World Community Grid is making [this] technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. As part of our commitment to advancing human welfare, all results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.
WCG uses the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) client, an open source software project that runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. Headline should read Open Source Software Cures Cancer;-)
BoincStats shows you who is contributing to World Community Grid projects. Check it out...and ask yourself why you aren't contributing.
Does this remind anyone else of the Ledbetter effect that Heinlein described in his "Sixth Column" novella?
Seems like there was another Heinlein story that used a light wavelength shifter as an energy resource - one that ultimately powered moving sidewalks...anyone remember the title of that story?
Just because there is one or more languages used in the world for wider communication does not mean that there is not a role or place for less-widely used languages. Languages with lesser prestige than, say, English, or Putonghua (AKA Mandarin Chinese) or ki-Swahili are often used for different purposes by individuals and cultures that have instituionalized multi-lingualism. Even in the West, you can find countries like Switzerland and Belgium that are not so impoverished by monolingualism that they have forgotten how to function multilingually.
Lanuages are not barriers to communication, languages are a means to communication. Controlling more than one language means you have more tools at your disposal.
Who do you respect more as a coder - someone who can use just one language well, or someone who is fluent in all the tools that are needed to accomplish a given task.
Take a person who attempts to use PHP (because it is the only thing they know) to do a job that is better accomplished in perl (because they don't want to learn another language) - is that smart? or myopic?
(It's just an example, I like PHP!)
Slashdot Mirror
According to the World Community Grid website:
;-)
World Community Grid is making [this] technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. As part of our commitment to advancing human welfare, all results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.
WCG uses the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) client, an open source software project that runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. Headline should read Open Source Software Cures Cancer
BoincStats shows you who is contributing to World Community Grid projects. Check it out...and ask yourself why you aren't contributing.
Of course, just posting this link here means the site will probably be slashdotted out of existence!
Does this remind anyone else of the Ledbetter effect that Heinlein described in his "Sixth Column" novella?
Seems like there was another Heinlein story that used a light wavelength shifter as an energy resource - one that ultimately powered moving sidewalks...anyone remember the title of that story?
Just because there is one or more languages used in the world for wider communication does not mean that there is not a role or place for less-widely used languages. Languages with lesser prestige than, say, English, or Putonghua (AKA Mandarin Chinese) or ki-Swahili are often used for different purposes by individuals and cultures that have instituionalized multi-lingualism. Even in the West, you can find countries like Switzerland and Belgium that are not so impoverished by monolingualism that they have forgotten how to function multilingually.
Lanuages are not barriers to communication, languages are a means to communication. Controlling more than one language means you have more tools at your disposal.
Who do you respect more as a coder - someone who can use just one language well, or someone who is fluent in all the tools that are needed to accomplish a given task.
Take a person who attempts to use PHP (because it is the only thing they know) to do a job that is better accomplished in perl (because they don't want to learn another language) - is that smart? or myopic?
(It's just an example, I like PHP!)
Wonder what the 6500 languages are and where they are spoken? Check out: http://www.ethnologue.com/