Folding - Why do you do it?

1. For the science, my father suffers from a form of cancer and if I can somehow contribute in some small way to helping scientists understand what causes it, then maybe one day they will find a cure.
2. Secondly, because the PCs in the office are always on and can do something useful when they are not being used.
3. Thirdly, because of the competition with other teams.

I built a folding rig out of old parts and some new GPUs, only cost me about £150 total and it gets me 9000+ PPD.
 
Folding makes sense to me, understanding the ways proteins fold has so many potentially beneficial implications, as understanding the genome is one thing but then working out how that translates to the actual proteins which create the effects is another step entirely.

Now, SETI on the other hand....

[/ducks] :p
 
Heofz said:
I think the "my computer is on all the time anyway, so I might as well make use of it" argument is flawed, as when CPUs are crunching at full load they use tonnes more leccy than when idle. :confused:
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exactly, folding is a pointless waste of money / time (for home users)

can't believe so many people on here do it

sleep mode for the win
 
bledd. said:
exactly, folding is a pointless waste of money / time (for home users)

can't believe so many people on here do it

sleep mode for the win
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but it;s not a waste is it, they complete loads of units (the people on here using top end cpus and gpus, probably do a lot more than a hundred crap office pcs running it)
 
Senture said:
I have to admit I first started folding to pee my landlord off. If he can take £700 per week per person for us 2 being here and fix FA (such as the shower has now been broken 13 weeks) then he can take a hit on his wallet from me using 1KWH constantly. But having read up about it, I now do it for the science :)
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/Off topic
£700 a week! :eek: Each! :eek: Where do you live, a hotel???
If that's right you are spending £67,000 a year!!! If bills are £17,000 then you are paying £50,000 in rent... which in commercial property would be the equivalent to a property worth £715,000!!! For two people!!!
*Breaks his ! mark button*
/off topic
If my GF didn't pay the leccy bill and therefore couldn't judge me... then I would fold. For the science bit of it... and the added justification for having spent as much money as I have on it :)
 
Have a read into protein folding and what it actually means, try here for a start. Basically there are a number of diseases which result from proteins not folding correctly, but the computational requirements for modelling a complex protein folding is absolutely huge - the distributed computing means that people can use their computers to assist, rather than a single group trying to obtain funding to build or use an enormous supercomputer which is often prohibitive.

Whilst there aren't any 'breakthroughs' like the cure for cancer, there has been an accumulation of knowledge regarding protein folding as a result of the FAH program, and as CPUs and GPUs get faster, who knows what the FAH project might turn up :)
 
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