The "Oh My, Look Who Has Pie" Thread

[123bob]

Wait a minute! Are you saying that others of us may also be obsessive-compulsive?!?

I' m glad you posted that SerLV!. I was trying to figure out what OCD was. I would have probably obsessed all day on that... I might have had to PM Dr. SiG or gone to fry's for another quad....

Chasing points is OK too. My real underlying point is that we don't seem to do it with some sort of big headed ego. I rarely see that here. That is why I stayed, along with SiG, when Dave invited us to come over from the LC section with the famous "AARP" thread.

Crunch on, my teammates.

Bob

[skinnee]

My addiction to crunching is mostly due to an OCD issue. I started with a single P4 to see what it was all about, then found out there were points and saw how all of these guys had a lot more points than I did, thats where my competitive nature kicked in. Once I finally hit the pie chart, it was a matter of trying to get others to push me off the chart and spur me to add more machines in order to stay on the chart. I had been searching for something to do with my knowledge and access to HW for a while, I even started helping out a childrens hospital here in the Twin Cities with some network infrastructure projects, they kept wanting to pay me and I kept forgetting my social security number.

The pie and points keeps me interested. For now, I am competing with the team rank numbers, I want to see where I can get team rank wise before the end of the year. I just keep finding small things to keep me interested in crunching, because as someone send a few posts back (one of those collective goofballs I think )...crunching is rather boring, its like having a fish tank. However, with points its like we have fighting fish.

[[XC] serlv]

I started crunching when my Dad passed due to Cancer. I wanted to do something. If a DC app isn't working on Cancer research, of some sort, I'm not interested.

At the time I had three computers. However, I was going to school for networking and didn't want to use their labs, so I built a few more at home. I joined my forum's team to be with like-minded forum members and got a lot of support. My Dad's death really shook me up. Getting involved with them helped me through a very rough time, emotionally.

My forum, at that time, was Bitbenders, where D_A hails from. Though we were a relatively small team we were very strong in standings among forums. I enjoyed that, alot. I've since been with one or two other forum's teams, and enjoy helping a forum "rise up" and become a force. That involves points, yes. There is something there, for me, involving the competitive nature. I was, in the past, a very strong and vocal cheerleader. I like to encourage a team's build-up. Something in it that resonates with me. However, the points represent important work being done. WU's being completed. And maybe one step closer to a more effective treatment. And maybe less lives devestated at some point.

For sure, I wouldn't be crunching if my life hadn't been personally affected by Cancer. That was the catalyst that got me involved and still drives me. But I like seeing us whoopazz, too. I like "kickin' some butt". I like being a strong part of that.

Crunch On!
Onward and Upward


Scott

[ShootStraight]

I started crunching when my Dad passed due to Cancer. I wanted to do something. If a DC app isn't working on Cancer research, of some sort, I'm not interested.

At the time I had three computers. However, I was going to school for networking and didn't want to use their labs, so I built a few more at home. I joined my forum's team to be with like-minded forum members and got a lot of support. My Dad's death really shook me up. Getting involved with them helped me through a very rough time, emotionally.

My forum, at that time, was Bitbenders, where D_A hails from. Though we were a relatively small team we were very strong in standings among forums. I enjoyed that, alot. I've since been with one or two other forum's teams, and enjoy helping a forum "rise up" and become a force. That involves points, yes. There is something there, for me, involving the competitive nature. I was, in the past, a very strong and vocal cheerleader. I like to encourage a team's build-up. Something in it that resonates with me. However, the points represent important work being done. WU's being completed. And maybe one step closer to a more effective treatment. And maybe less lives devestated at some point.

For sure, I wouldn't be crunching if my life hadn't been personally affected by Cancer. That was the catalyst that got me involved and still drives me. But I like seeing us whoopazz, too. I like "kickin' some butt". I like being a strong part of that.

Crunch On!
Onward and Upward


Scott

Amen. You're not alone.

-SS

[Movieman]

Since people are listing their motivations I'll add mine.
There are multiple reasons but my Grandmother and 2 daughters are the main ones.
When I was little my father worked 3-11PM at the GE in Lynn,Mass
My Mother worked at Liberty Mutual Ins Co. in Boston.
She left at 7am and got home at 5pm.
This left a gap from 2pm-5pm and my fathers mother came and watched us every afternoon for those 3 hours then she would grab the bus home.
She was like a 2nd mother. A tough as nails old Irish lady with the maiden name of Cecilia Corbett.
When I was 12 she was diagnosed with cancer. That was 1964.
She had surgery, then came home but it attacked her again.
One of my vivid memories is of my father holding her head over a bucket while she was vomiting from the drugs they gave her.
She was a great old lady and she died at age 68 in 1965 when I was 13.
I loved that old lady in a way that I can't describe to you here.
Except as a child I think I've cried three times in my life.
First when she passed, next when my father passed in 1997 and last when watching the events of Sept11,2001.
I have two daughters, aged 20 and 31 and if I can do anything in my power, either personally or by motivating others to do this work, to spare my two kids the hell of what I saw my grandmother go thru then I will do it.
You sort of bare your soul to people at times when you get involved in this and things that are very personal get shared with others.
If we as a group with all this computational power can cut the time to save just one person then it's all been worthwhile.
I beleive that we can do much more than save that one person and that is what motivates me along with the personal parts I mentioned here.

[D_A]

Well ... I don't talk about my experience normally but ...

My parents and another couple were married on the same day in the same church. Being the only couples that knew each other in a new town they stayed close and their kids and my sister and I effectively grew up in each other's pockets. Aunty Morna and Uncle Ernie they were to us. Aunty Morna contracted bowl cancer, but despite aggressive treatment she developed secondaries in the brain, lungs and liver. By the time she died none of us could recognise here. Morna had always been a big woman, full of love and life. She passed as a pale, skeleton-esque shadow of her former self.
My Dad died a few years later with Parkinsons being a contributing factor. Since then we've had two friends contract Hodgkinson's and non-Hodgkinson's lymphoma. One survived and has three sons, the other died leaving a wife, son and two daughters.
I crunch in their memory HDC, HPF/2 and the like in their memory. I do FAAH for the friends I have who are nurses paramedics and other emergency services who get put at risk of this in the course of their trying to help the rest of us.

[SiGfever]

Morning PIE anyone?

[gr8golf]

I started crunching when my Dad passed due to Cancer. I wanted to do something. Scott

Just think about what would happen if everyone that had been personally been affected by cancer started crunching? I don't know whether crunching is going to be the magic bullet in the heart of this disease, or what kind of role it will actually have - but what if it is?

OTOH - we need to get some more nuclear power plants up and running and find ways to deal with the heat / global warming.

[SiGfever]

PIE Time...

[skinnee]

mmm...blue raspberry!

[twilyth]

mmm...blue raspberry!

Show off!

My slice is bigger than your slice - nah, nah, neh, nah, nah.

You know if you overclock too much, your chips will start to grow hair and clog the radiators. Yup, that's a fact. There's a reason they're call "hairy Hapertowns."

So . . . . you better slow down before it's too late. I'm not envious or anything, I'm just trying to be a good friend.

[skinnee]

See...now thats the type of response I expect around here. I know crunching is serious business, but come on, if we can't make fun of "The Collective" there is something seriously wrong.

[[XC] mysticmerlin]

Hey, Wait a darn second there skinnee........... Oh, Yeah, never mind your right

[skinnee]

70 days and counting...

[SiGfever]

We are an Equal Opportunity Abuser.

[[XC] mysticmerlin]

70 days and counting...

We are an Equal Opportunity Abuser.

[[XC] mysticmerlin]

We got our first real snow of the season yesterday evening and of course every one forgot how to drive in it so long story short I was on a generator till just now so no crunchers at all. Just the MacBook on battery. Anywho some one else should enjoy the pie today and tomorrow I guess.

[twilyth]

Not to be rude, but if you have a generator, what did you use it for if not the computers? I don't understand. Are you implying that the computers are NOT your top priority? Is that it? I think we need to send you back to the prime unimatrix for "re-education."

[D_A]

Generators are notorious for making ty power. Wandering frequency, poor voltage regulation, spikes, surges and weird ass harmonics abound, and that's on the GOOD ones! You can get generators rated for the kind of stability you need to run computers etc safely, but they cost waaaaay more.

[twilyth]

Generators are notorious for making ty power. Wandering frequency, poor voltage regulation, spikes, surges and weird ass harmonics abound, and that's on the GOOD ones! You can get generators rated for the kind of stability you need to run computers etc safely, but they cost waaaaay more.

But . . . but . . . but, that would mean that he doesn't have UPS's for his rigs - OMGWFTBBQ!!!

That is a CLEAR violation of collective protocol. I'm going to have to report this.

[D_A]

Even a UPS can only handle so much ... well a COMMERCIAL one at least. If he's scored some mil-spec units he's laughing.

[[XC] mysticmerlin]

I don't have 1 ups on my rigs. I just can't afford them right now and the 2 I had the battery's died. My gen is a Hobart welder hard wired into the switch. I do not run computers off of it though. Just not very clean power.

[D_A]

That's wise. Better to wait than lose your hardware.

[twilyth]

You can get replacement batteries pretty easily. If you can't find one by the model number of the ups, you can definitely find it by specs and measurements (to the nearest 1/8th inch I think). Let me know if you need some leads on vendors. My old Conext 900VA units are on their 3rd set of batteries.

[[XC] mysticmerlin]

mine were the cheap Belkins and hit the trash.