Why Do You Run Folding@Home / SETI@Home / Other / Neither?

While there are several distributed computing projects out there you can contribute to, the most popular are Folding@Home (cancer research) and SETI@Home (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). So as an interesting survey style tip, weigh in on your reasoning for contributing to one project over another.

If you are running a distributed computing client, why did you pick the project you did?
If you are not running a client, do you even know about these projects?
If you have deliberately chosen not to contribute to one of these projects, why?
Are you contributing because you genuinely believe in the cause or you want to see your name go up the stat standings (be honest)?

For me, I used to run Folding@Home because I genuinely did believe in the cause. However as of a couple of years ago, I decided to shut off my F@H clients because I believe energy conservation is currently a more important cause.

Of course everyone has a different reason so share yours below.

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appsbyaaron
I did Folding@Home for a year. I did it because a guy I worked with did the SETI thing and I thought it was a huge waste of time. If you’re going to help with research why not make it worth it like helping find cures for diseases? I stopped because i ran out of spare computers at work to use. Also, and this may seem shallow, it never felt like anything was getting accomplished. All that happened was I would get more points and finish more work units. Where is the results of all that work?
http://www.nathanhunstad.com Doctor Gonzo
I originally ran SETI, but I’ve drastically cut back on it and made it a low priority in BOINC because I just think the likelihood of finding anything is too low, cool as it would be. Now I spend most of my processing power on Climate Prediction dot Net, because it’s a cause I believe in, as well as Einstein@Home, because I think that has a much greater chance of paying off scientifically.
steve stone
I tried running a similar program on my laptop, pushed by work, but promising to use the computing power to cure a disease. I left it running one evening on the desk. The next morning I saw the programs ran my dual core laptop at full bore, which spewed out lots of heat, deforming the clear plastic mat on my desktop, which cost me about $20 to replace.
David M
I was running FAH at work. They thought it was hogging bandwidth and was told to stop running it. I tried telling them it is just an occasional, relatively small upload. Still no dice.
Matt
I run Folding@Home on my two home servers and my home general use/gaming machine. I originally did it because of the reasoning that “otherwise you’re wasting possible CPU cycles that could be going to good use”, and because it’s just about the easiest possible way to be charitable. I’ve kept doing it because… really, it doesn’t cost all that much extra power to max my CPU, compared to all of the other appliances in my home.
I’ve been running it (on at least 1 PC) for almost exactly 3 years now. I use their “run as a service” client. I never see it, it’s never conflicted with anything, never hung up, or otherwise caused problems at all. I check my stats every once in a great while when I happen to remember that I’m running the client (usually when I’m browsing through my services list and happen to see it), primarily to see how much good I am doing (as a single contributor) compared to all of the contributors.
To gauge how much you’ve contributed take me for example. With the usage as described above I am ranked in the top 4% of contributors. Of course that doesn’t give any idea of how much of a contribution to the cause that actually is… like appsbyaaron stated above, you don’t really see the results, but as they say, every little bit helps.