Well, we're a site run by an international team of folks-- Short-Media itself, that is. I am merely a hanger-on(not staff), but I fold for folding's sake as do many here. There are a FEW who are into it for the points, but they are also aggressive about bringing more machines online for folding-- so more work gets done.

We like to be high in the rankings AND growing, and folks need not be extremely point-sensitive to get more team points. If you want to fold with us, FOLD ON! I happen to have one Barton and one P4 box, online folding, but that is not totally typical IMHO-- the biggest baddest folders here are way ahead of me in the hardware ballpark, but from the more conservative "we just fold" group, WELCOME. Yes, to answer the first question, you are both welcome and encouraged to join. AND to Fold as you and your hardware CAN-- we ALL have lives too, this is just part, though it might not at first or second glance LOOK like it(some of us are here a LOT some days-- poke at self!).

I do it in part for COMPUTER SCIENCE, I do the P4 with aLinux OS and the Barton with a 98SE install running 24\7 that needs rebooting about every 2 WEEKS (Norton SystemWorks 2003 helps a LOT) just to clear out RAM and start over. Curiously, get more folding throughput out of 98SE than I did XP on same box-- might be the extra volume of RAM left free, same base drivers for chipsets on both Windows, and XP had fewer apps loaded.

But the base motivation for all of us is to help provide data to conquer the BIG C and some genetic ailments that express themselves in part with protein malformations that along with other factors result in malformed and malfunctional cells. If you are in the medical science or biochem disciplines, any explanation of the work projects based on the info at Folding@Home and some of the side links to the protein bank would be cool at least for me to read about-- say college Biology or down to AP High School Biology level, summaries of what is being fought as disease that applies to Folding research would encourage more to see why it is so important to Fold in the first place.

John.