Slashdot Mirror


Distributed Computing "Advances"

Quirk writes "NewScientist is reporting on..."Software to be launched in January will let PC users run as many "distributed computing" projects as they like. The program will let PC users search for aliens, help predict climate change and perform advanced biological research - all at the same time."'It is called the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). BOINC acts like a software platform that can run a number of screen-saver style applications on top of the PC's own operating system.'"

25 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. About Time! by Joe+U · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, a source for my advanced alien biological climate change program!

    1. Re:About Time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Forgot the "Muhahahahahah" at the end of that.

    2. Re:About Time! by Threni · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ah - but will it let you use any spare cycles to do some work in the background?

    3. Re:About Time! by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 3, Funny
      "Finally, a source for my advanced alien biological climate change program!"

      Oh god, I sense a new cliched Slashdot joke about to be born. Beowulf cluster overlords profiting in Soviet Russia, step aside!

      --
      Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  2. What happens if we combine the applications? by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does this mean that now we'll be mapping het the genome of aliens with AIDS?

    --
    Goo goo g'joob.
  3. First distributed project by questamor · · Score: 5, Funny

    The first project underway in BOINC is to have everybody's machine submit news about BOINC to slashdot, which is so far happening succesfully. This is the first dupe of many.

  4. All-time best distributed computing app by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    The first and easily the best known is SETI@home, which since 1999 has enlisted half a million people to analyse data from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, looking for signs of alien life.

    Better than Seti@home and BOINC: Yeti@home.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  5. one big effort by sosegumu · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have you ever thought that the internet is just one giant 'distributed computing' effort to find pr0n?

    --
    It's easier to wear the spandex than to do the crunches. --David Lee Roth
  6. BOINK by Dylan2000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wouldn't it make more sense if they'd chosen a last word beginning with a K?

    Boinking aliens and cancer with my computer? Sign me up!

    --
    Build your own website - full service homepage system your m
    1. Re:BOINK by sharkey · · Score: 2, Funny
      Wouldn't it make more sense if they'd chosen a last word beginning with a K?

      I'm looking forward to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Networking GNOME (BOING). Maybe they could get Berke Breathed to design the mascots for it.

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  7. Overuse of "quotation marks" by Bowie+J.+Poag · · Score: 4, Funny



    Using "quotation marks" in the "wrong places" makes everything you "say" seem "suspicious".. Like you're trying to "pull one over" on the "reader" by insinuating theres a double "meaning" to the "word" in "quotes"..

    Hate to be a grammar Nazi, but, the the whole quotation mark thing is a pet peeve. :)

    Cheers,

    --
    Bowie J. Poag

    1. Re:Overuse of "quotation marks" by RevMike · · Score: 2, Funny
      Using "quotation marks" in the "wrong places" makes everything you "say" seem "suspicious".. Like you're trying to "pull one over" on the "reader" by insinuating theres a double "meaning" to the "word" in "quotes".

      You're absolutely "right", nothing annoys "me" more than overuse of this "technique". I "literally" claw my eyes out everytime someone "misuses" quotes.

  8. YAPSFUAS by cyclist1200 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yet Another Project Suffering From Unfortunate Acronym Syndrome.

  9. Virus maker excuse by AtariAmarok · · Score: 5, Funny

    Judge: "What do you have to say about the virus you created, young man?"

    Virii writer: "It wasn't a virus, your honor. It was really a non-permission-based propagation model for a distributed computing application that involved producing the results of decreased uptime and further propagation of the non-permission-based distributed application."

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  10. Skeptical by Root+Down · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... because we all know that no really good concept in computing has ever come out of Berkeley. ;)

  11. Wait, Isn't that what MS Operating Systems For? by KyootFox · · Score: 2, Funny
    BOINC acts like a software platform that can run a number of screen-saver style applications on top of the PC's own operating system.
    Sounds like Internet Explorer to me... Can't get much more "distributed" than the virii hiway of MS Products! And the nice thing is you don't even have to trouble the user to install your clients...
  12. Obligatory Calvin And Hobbes by devnullkac · · Score: 3, Funny

    Scientific progress goes 'BOINC'?


    --
    What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
    1. Re:Obligatory Calvin And Hobbes by philbert26 · · Score: 3, Funny
      bizarre... duplicate article gets a duplicate comment.

      No, that's part of the BOINC process, you do everything twice to make sure it's right.

  13. What was that? by TrekkieGod · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oh...that was the sound of a million auxiliary generators being turned on to counter the increased power needs of all these processors.

    --

    Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

  14. STI - Haven't Found Any Yet by Boricle · · Score: 4, Funny
    I always thought that it was the

    Search For Terrestrial Intelligence

    I know I've been struggling... have you found any? Will this help?

  15. Other distributed projects by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure that spammers will be registering their distributed spam/DDoS zombies real soon. Why sneak the software onto machines when you can get people to sign up for it if you provide fancy ratings and team standings? Throw in some t-shirts and blue pills and they're gold!

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  16. Re:I'm afraid this will be the end of my SETI year by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny
    A meta-app that exists to download yet more closed-source code without telling me...

    Sounds like Windows Update on the automatic setting. :^)

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  17. Curing AIDS, finding aliens, predicting weather... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    is there anything BOINC-ing can't do?

  18. Re:seti@home wasnt the first distributed process by stevey · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm not sure that I can prove this, but I created a distributed client of sorts in 1997.

    It was a java applet which ostensibly did some cute" image animation, back when such things were new and fun to write.

    What it actually did was download from my server the latest value of PI and try to compute more digits. When the applet was destroyed it submitted its result to the server.

    It was fun watching the result get gradually longer and longer with no effort on my part just due to people who were interested in my webpages.

    Maybe it should have been advertised, but I took pleasure knowing what was going on ..

  19. SIC@HOME by Mawbid · · Score: 3, Funny
    Much more interesting than SETI@HOME is the SIC@HOME project, the search for incredible coincidences.

    A radio tuned to static is used to feed a stream of random data to a soundcard. The data is used to construct an image, and in the incredibly unlikely event that this image matches a predetermined image, you've proven that the universe is infinite! :-)

    Don't forget to check out the url of the "What is SIC@HOME?" page.

    --
    Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.