Slashdot Mirror

The differences between the Human Proteome Folding (HPF) project and Folding@home have already been mentioned. The differences between HPF and the recently completed Distributed Folding (DF) project should also be mentioned. HPF and DF attempt to predict the 3-dimensional, or folded, structure of protein sequence data. Both projects are well suited to parallelization. DF used an in-house algorithm to predict the structures of small proteins (which may or may not be in the human genome) with known structures and of proteins with previously-unknown structures in the CASP5 and CASP6 structure prediction contests. HPF uses the Rosetta software package, developed by The Baker Laboratory at the University of Washington, to predict protein structures for proteins which occur in the human genome.

DF is currently redesigning its folding algorithm using the results from its first project, and may begin another project in the future. See my summary of DF for a quick history of the project.

Here are all of your choices.

There are actually quite a few applications like that. This kind of CPU is perfect for distributed computing applications, which use every CPU cycle and thread they can get. Clients based on the new BOINC computing platform, and the distributed.net client, are already set up to take full advantage of this kind of CPU.

Look at active and past projects and you will see that there are and were some obscure ones (eOn and XPulsar@Home especially). If you create a distributed project for modeling photonic crystals (perhaps using BOINC (hint hint)), and describe the science behind it well, people will find it and participate in it. A lot of people like to try new projects in order to learn more about the science behind them.

Look at active and past projects and you will see that there are and were some obscure ones (eOn and XPulsar@Home especially). If you create a distributed project for modeling photonic crystals (perhaps using BOINC (hint hint)), and describe the science behind it well, people will find it and participate in it. A lot of people like to try new projects in order to learn more about the science behind them.

A generic distributed computing client is exactly what the BOINC platform is (see my short summary of it). You can view the websites of projects which use the BOINC platform, download the BOINC client through any of those sites, join or leave any of the projects whenever you want, and configure the client to spend a certain percentage of its time on each project. This client makes it much easier for you to support multiple projects.

Check out the definitive list here. Anything from testing anti-cancer drugs to simulating designs for particle accelerators to hardcore prime number searching!

Try here Projects that do SETI, Folding, solve complex math problems, even help design new particle accelerators.

Popular Power has been out of business since 2000. Don't expect a check from them any time soon.

Currently the only active for-pay distributed computing-related project is Gómez Performance Peer Network. Disclaimer: this link will give me a small referral fee if you sign up and are accepted to Active status. Here is a generic link to Gómez. Expect to earn about $5 US per month per PC if you sign up for this program.

Kirk
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

there are lots of other really cool distributed computing projects here Most people I know only know about SETI@home and maybe Genome@home or Folding@home. I'm at GIMPS.

More importantly there are more useful distributed computing projects. Here is a pretty good index. For example there's Folding@Home which furthers our onderstanding of proteins, which are so important in so many life processes and diseases, and fightAIDS@home which has already found a promising new drug. Or how about SETI@home? Trying to crack encryption by brute force seems like such a waste in comparison to these.

Perhaps the encryption contests are so popular just because you can win money. It's like a lottery. Maybe the only thing that could be done would be to have a cash prize for significant findings in other projects, or if who did it can't be defined due to the nature of the algorithm, maybe even just an ordinary lottery?

More importantly there are more useful distributed computing projects. Here is a pretty good index. For example there's Folding@Home which furthers our onderstanding of proteins, which are so important in so many life processes and diseases, and fightAIDS@home which has already found a promising new drug. Or how about SETI@home? Trying to crack encryption by brute force seems like such a waste in comparison to these.

Perhaps the encryption contests are so popular just because you can win money. It's like a lottery. Maybe the only thing that could be done would be to have a cash prize for significant findings in other projects, or if who did it can't be defined due to the nature of the algorithm, maybe even just an ordinary lottery?

Why wait for the future when you can see more projects like this now? Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

According to this distributed computing index, there doesn't seem to be a project to detect such objects. Seems like a pretty obvious use of DC, doesn't it?

SETI@Home is the most popular project, measured by number of participants, but it was actually the third large-scale, public domain, distributed computing project. A lot of its functionality and design is based on the second project, distributed.net, which in turn is based on some design ideas from the first project, GIMPS.

SETI@Home has definitely done a lot to popularize distributed computing, and has influenced many later projects, including protein folding projects like Distributed Folding and Folding@Home.

To see what other projects are out there, take a look at my site about distributed computing projects. And click on the links to past years (on my main index page) to see just how fast this field of science is growing.

Kirk

P.S. Somebody please /. my site so I don't have to keep plugging it in these SETI@home discussions :-)

Indeed. And there are dozens of distributed computing projects, so everyone can find one to his likings.

Click here for an overview of active distributed computing projects. Also have a look at the lists at the bottom of the page: these are projects you donate some of your own time to, instead of spare CPU cycles (from Distributed Proofreaders to The Hunger Site).

Further info on distributed computing: Bottomquark has reviewed a number of projects.

Here are some other ditributed computng projects.

> surely a distributed client running on many PCs would be a godsend for solving major maths problems

It is. Here are the mathematics problems being solved or studied by distributed computing right now:

http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/ap-math.html

Guys, instead of trying to do something whose only purpose is to allow people to rip off games, why not do something noble that will help humanity. Here are some suggestions:

1.) Seti@Home
2.) Cure Cancer
3.) Evolution@Home
4.) Entropia
5.) eOn
6.) Climate Prediction
7.) Particle Accelerator Design
8.) Analytical Spectroscopy Research Group

See a complete list here: http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/distrib-proje cts.html

And no, I don't consider cracking encryption "noble". Especially when people don't seem to get the point that if it takes tens of thousands of computers months and months to crack some encryption, it is GOOD ENCRYPTION.

Something I posted on 10/24...

Go here. Now. It's the most complete listing of distributed computing I've ever found. Has the usual, like folding and SETI, but also neat things like Distributed Proofreading and finding as-of-yet unknown comets.

Go here. Now. It's the most complete listing of distributed computing I've ever found. Has the usual, like folding and SETI, but also neat things like Distributed Proofreading and finding as-of-yet unknown comets. A must-see! Forty-Two thumbs up!

For those who are looking for worthy projects to donate to, here's a good list of what is happening in the field of distributed projects, sorted by subject.

BOINC has already been mentioned, but COSM was the first API designed for this sort of thing. Here are the others I know about:

Development Platforms

Kirk
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

A comprehensive list of distributed projects can be found here http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/

You can find even more projects here. And they're ordered in categories, including science, mathematics, puzzles and even art (I really like the Electric Sheep Project).

Bottomquark has reviewed a number of projects.

And here is a community site of people participating in such projects.

if you are intressted in distributed computing, good page to start with is http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/. there is info on every existing distributed computing project (both upcomming and existing), lots of articles on distributed computing and even links to books on distributed computing.

AIDS:
FightAids@Home

Cancer:
United Devices
Find-a-Drug
Distributed Folding
Parabon Computation

Bioterrorism Antodotes:
Find-a-Drug
Drug Design Optimization Lab

Other Diseases:
Folding@Home
Genome@Home
Community TSC

Every other distributed computing project that's currently available for you to participate in:
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects - Active Projects

Kirk
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

The Link:

http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed

All of the known, active projects are listed on the Active Projects page. There are over 50 that you can participate in RIGHT NOW.

Kirk
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

The cancer project is being run through United Devices. This is a non-profit project and the data being generated will not be sold to a for-profit firm.

There's also Folding@Home which researches protein folding as well - although instead of only for cancer research it's generally for other medical research such as Alzheimer's, MS, etc. - also non-profit.

There's Genome@Home which analyzes the genome for medical purposes. Non-profit.

And, finally, if you're looking for a generic listing of distributed computing projects, check here.

Or stop by my distributed computing projects site and try one of the 53 other active projects.

Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects has a good list of current projects. I have been waiting for Climate Prediction to start. There have been several stories on it here before. In the mean time I have been giving spare CPU cyctes to Distributed Particle Accelerator Design.

In addition, I expect many slashdotters are familiar with distributed computing efforts which are all examples of problems requiring much more power than a single desktop provides.

If playing a game (albeit an interesting one) isn't what you'd like to spend your spare CPU cycles on, there's a lot more than Seti@Home out there. Check out the Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects for more options...

Some other great links:
The Ars Technica Food Court - It's an overview of most of the Ars Technica Distributed Computing (DC) teams.
The Distributed Computing Sushi Bar - The site still needs a lot of info, but it gives a nice introduction to various DC projects that exists and the site also have a comparison of the different teams and their total size (number of total 1 Ghz AMD machines). It's amazing an amazing amount of computing power!
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects - the title explains itself. A very nice page with links and info about a lot of DC projects.

> what next?

Well, assuming we run out of data to process and methods to process it (yeah, right), or you get bored, or decide it's pointless, there are plenty of other projects to go to.

Folding@Home and Genome@Home are two related projects with open results and which will probably have client source available sometime.

Check a list of distributed projects. There's plenty of choice.

if you are interessted in distributed computing over internet check out this url: http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/.

there is short description of all distributed computing projects plus lots of other stuff.

Kirk Pearson

If you don't want to create a project yourself, at least suggest some project ideas. Maybe someone else here will create a project for them.

Kirk Pearson
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

If you don't want to create a project yourself, at least suggest some project ideas. Maybe someone else here will create a project for them.

Kirk Pearson
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

If you don't want to create a project yourself, at least suggest some project ideas. Maybe someone else here will create a project for them.

Kirk Pearson
Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

BTW S@H have admited for a long time that they send out each unit 3 or 4 times, for double-checking, and because they aren't splitting/recieving the units from Arecibo fast enought. However they only use a small band of Arecibo's datastream, centered on the H-OH 'waterhole' (1420MHz +/- 1.25 MHz); this should improve the rang of frequencies covered.
There is talk of using southern SERENDIP as a second antenna to get better sky coverage. They have another problem; S@H accounts for about 30% of Berkeley Uni's total out going bandwith, outside the Space Science Lab, the net admins aren't that happy about this. Unless they can get other SpaceScience Universities to share the load, they can't increase their userbase much more.