How to help others when you're not using your computer

Tweet

Let's face it, most of the time when leave for work or school in the morning, we forget to turn off our computers. The only thing their doing all day is using power, and checking for updates from Microsoft every once in a while. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's always wondered what I could do with my computer while it was on all day. I've tried several different options, like running a home server, a remote desktop server, information grabbers, but I've finally found a solution that I'm confident I'll be using for the rest of my computing life. It's called Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, but most commonly known as BOINC. The main idea behind BOINC is to have thousands, or sometimes millions, of computers processing information together at a speed that no billion dollar super-computer is capable of. You're probably wondering what kind of task could ever need this amount of resources, which is what initially sparked my curiosity. After I did some research, and saw all of the interesting projects in which I could help several different Humanitarian, Scientific, and Mathmatical organizations, I was hooked. Here are some examples of the different projects that you can contribute to using the BOINC client: * Biology & Medicine - Docking@Home — models protein-ligand docking. - Malaria Control — performs stochastic modelling of the clinical epidemiology and natural history of malaria - POEM@Home — models protein folding using Anfinsen's dogma. - Rosetta@home — tests the assembly of specific proteins, using appropriate fragments of better-known proteins. - SIMAP — compiles a database of protein similarities using the FASTA algorithm, and protein domains using InterPro. * Earth Sciences - Climateprediction.net — attempts to reduce the uncertainty ranges of climate models. - Quake-Catcher Network — uses accelerometers in, or attached to, internet-connected computers to detect earthquakes. * Mathematics - ABC@Home — attempts to solve the ABC conjecture problem. - PrimeGrid — various prime number related projects, including a collaborative effort with Seventeen or Bust. * Physics & Astronomy - AQUA@home — uses Quantum Monte Carlo to predict the performance of superconducting adiabatic quantum computers. - Einstein@Home — uses data from LIGO and GEO 600 to search for gravitational waves. - MilkyWay@Home — uses data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to deduce the structure of the Milky Way galaxy. - QMC@Home — uses Quantum Monte Carlo to predict molecular geometry. - SETI@home — Search for ExtraTerrestial Intelligence * Multi-Application Project: - World Community Grid - studies a variety of problems in biology, medicine and the environment. - Clean Energy Project — tries to find the best organic compounds for solar cells and energy storage devices.Phase 1 has been completed.Phase 2 has started. - FightAIDS@Home — identifies candidate drugs that have the right shape and chemical characteristics to block HIV protease. - Help Conquer Cancer — improves the results of protein X-ray crystallography in order to increase understanding of cancer and its treatment. - Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy — investigates protein-protein interactions for more than 2,200 proteins whose structures are known, with a particular focus on those proteins that play a role in neuromuscular diseases.Currently on Phase 2. - Help Fight Childhood Cancer — finds drugs that can disable three particular proteins associated with neuroblastoma. - Human Proteome Folding Project — studies proteome folding in conjunction with Rosetta@home. Currently on Phase 2. - Influenza Antiviral Drug Search — finds drugs that can stop the spread of influenza strains that have become drug resistant as well as new strains. Phase 1 has been completed and Phase 2 will start soon. As you can see there are many different projects that you can contribute to, and I'm sure at least one of these projects have sparked your interest after reading through them. To start working on one of these projects, just search for the project on Google, and it should bring up the main website of the project. You can register there, download the BOINC client, and get everything running in less than 15 Minutes. The best part is, the BOINC Client only runs when your computer is idle for several minutes(You can set the amount of time you want it to wait before it starts working). Hopefully you guys are as interested as I was(and still am) in BOINC, and in helping humanity by sacrificing nothing but your unused computer time. Just post here or message me if you have any questions, and I'll be glad to help you all in any way I can with getting started. NOTE: I'm sorry I couldn't post any links to the BOINC Client or to the Projects' Homepages, my 500 posts aren't up yet. Thank you for your time, Luke