Why for folding?

[tangoseal]

Okay here is my question and since it concerns Intel processors I guess this is fitting.

Now I understand what folding@home is ((roughly)).

With respect to free market choice to do whatever you want to do with your money, and I DO completely understand, why do people build entire high end systems with the whole reason to fold.

I mean is folding really that important? I see people selling used stuff all over the place to build a sandy rig just to say they are building their systems for folding.

I remember when seti@home came out and everyone was doing it but it was a total flop, at least from what I seen.

Now everyone is folding. I mean is this going to be another flop, or do you guys/gals think that folding@home, the whole protein research, will actually be used by the industry to honestly fight negative health conditions? If this is so then I guess I will participate.

But if not then ouch people are wasting a lot of money for basically nothing.

Should I also fold? Seriously... I just dont understand the whole science that well and really dont understand if it is worth the extra electricity to run my computer all night while sleeping and folding. I do have a powerful rig so I can probably fold pretty good if it is worth it.

Thanks!

 

[Godmachine]

From Wikipedia :

Folding@home is the most powerful distributed computing cluster in the world, according to Guinness, and one of the world's largest distributed computing projects.The goal of the project is "to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases.

Accurate simulations of protein folding and misfolding enable the scientific community to better understand the development of many diseases, including sickle-cell disease (drepanocytosis), Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, cancer, Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis, osteogenesis imperfecta, alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, and other aggregation-related diseases. More fundamentally, understanding the process of protein folding — how biological molecules assemble themselves into a functional state — is one of the outstanding problems of molecular biology. So far, the Folding@home project has successfully simulated folding in the 1.5 millisecond range — which is a simulation thousands of times longer than it was previously thought possible to model.

And the most important part :

As of November 23, 2010, seventy-seven scientific research papers have been published using the project's work. A University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report dated October 22, 2002 states that Folding@home distributed simulations of protein folding are demonstrably accurate.

Academic papers lead to studies/trials which can then lead to new kinds of treatments and screening methods to help those afflicted by or to help with the prevention of all kinds of diseases.

So Folding@home is actually making an impact on research and in time development.

I don't ever get personal on message boards but I will add this , my mother has strong progressive form of MS and is bed bound from it , she requires 24/7 care from me and a few nurses that I have to pay to come and help and in time it will win.. its taken nearly all of her ability to move except her right hand and thank god it hasn't effected her brain or memory but I can't say if that will hold true to the end, any kind of project that can personally help in some way be it small or large to help possibly develop new kinds of treatments for her or towards prevention is a completely worthy cause of my unused CPU cycles.

I'm not expecting anyone to read what I posted and guilt them into feeling like its something they should do , just know that running Folding@home is not a wasted effort.

 

[TheSpoon]

Hahah I've thought the same thing. I'm always a bit surprised when I see someone mention that they built a rig just for folding. I mean it's probably a good cause and all... but it's unusual to see people this passionate about charity. I guess the competitive aspect of it makes it addictive.

 

[Furystrike]

I don't ever get personal on message boards but I will add this , my mother has strong progressive form of MS and is bed bound from it , she requires 24/7 care from me and a few nurses that I have to pay to come and help and in time it will win.. its taken nearly all of her ability to move except her right hand and thank god it hasn't effected her brain or memory but I can't say if that will hold true to the end, any kind of project that can personally help in some way be it small or large to help possibly develop new kinds of treatments for her or towards prevention is a completely worthy cause of my unused CPU cycles.

I'm not expecting anyone to read what I posted and guilt them into feeling like its something they should do , just know that running Folding@home is not a wasted effort.

MS is a terrible disease. So many people are sick because of the lifestyle they chose, but your mother didn't do anything to end up in the state that she is in. I hope the best for the both of you.

As a medical student/scientist, I 100% agree that the folding@home project saves or will save lives. The wheels of medicine turn slowly, so the lives saved may be off in the future, but it will happen. Regardless of the reason that people fold, we should be thankful for it

 

[Godmachine]

MS is a terrible disease. So many people are sick because of the lifestyle they chose, but your mother didn't do anything to end up in the state that she is in. I hope the best for the both of you.

As a medical student/scientist, I 100% agree that the folding@home project saves or will save lives. The wheels of medicine turn slowly, so the lives saved may be off in the future, but it will happen. Regardless of the reason that people fold, we should be thankful for it

Thank you for the kind words. Shes had MS since 1983 and I really had to step up to take care of her starting in 1997 , she worked full time in a wheel chair for quite a long time without the ability to stand and in great massive pain. It was only in 2003 that things really went south and she started having MS attacks constantly and increasing in severity.

I've been Folding for a long time and personally it feels good to make an impact even in some small way against such a vicious disease.

 

[tangoseal]

Thank you for the inputs thus far. I think I am going to start folding once I get my box's watercooling completed tomorrow or the next day. My father has bad heart disease and my mother has some form of Nueropothy (spelling?). If it can help them or prevent others in the next few decades then its worth it.

 

[Godmachine]

Thank you for the inputs thus far. I think I am going to start folding once I get my box's watercooling completed tomorrow or the next day. My father has bad heart disease and my mother has some form of Nueropothy (spelling?). If it can help them or prevent others in the next few decades then its worth it.

Of course. Thank you for listening and thanks for your cpu/gpu cycles

I'm sorry to hear about your father and mothers conditions and I hope this project makes an impact for them in there lifetimes.

 

[Wiseguy2001]

A few reasons I fold, namely; far too many good people I've known have died of cancer before their time. Also my aunty is currently under going treatment for breast cancer, my granddad who despite being fit as a fiddle has a brain tumor.

If swing flu/ influenza mutates much more it could start killing millions.

And there are many other reasons in my sig.

Also, I fold for the same reasons I take part in charity rides. If I can turn something I enjoy/ a hobby into something that can really help people. Surely that is win-win for every one?

 

[limitedaccess]

I'm pretty sure a lot of it just has to do with the nature of man and the importance of bragging rights. But since in this case its actually going towards something helpful and productive, that is great.

Whatever happened to Seti@home anyways? At the start I think both Seti and Folding were mentioned about the same, now I've realized I haven't heard any mention of Seti at all for quite awhile.

 

[Filter]

alot of people fold because a disease is in a family member. I fold because of my grandfather and his Alzheimer's. Im about to bring on a new system build thats dedicated to him.

Some people fold for part science and part competition. with the point system and all.

 

[kirtar]

From what I can find, F@H is the only major medically related distributed computing project to have any level of support for all platforms (CPU, Nvidia GPU, ATI GPU, though not so much on the last one). All of the BOINC projects that have support (albeit better support) for Nvidia and ATI GPUs look to be either pure math (e.g. Collatz Conjecture) or physics/astronomy (e.g. Milkyway@Home)

 

[Kendrak]

I'm one of the crazy guys that built a SR-2 rig (24 threads) just for folding. (specs in sig)

There is the competition, but many of us have friends or family that have been affected by one of the disease that we are trying to help find a cure for.

Yes we know it will be years and decades before our work results in a cure. But unless we have a base of research to start form the work wont get done and no cure will ever be found.

BTW folding has been going on for over 10 years. Not a fad at all.

Fold on!

 

[stockwiz]

I figure I'd pick up folding for a while. Since it's so cold here, one of the most consistantly cold parts of the continental US, it won't really do any harm besides adding some supplemental heat to the place.

But yeah, buying 3 and 4 video cards, 1000 dollar processors just to fold? I suppose if I made $200,000 per year I wouldn't care but I don't. If someone wants to buy them for me I promise to keep them folding pretty much around the clock.

On the other hand, future improvements in processor speed largely made past efforts, especially those before the core 2 duo era, redundant. But it's winter, so it doesn't really effect anything.

 

[Filter]

I figure I'd pick up folding for a while. Since it's so cold here, one of the most consistantly cold parts of the continental US, it won't really do any harm besides adding some supplemental heat to the place.

But yeah, buying 3 and 4 video cards, 1000 dollar processors just to fold? I suppose if I made $200,000 per year I wouldn't care but I don't. If someone wants to buy them for me I promise to keep them folding pretty much around the clock.

some people smoke or drink or go to strip clubs.

everyone has a hobby.

 

[stockwiz]

I'm one of the crazy guys that built a SR-2 rig (24 threads) just for folding. (specs in sig)

There is the competition, but many of us have friends or family that have been affected by one of the disease that we are trying to help find a cure for.

Yes we know it will be years and decades before our work results in a cure. But unless we have a base of research to start form the work wont get done and no cure will ever be found.

BTW folding has been going on for over 10 years. Not a fad at all.

Fold on!

It's certainly a far more worthy use of CPU time then something like SETI, since at least in my mind the possibilities of alien life and them visiting this planet is basically 100% anyways with no 'proof' needed.

I can't in fact think of a better cause to use spare CPU cycles for off the top of my head. I hope it leads to a cure, without big pharma buying the cure up and shelving it because treating it conventionally would make them more money. Sorry for letting the conspiracy nut side of me come out here. Money is a very powerful motivator in the world.

 

[RamonGTP]

I did folding for a while but eventually stopped becuase I personally did not feel it had any benefit whatsoever. I'd rather keep my room a bit cooler and lower my electric bill. If you really want to help fight a desease, donate money to whatever cause it is you're passionate about. The way I see it, the project has turned into a competition for PPD rather than actual results, as such people OC their systems and video cards as high as they can, and with that there is no way to know if the results you're submitting are are even accurate.

 

[Filter]

I did folding for a while but eventually stopped becuase I personally did not feel it had any benefit whatsoever. I'd rather keep my room a bit cooler and lower my electric bill. If you really want to help fight a desease, donate money to whatever cause it is you're passionate about. The way I see it, the project has turned into a competition for PPD rather than actual results, as such people OC their systems and video cards as high as they can, and with that there is no way to know if the results you're submitting are are even accurate.

hence why there are many people that do the same work unit.

they still need the computer time to do it. This way they save alot Money by having people donate there CPU time. For them to take our donations then build a supercomputer having a building to house it and maintain it or even rent one. Our contributions are more worthwhile then donating a couple grand a year. They get more work done.

Competition is good. it drives us as humans to be better. You think humans would be in space if it wasnt for competition.

 

[Cat1yst]

hence why there are many people that do the same work unit.

they still need the computer time to do it. This way they save alot Money by having people donate there CPU time. For them to take our donations then build a supercomputer having a building to house it and maintain it or even rent one. Our contributions are more worthwhile then donating a couple grand a year. They get more work done.

Competition is good. it drives us as humans to be better. You think humans would be in space if it wasnt for competition.

You have to admit that he has a point with the OCing. People are squeezing out more mhz for more ppd, and at a certain point you have to question the fact that when you get clock interrupts and so on so forth youre gonna be spitting out bad data, and that bad data goes to the server...

Im guessing for some people on the computer forums are in it for the epeen. Is it bad? No. Instead of finding "sponsors" and running a marathon or so on so forth, we put our hobby to a use that could in theory benefit society. Different folks different strokes. Personally on the matter id rather race XC or SuperD for charity.

 

[wabbitseason]

I'm intimately involved in the science. Believe me, it's valid and extra computing power can ALWAYS be put to good use.

 

[Nightbird]

I wouldn't build a dedicated rig, but if you're going to build a powerful rig for gaming and have a full time job, that computer is going to spent a lot of time simply depreciating in value

 

[Filter]

You have to admit that he has a point with the OCing. People are squeezing out more mhz for more ppd, and at a certain point you have to question the fact that when you get clock interrupts and so on so forth youre gonna be spitting out bad data, and that bad data goes to the server...

hence why the same work is sent to alot of different people.

 

[Jay_2]

why not just donate the money directly to charity?

The cost of the rig / the electricity must be quite a bit also the amount of polution caused by the mass of PCs folding can't be good can it?

 

[Filter]

why not just donate the money directly to charity?

The cost of the rig / the electricity must be quite a bit also the amount of polution caused by the mass of PCs folding can't be good can it?

they still need computer time.

 

[Nightbird]

why not just donate the money directly to charity?

The cost of the rig / the electricity must be quite a bit also the amount of polution caused by the mass of PCs folding can't be good can it?

If pollution is the problem, shipping a package to Africa probably causes more than years of folding. A cure also lasts forever, the package not quite as long. I'm not saying you shouldn't do the latter, there an opportunity cost to everything.

 

[Filter]

F@H users generate about 5.6 petaFLOPS while the fastet super computer does about 2.56 petaFLOPS.

that super computer cost $88 million to build and around $20 million annually for costs involving energy intake and operating costs. It also has to have 200 workers in order to have it operate and function properly.

so you tell me whats better. Free donations or 88million and 20 million every year.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Okay here is my question and since it concerns Intel processors I guess this is fitting.

Now I understand what folding@home is ((roughly)).

With respect to free market choice to do whatever you want to do with your money, and I DO completely understand, why do people build entire high end systems with the whole reason to fold.

I mean is folding really that important? I see people selling used stuff all over the place to build a sandy rig just to say they are building their systems for folding.

I remember when seti@home came out and everyone was doing it but it was a total flop, at least from what I seen.

Now everyone is folding. I mean is this going to be another flop, or do you guys/gals think that folding@home, the whole protein research, will actually be used by the industry to honestly fight negative health conditions? If this is so then I guess I will participate.

But if not then ouch people are wasting a lot of money for basically nothing.

Should I also fold? Seriously... I just dont understand the whole science that well and really dont understand if it is worth the extra electricity to run my computer all night while sleeping and folding. I do have a powerful rig so I can probably fold pretty good if it is worth it.

Thanks!

Yes, it is important. More important than just buying a high-end system just for gaming, I'd say.

 

[RamonGTP]

they still need computer time.

With money they can buy computers if they need them or buy other things if they need it more than computers. There is no way donating your spare CPU cycles is going to be more beneficial then cold hard cash.

I understand it's a hobby and participating in folding allows you to fulfill that part of your life as well as "help" a good cause but you're seriously fooling yourself if you think folding is a larger benefit then money.

 

[Jay_2]

F@H users generate about 5.6 petaFLOPS while the fastet super computer does about 2.56 petaFLOPS.

that super computer cost $88 million to build and around $20 million annually for costs involving energy intake and operating costs. It also has to have 200 workers in order to have it operate and function properly.

so you tell me whats better. Free donations or 88million and 20 million every year.

now this is very true. (although it would generate more jobs but not many )

 

[Filter]

With money they can buy computers if they need them or buy other things if they need it more than computers. There is no way donating your spare CPU cycles is going to be more beneficial then cold hard cash.

I understand it's a hobby and participating in folding allows you to fulfill that part of your life as well as "help" a good cause but you're seriously fooling yourself if you think folding is a larger benefit then money.

read my above post about the money issue. i highly doubt they would get that many donations to build and upkeep a computer doing half the work there getting now for free.

 

[Wiseguy2001]

With money they can buy computers if they need them or buy other things if they need it more than computers. There is no way donating your spare CPU cycles is going to be more beneficial then cold hard cash.

Most people don't use all their cpu cycles. I use mine short bursts, so most of the time it is just sitting their idle. So why not put it to good use?

Also it makes life easier for them, they don't have to worry about instalation, maintanence, power or upgrades - yet they get >90% of my computing power, free.

And if people ramp up their set-ups as a hobbie/ competitive aspect, I don't see a problem with that.

 

[RamonGTP]

read my above post about the money issue. i highly doubt they would get that many donations to build and upkeep a computer doing half the work there getting now for free.

Why not? If everyone who's folding donated they could get AT LEAST as much work done. Not to mention, money will buy anything they want, if they want to pay for machines that do crunching they can do that, and they can do it more efficiently then folding. They just need to run the work units once or maybe twice for verification, they don't need to crunch the same one many times over due to uncertainty. Lets also not forget then coming up with "cures" involves much more than simple processing power. Research? Expirements? Case Studies? That cost money too.

Is folding better than nothing at all? Probably. Is it better than money? Not even close. That's like saying a $100 Best Buy gift card that you have to spend on computer software is somehow more valuable than $100 cash you can spend anywhere on anything.

 

[Nightbird]

Why not? If everyone who's folding donated they could get AT LEAST as much work done.

If we invent quantum computers, they wouldn't need donations at all.

It's not a realistic comparison to begin with since the vast majority still need their own computers, they are not donating their PC. Even if all the people who build dedicated folding PCs donated its full value instead, it's a tiny drop in the bucket. The cash value of all the 'donations' is little more than the sum of the electric bills, so good luck building and operating a supercomputer with a budget that barely covers the electricity it uses.

 

[Wiseguy2001]

Money isn't that good. Here's two reasons:

1. Read any study you want, the cost of running/ maintaining a computer system far outweights the initial cost.
2. Go look at the financials for verious charities, large percentages of used up in the administration costs and never supporting the curse intended.

I'm going to leave it there as I am in danger of breaking the gorden rule of internet forums:-
Never argue with a troll. They bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Why not? If everyone who's folding donated they could get AT LEAST as much work done. Not to mention, money will buy anything they want, if they want to pay for machines that do crunching they can do that, and they can do it more efficiently then folding. They just need to run the work units once or maybe twice for verification, they don't need to crunch the same one many times over due to uncertainty. Lets also not forget then coming up with "cures" involves much more than simple processing power. Research? Expirements? Case Studies? That cost money too.

Is folding better than nothing at all? Probably. Is it better than money? Not even close. That's like saying a $100 Best Buy gift card that you have to spend on computer software is somehow more valuable than $100 cash you can spend anywhere on anything.

what we are doing is stream lining the process to remove as many variables and false readings. we eliminate those folded proteins that have no possibility of creating a cure. if they were to do this in a lab it would take trillions of dollars, millions of man hours to run every single experiment. the point of distributed computing is to donate the processing power to do this in a virtual world. the system is designed to use an algorithm that detects possible experimental candidates based on the results returned for the WU. once it has been returned it is then run again on a controlled variable system to validate those results. from there they use the results of the WU to test it in a real world process. the testing alone takes roughly 2-5 years depending on the disease. now consider doing that for the infinite variables of those proteins. we wouldn't solve shit without F@H.

yes there are other projects that do various other things from mathematical equations, to listening to intergalactic radio signals, to hypothetical science. no ones saying you have to run F@H. but F@H is the primary distributed computing project on [H]ardocp. which is why we are pushing it. secondly its disgraceful to see a company giving hand outs to their members sitting in first place while the rest of us are paying out of our pockets. but that's for a totally different discussion and thread.

in my honest opinion if you don't care about F@H then quit worrying about what other people do with their hardware. it was posted as a possible option to help out the science no ones forcing you to join the team or any other team.

as for the cost factor behind F@H, Pande Group its self doesn't do the actual experimenting, they are a group of scientists/professors that create these variable tests. from there they collect the data which is then distributed to the science world and government funded projects.

If we invent quantum computers, they wouldn't need donations at all.

It's not a realistic comparison to begin with since the vast majority still need their own computers, they are not donating their PC. Even if all the people who build dedicated folding PCs donated its full value instead, it's a tiny drop in the bucket. The cash value of all the 'donations' is little more than the sum of the electric bills, so good luck building and operating a supercomputer with a budget that barely covers the electricity it uses.

we are the super computer. there isn't a single computer in the world that could out produce the 450k+ people running F@H. and no not even that stupid super computer in china can.

but for us its not about the cost. its about doing something that may have an impact in the next 50 to 100 years. i can sacrifice buying a couple less things every week or not going out to see a movie every friday if that means the money i instead spent on my electricity bill due to folding ends up finding a cure for cancer. in the end its just money, wtf do i care your tax money still pays for F@H whether you fold or not since its a grant funded project.

 

[SpeedyVV]

It is an addiction.

You start with idle processing while the system is on.

Then you let it run 24/7.

Then you get mowed by a few people.

Then you OC your system to catch up.

Then you find out about bigadv.

Then before you know it, you run your 5 computers at home full blast...

Then you find out it will be cheaper in the long run to just build a nekid SR-2 with the point per watt you get.

Reasons why people fold:
- For the science
- For a sense of community fun
- For competion
- As a hobby
- As a "Hyper" benchmarking tool (How many PPD does your system get? My AMD X6 gets almost 20,000 ppd)
- They have free electricity.
- They need a second heater for their house

 

[SpeedyVV]

...

I remember when seti@home came out and everyone was doing it but it was a total flop, at least from what I seen.

...

Ignorance is bliss? Why do you say it was a total flop? What have you seen?

From Wikipedia

With over 5.2 million participants worldwide, the project is the distributed computing project with the most participants to date. The original intent of SETI@home was to utilize 50,000-100,000 home computers.[10] Since its launch on May 17, 1999, the project has logged over two million years of aggregate computing time. On September 26, 2001, SETI@home had performed a total of 1021 floating point operations. It is acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the largest computation in history.[16] With over 278,832 active computers in the system (2.4 million total) in 234 countries, as of November 14, 2009, SETI@home has the ability to compute over 769 teraFLOPS.[17] For comparison, the Cray Jaguar, which as of 26 September 2009 was the world's fastest supercomputer, achieved 1,759 teraFLOPS.

 

[RamonGTP]

Money isn't that good. Here's two reasons:

1. Read any study you want, the cost of running/ maintaining a computer system far outweights the initial cost.
2. Go look at the financials for verious charities, large percentages of used up in the administration costs and never supporting the curse intended.

I'm going to leave it there as I am in danger of breaking the gorden rule of internet forums:-
Never argue with a troll. They bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.

I don't see any trolling going on with the exception of your post. It's been a civil discussion until you entered the thread.

 

[wabbitseason]

You should learn to spell before trolling something like this. Nice quotes around "cures", Ramon. If you have a problem with folding, just don't do it. It's that simple. Don't sit up on your high horse and snicker at people who get caught up in the spirit of competition for a good cause.

 

[conscript]

nvm...i should probably rtft.

Anyway, I'll agree with Ramon a little here...at the very least i could do away with all the evangelists in every forum trying to get people to fold. If they want to, let them. If they don't, leave them alone. I feel like I'm getting cold called by telemarketers at 3am sometimes...

i too stopped folding when i realized that the cost in electricty, wear and tear on my computer, and overall damage to the enviroment using up that electricty probably outweighed any tangible benefit. Couple that with the occasional stories you read about the resources being diverted and sold to other companies...and yea, completely turned off to it.

 

[Filter]

not to be a debbie downer or anything, but i wonder if you took all the money in electricity spent folding 24/7, and donated it to medical R&D, if that might have a bigger impact? I'm almost positive it would. But no sense of fun in that.

lol what do you think F@H is?? its medical research.