Monitor global trends. 1B around 1800. 2B around 1940. 6B around 2000. Medical "advances" need to be kept in check, and they haven't been.

Long story short, I no longer consider myself a humanitarian. I'm okay with letting people die, including myself and people I know. Most of my friends/family are logical enough to understand and not take it personally, and many even agree.

Sorry to be a downer, but hope this gives you a different vantage point.
 
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mavalpha said:
I was never a major player, but I did break a million before the GPU clients really contributed- I did most of my work in the SMP days.

I stopped when my 81-year old grandfather died of liver cancer- no, not alcohol-related. I reassessed my feelings towards healthcare, and came to the conclusion that:
a) cancer is an all-encompassing description.
b) as life expectancy goes up, new ailments are naturally going to appear. Our cellular make-up was designed to keep us going for 20-30 years, and we are focusing too much on improving lifespan without improving quality of life at the end.
3) humanitarianism and the urge to help strangers- even lost causes- has allowed us to put 7 billion people on earth. Monitor global trends. 1B around 1800. 2B around 1940. 6B around 2000. Medical "advances" need to be kept in check, and they haven't been.

Long story short, I no longer consider myself a humanitarian. I'm okay with letting people die, including myself and people I know. Most of my friends/family are logical enough to understand and not take it personally, and many even agree.

Sorry to be a downer, but hope this gives you some insight.
Click to expand...

Not a downer....what you stated actually makes a lot of sense to me.
 
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