Meet the Folder: Fattyuk

Starting off our Folding@home week, fattyuk, who may have made some controversial comments in the past, but controversy is what turns the world…allegedly. Anyway, here we have him showing his caring side by talking about what makes him fold.

Member Profile

Name: Dave Matthews
Username: Fattyuk
Age: 25
Location: South-East (UK)

Folding Questions

There are several different reasons why people run Folding@home, be it experience with one of the diseases folding aims to cure, just helping out, or just for community status. But what got you into folding, and for TheSixthAxis’ Team?

Well I’ve been folding on and off since I originally bought my console in 2007, just on my own not part of a team. After stumbling across TSA within a few months of using the site as my main news source I decided to join the team, why not ay!

There are several different platforms that folding@home can be run on (PS3, PC, MAC), what platforms do you use to fold?

I fold on 1 PS3 (Original 40GB) and 2 Windows PCs – Acer Veriton nettops.

PS3 Users

Some people get worried about using the PS3 to fold because they’re worried about their PS3 dying on them. As a guide, how long do you fold on your PS3 for, and in which mode?

Hmm that’s a good one! I reckon on average I fold about 6 hours a day (on the PlayStation in Advanced mode), and on my PCs they’re folding for 24 hours a day, although I’ve only been folding on them for roughly 2 weeks.

The Folding@home software on the PS3 has evolved over the past few years, bringing in Music playback and most prominently Life with PlayStation. Is there anything that could be added to improve the experience? Or is there something that you would like to be removed from Life with PlayStation?

The only added feature I would like to see with Folding@home would be the option to have it running in the background when I’m watching a Blu ray/DVD, I watch films most nights and would be nice to have option of folding at the same time.

PC Users

There may be some people who might think that their hardware isn’t powerful enough for whichever reason. What Specification are you running folding@home on?

I’m not going to lie! I’m not clued up when it comes to PC specs. Both of my PCs are just standard out of the box, well technically they’re nettops so I’m assuming they’re not very high specs.

There will be people from the TSA community that will read this who don’t currently “fold”, is there anything you’d like to say to those members?

Join TSAs Folding team! If you work full time or part time crack your console on before work – set automatic shutdown for when you’ve completed the unit and job done! Best thing about the PlayStation is that each unit only takes 6 hours.

PC Specs

We’ve done a little research on those nettops and found their specs: Intel Atom (Effective dual core) running at 1.6GHz with 2GB RAM.

User Stats

Team Rank Project Rank Weekly Points Total Points Work Units Next Overtake
24/07/11  76 224,954 1,832 26,412  127 mpb1955
(28/07/2011)
24/07/12  45 105,252 Deepeyed
(31/07/2011)

We need you

If you would like to feature in a future Meet the Folder post, please drop an email to Jas-n [at] SonyFanatic [dot] com with the subject “Meet the Folder“.

We’d like to thank Dave for his time in answering our questions.

30 Comments

  1. Ooooohhh my 15 minutes of fame! :D

    Thanks for adding me and anyone who took the time for reading.

    • Off topic how do I change my profile picture? Well add one lol

      • Thanks sympozium will have a ganders at that!

    • Excellent name, ‘mon the fatties! Ahem. I haven’t spotted any of your controvertial comments, any chance of a highlight or personal favourite?

      • Another phatty lol! And nah mate not going to go there :P

      • You should see him on HUKD – mouth like a gutter ;)

  2. Another TSAer who shares a name with someone famous! I like the idea of folding in the background whilst watching a film, that would certainly encourage me to do it more often.

  3. Well done Dave, folding is good for the soul! ;)

    • And could save your life some day, keep folding everyone.

  4. Hello FattyUK. I didn’t realise you were Folding. Welcome to the, err, Fold. :-) Great to read a bit about you.

    If you don’t mind me picking up on something. Over the last few months, you’ve gone from a controversial member of TSA (aka shit-stirrer, or whatever other cocktail of words people choose to use) to someone who’s taken the edge off said confrontational posts but retained your core personality and humour. Genuinely, it’s lovely to see and I, for one, have no idea what you’ve done to change things but keep up the excellent work. It’s lovely seeing you post on TSA, fella.

    • Many thanks mate those sort of comments are appreciated, I guess really thought I’d just be sensible, I can jump the gun quite easily and it never really gets me anywhere!

      There was 1 article I read where I didn’t really get involved and things turned sour very quickly and after reading other(not my) comments I can kinda thought maybe that’s how I might come across and if I do it’s genuinely not a nice read and theres plenty of other sites where that sort of debate is widely available.

      I’ve come to respect TSA a lot over the past months, users, admin and content of the site! I can’t think of a single other Playstation orientated website worth visiting to! Esp when it comes to discussion and debates,

      • Woohoo ! up the 40GB PS3’s!
        And respect for you Fattyuk, you’ve more than shown your maturity after a couple of cases of ‘wrong post, wrong time’

        Like Bmike said, it’s now a pleasure seeing your posts!

      • It definitely felt like you were trying to derail the site in the past! As you rightly said, there are plenty of other places people can go on the internet to argue, and it’s great to see you are enjoying TSA now for one of the things that sets it apart (and in my opinion above) those places.

    • He’s been folding for quite some time… He’ll probably know more than me…

  5. Great interview. Well done fattyuk. I’m interested in finding out how long a PS3 WU would take to fold on a netbook.

    • The WU’s are different for the PS3, they are specially ‘optimised’ to use its architecture, but still it would be interesting if they re coded it for a laugh (I wager 2 days, compared to a quarter on the PS3)

  6. Nice to hear from you, Mr Matthews. Although it is good to see that you may be toning down some of the abuse, don’t forget that controversy can be a good thing… Remember who you are!!

    I haven’t done any folding but it seems to be a simple and effortless task from what I’ve read, so getting involved is the least I can do!

  7. and he has wandered into the forums as well. Seems to be getting everywhere at the moment. :)

  8. Nice one Dave! btw I got a new ps3 so fancy playing some cod or something soon? ;D

  9. fattyuk’s PC specs are the perfect example that anyone can fold despite having a powerful gaming rig or not :)

  10. Wow, from reading your posts on here I didn’t think you were anywhere near twenty five.

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