Retard

Iron Folder Interview

What is your OCAU username & Folding name?

RETARD / WISP

What is the meaning or significance of your OCAU username, if any?

Just a gaming name I used to have when I was younger. I’m sure i’ve acquired some of the key attributes associated with this name.

Which month and year did you win Iron Folder?

February 2011, My birthday was on the 22nd so it made it even better :)

How many F@H points do you have?

I currently have 716,690

How many boxen do you have? Break this number down between borgs and your personal machines.

I currently use 1 x Office machine running 24/7 Motherboard: MSI P67A-C45 CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4300mhz (43x100) with stock intel cooler RAM: 1 x 2Gb DDR3 1333mhz standard timings I borged my parents laptop in the beginning and then felt sorry for it and turned it off. I have a 2600K sitting here next to a MSI 560 Twin Frozer – just waiting to decide on a motherboard brand for future expansion.

When did you start folding?

I have folded under another name back in early 2004 I recently decided to start again under WISP (my business is WISP Services) in Nov 2010

When did you start folding for Team 24?

See above :)

What is your average F@H points per month?

It’s erratic as I have upgraded and now having some issues with the –bigadv units not being accepted for points under the 6.34 client. Last month was 602,788 With plans for the months ahead 600K will be easy to beat.

Any other DC projects?

SETI approx 10 years ago but I was abducted by aliens.

How many boxen do you have running the following clients?

Regular client — 0

SMP client — 1

GPU client — 1

PS3 client — 0

What operating system do you primarily use?

Win XP Home - Although have just discovered Linux is more efficient so keen to try this out.

Name:

Paul

Location:

Glenelg North, Adelaide, SA

Occupation:

Co-Principal WISP Services

Hobbies:

Cooking, folding of course :), work

Are you married, single, etc?

I live with my partner

Does your significant other, assuming you have one, support your F@H activities?

She knows the basic concept and thinks it’s a great idea. I have her support to expand into which ever areas I choose. It is imperative to seek the approval of ‘the government’ before undertaking such tasks :) NB: ‘the government’ in this example does not represent a democratic government but rather one of a socialist republic.

Congratulations on being chosen the Iron Folder for the month. How does it feel to be chosen by your peers for such a prestigious award?

It’s great to be recognized by your peers in any arena. The Distributed Computing Forum is a collaboration of friendly & honest individuals. Although i’m not sure if they were just being friendly or honest? We all do this toward a common cause yet for unique reasons – So, if by me being chosen for this month’s award were to encourage someone to take on the FAH project or want to do more in their community in another area then the feeling would be awesome :)

Why do you think you were chosen?

Because I gave away a free video card and encouraged people to take it from me? Seriously though … the DC forums were a bit quiet of late. When I first joined our magnificent team years ago there was buzz and excitement about the community. I wanted others to share that same feeling today as I did then. It seems as a team we had lost direction but definitely not passion. All I did was provide a platform where people could come together and join in the spirit of what this team is about.

Why do you participate in Folding?

It might surprise people to know: having had Leukemia as a teenager, my father dying of bowel cancer, my mother with multiple breast and stomach cancers & my grandfather dying of prostate cancer w/Alzheimer's … this is NOT the reason I fold. [sarcasm]I like to contribute to global warming, my utility companies profits and to keep up with the latest technology. [/sarcasm] The enduring events of my families health was beyond my control & I have accepted that long ago. In complete contradiction, I fold because being surrounded by similar minded, good spirited people energizes my day. I get to share that energy with my family, friends & clients. Nothing is too hard, too far out of the way or ridiculous. We share a passion for many things, not just folding for diseases. Our team by enlarge accepts people without prejudice. We donate time, money & hardware. All to find a cure we may never know to people we will most likely never meet. There’s also a twisted part of my mind that likes statistics and analyzing them at every update.

If Folding could find a cure for just one disease tomorrow, which one would it be and why?

To help white people dance OR a cure to all forms of cancer.

What would you like Team 24, to know about you, that might surprise them?

As a kid I wasn’t too shabby a cyclist. Unfortunately no one told me I had bad hair and a massive camel toe. Click for pic

Where do you see your folding activities in the next year or two?

For the remainder of this year i have configured a work budget to include the addition of 1 PC a month. I’ve decided on a 2600K and 1 x GPU at this stage although I’m not sure what motherboards will be best for these uses. The second year would be a slightly smaller financial burden given i only have to keep them up to date. My garage is almost ready for the addition of new boxens. May be hard to see but after a little bit of stuff is thrown away, the roof will go on the bar, that shelving rack on the left hand side will be used to house the boards. Pop a screen out there, fill the bar with booze and fridge with beer and we have an instant folding man cave. Come in from work – grab a coldie and check on the stats :) Click for pic

Have you been successful borging? If so, what kind of borging worked for you? (For example, friends, family, and/or work?)

Although I have borged in the past I haven’t discussed it formally with anyone just yet. I have a range of professional contacts I could talk with but at the moment time and the responsibility of helping through teething issues isn’t in the forecast. I have a bit to learn myself still, once I am confident with my knowledge I can share it more successfully with others. I think the forum & wiki is a good place to direct people toward. That way they can make their own educated decision without feeling like an Amway salesman is harassing them.

Any ideas on improving the DC subforum, or suggestions or improvements for our Team?

I have a million ideas. One I would like to see is a video series of how to build & setup a folding boxen with various Folding clients - Windows / Linux / GPU / Console / FAH Tracker etc It makes it a lot easier for people to follow and gives them a better way to relate to what’s happening.

What challenges have you faced in your F@H efforts?

Well I think the hardest thing is getting familiar with my PC. All this is a bit new to me since I came back. I’m still finding out where best to spend my money and then how to achieve a stable overclock. Its not just about a high processor speed anymore. SMP 7 or 8 core with ATI Shader clock speeds on GPU I only just learned that overclocking ram had a significant part on the –bigadv units. Benefits of Linux over windows? There’s a heap of things to get your head around. My aim is to find something that’s relatively easy yet highly effective in terms of points production and then replicate that a few times.

How much do you spend on F@H? If you consider equipment, electricity, and other activities that support F@H... how much of your life has DC’ing consumed?

Its hard to say really. Each system is just over the $1000 with 1 x GTX 560 Electricity is somewhere about $600 per 3 months. I would expect that to rise about double once I’ve established everything, but I claim part of these costs through work.

Do you have friends, family, or neighbors that know about your F@H activities? What do they think?

Not really no. If ive learned anything in business its when to take an opportunity. Its hard to not sound weird when talking about folding. I tend to mention it in casual conversation and let them decide if its something that makes them curious.

Do you game? If so, how long and what types do you prefer? Consoles or PC?

I really don’t game anymore. I was always a PC gamer, well renown for throwing grenades into my own teams spawn zone. On some servers my name got me banned before I even had the chance to prove how annoying I could be. Being young and immature was fun. Now I get to be old and immature. Some of our team hardware would make awesome gaming consoles I’m sure. You know you’re a folding addict though, when you spend over a grand to have a box sit there and only do one specific thing.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thanks to everyone in our team who placed a vote for me this February. It’s been an exciting month and I know it will continue to grow impressively throughout the year. Donate to our folding fund if you can and keep T24 on an upwards path :)

On behalf of Team 24, I thank you as well for your contributions to this team and I thank you for your time to talk about it. Keep on folding!