Rehab programs for folding@home addicts?

[DjSoulshot]

toTOW:
People earn money even from selling gameitems like gold etc for real money. Even a project like this, as long as there is any kind of competition(as we have), will unfortunatly be victim for this kind of "criminal" behaviour. It has become one of the greatest problems of modern MMO games.

If people can earn money by building folding machines and selling to PPD addicts then Im surprised it hasnt grown more yet.

"Pay me dollares in advance each week and i fold this amount of PPD in your name per week".

I don't see the problem, as long as more folding gets done?

[toTOW]

This is not a thing we encourage here. Making profit on a non-profit project is not very fair (you can search on the forum for thread about that, I know there are a few)

[shatteredsilicon]

toTOW:
People earn money even from selling gameitems like gold etc for real money. Even a project like this, as long as there is any kind of competition(as we have), will unfortunatly be victim for this kind of "criminal" behaviour. It has become one of the greatest problems of modern MMO games.

If people can earn money by building folding machines and selling to PPD addicts then Im surprised it hasnt grown more yet.

"Pay me dollares in advance each week and i fold this amount of PPD in your name per week".

I don't see the problem, as long as more folding gets done?

I don't see a problem either. Anybody want to buy some points?

[shatteredsilicon]

This is not a thing we encourage here. Making profit on a non-profit project is not very fair (you can search on the forum for thread about that, I know there are a few)

That doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. There are people here that are motivated by the competitive aspect of it. The simple fact is that money is being spent on hardware that is primarily used on folding. If it is for a folding farm, then how is making money out of it any more ethically questionable than spending money on it? How about we demand that Intel, nVidia and ATI "not make money" on their hardware used primarily (solely?) for folding? I don't see that argument flying.

There are other things to consider, too, such as the economics surrounding electricity costs. It's simply cheaper to fold somewhere where electricity is cheap. By analogy, it is more green to fold somewhere where electricity comes in a larger fraction from environmentally friendly sources.

Just discouraging it because "making profit on a non-profit project is not very fair" is a pretty ill thought out argument.

And if we take the view that this is all about science first (which I believe it is), then if this spare capacity is not folding unless the CPU time is "sold", then science benefits from buying points, too.

So explain to me, please, what logical reason is there to discourage selling folding capacity?

[theo343]

Not encouraging is not the same as banning and I believe this will be business for many. Since people spend lots of money on dedicated folding computers and farms I have no objection about getting a few cents back by selling points to folding teams that wants to compete.

Call it "selling future health obligations" if you like.

I dont believe people will make any profit, but they might reduce costs.

[shatteredsilicon]

Not sure about USB, but you can get them for PCI-e. They're called GPUs.

[Xilikon]

This is not a thing we encourage here. Making profit on a non-profit project is not very fair (you can search on the forum for thread about that, I know there are a few)

Let me toss the argument back with a question : Would it be fair for Stanford to enjoy people investing a lot in farms without getting the rewards in exchange ? This is why your argument is bound to fail. We cannot tell everyone what each folder should do since everyone will value their "donation" differently. Some will do it for science, some will do for points, some for glory and some for e-peen but in the end, they all reach the same goal, which is to fold for the project. It's a stupid move to allow or deny actions of everyone and be grateful of receiving the contribution instead.

Remember that the initial goal of the project is to tap into unused cpu cycles for proteins folding research. Since one or two years ago, the push is more and more toward high performance clients which need to run 24/7 to get some meaningful production. This have the side-effect of sidetracking everyone from the initial goal and it's not the Pande Group which pay for the hardware and power of those who are willingly contributing with the high performance clients.

[Hoppycat]

Yes Im enjoying it and i see some people doing 153K PPD and i feel like such a smalltimer hehe.

Don't feel so bad; I'm folding at about 200-250 PPD at the moment on my humble little 2GHz laptop.

[theo343]

Hehe well i got depressed when ive been away all weekend, and then come back to a bluescreened 15K PPD rig, argh. It almost feels worse than loosing money.

[codysluder]

That doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. There are people here that are motivated by the competitive aspect of it. The simple fact is that money is being spent on hardware that is primarily used on folding. If it is for a folding farm, then how is making money out of it any more ethically questionable than spending money on it? How about we demand that Intel, nVidia and ATI "not make money" on their hardware used primarily (solely?) for folding? I don't see that argument flying.

There are other things to consider, too, such as the economics surrounding electricity costs. It's simply cheaper to fold somewhere where electricity is cheap. By analogy, it is more green to fold somewhere where electricity comes in a larger fraction from environmentally friendly sources.

Just discouraging it because "making profit on a non-profit project is not very fair" is a pretty ill thought out argument.

And if we take the view that this is all about science first (which I believe it is), then if this spare capacity is not folding unless the CPU time is "sold", then science benefits from buying points, too.

So explain to me, please, what logical reason is there to discourage selling folding capacity?

The issue of electric costs is a valid one, but your comparison of buying hardware or buying points is weak. If I buy points on ebay, someone will process some FAH data -- but what happens to that computer if I do not choose to purchase the points? Most likely, that person will still be folding, but for their own account. (If someone wants to pay me to stop folding on my account and use theirs instead, fine with me.) There is no net change in the amount of work being done.

If a person spends the same amount of money on upgraded hardware, FAH will benefit because more work will be completed instead of the same amount.

[theo343]

When I spend up to hours of my life nursing my fah computers, looking into them from time to time each day.. then i guess im addicted. But like any hobby its not about economical profit, its about the pleasure you get from doing something thats meaningful to ya.

[The_Namek]

Yes Im enjoying it and i see some people doing 153K PPD and i feel like such a smalltimer hehe.

Don't feel so bad; I'm folding at about 200-250 PPD at the moment on my humble little 2GHz laptop.

Well reading this makes me feel slightly better about my PPD. IIRC the highest I've ever averaged was around 900. I'm running the SMP client on a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo & a graphical client on my 7-year-old Athlon Thunderbird system. Both of them should finish another WU within the next 2-3 hrs.

[theo343]

I feel conflicted today as i ordered 2*9800GX2 yesterday :O

[BrgHW]

Mee too, also got 2*9800GX2 on same special offer as theo343. Just 250$ (1/2 price i Norway) for a XFX card was to hard to resist.

Yes, I am a Foldaholic!

[theo343]

Its good im not alone in the "crunchy bunch".