Distributed Computing

[Productivity]

Anyone here run a distributed computing project? If TosaInu allows, would anyone be interested in forming a TotalWar.org team?

For those who don't know, distributed computing takes unused CPU cycles, and uses them for whatever the program tells them to do. Essentially rather than paying for time on a supercomputer, people donate their own spare computer cycles. As far as I can tell on my computers it runs seamlessly, and as soon as a program requests CPU power the distributed computing program releases it to the program.

There are a number of different projects running, the largest (and in my view most worth) is the Folding@Home (http://folding.stanford.edu/) project, which uses the spare cpu cycles to replicate how proteins fold or misfold in the human body, which directly relates to cancer.

There are other projects, there is a SETI one, one which is attempting to use the power of distributed computing to brute force past 128bit passwords (all that has proven so far is that it can't be done :dizzy2:) and others.

So anyone interested?

[InsaneApache]

I'm interested but to what end?....in other words, what are you going to do with CPU power?

[Productivity]

Well in the linked project, the Stanford group uses it to work out how proteins work, in an attempt to understand them and how they go wrong (apparently when they go wrong they can lead to cancer/other diseases).

Essentially the computers of those involved are acting as one large highly distributed supercomputer.

The team element comes from the fact that they give out points for the work units of processing your computers complete (smart really, capitalising on human competitiveness), and a team basically just helps a community show what it is doing.

[InsaneApache]

o i c I thought you meant to do something with Total war or the org. I need a cup of tea my brain appears to have stopped working :embarassed:

[Pausanias828]

Although I am currently in a team, which is CustomPC, which I joined because I subscibe to the magazine, I may be willing to quit and join an .org team for Folding@home, even though CustomPC is currently number 21. I don't know how easy that is to do though, and I don't relly want to give up such a good team, unless we have a decent amount of contributing members.

I also run Seti on another pc of mine, and have done so since 1999, although I don't belong to a team, so if any seti users here want to start a team, I will be happy to join.