Why not ask for some volunteers to write your application for BOINC, a popular, open-source distributed computing platform? This would give you the added benefit of global, free computing resources for your project(s). Several people are knowledgeable about writing applications for the BOINC platform, and several others have experience writing code for other BOINC-based scientific applications and might be interested in contributing to yours.
Thanks, for posting an interesting article about something I knew nothing about. I was happy to follow the link and learn something new. Which.....is why I lurk here.
Thanks for un-lurking and giving your positive feedback!
is listed on my site: http://distributedcomputing.info/ . If you leave your computer on all the time and it isn't doing anything useful when you aren't using it, please look through these projects and pick one or more to contribute to.
Have you read anything about Folding@home before you started criticizing it? It is run by a public university, not a privately-held organization. The university will not profit from the research. If you can't bother to learn about the project, at least read it's FAQ.
It's nice to see Sony formalize something which was attempted informally on the PS2. Some distributed computing projects, like Distributed Folding enabled PS2 users to run distributed computing projects on their game consoles. But since users had to install Linux on their consoles and connect their consoles to the Internet consoles, not many users contributed to these projects.
Now with the PS3, users won't have to know how to install Linux on their console, and won't have to download any distributed computing project software. They can just enable the project software on the PS3 and let it do its thing (and they can watch the fancy screensaver and learn more about protein folding in the process). And if the distributed computing software can be updated, the Folding@home researchers (and hopefully researchers from other distributed computing projects) will be able to learn how to make the best use of the Cell processor.
"of course the WSJ would much rather you where crunching numbers for their drugs companies under the guise of "fighting cancer" or "protein folding" so your results can be turned into their profit (you didnt think that cure/treatment would be free like your CPU did you?)"
What drug companies does the Wall Street Journal own? Also, here is a complete list of distributed computing projects open to public participation. Back up your argument by showing us which projects are being run by drug companies, which projects are researching something other than what they actually say they are researching, and which projects are being run in order to create profitable products for drug companies.
We're waiting...
I have seen the argument that drug companies are profiting from our donated CPU cycles many, many times, but no one can ever back it up with proof. It's time to put that argument to rest and to support these important projects which will benefit the global public.
"I'd rather see extra cycles go towards things that have a larger impact for people on Earth: weather analysis, drug creation, protein folding, etc."
Cycles are going to those things, in addition to SETI@home. See a complete list (in English) of projects that you can contribute your CPU cycles to on my distributed computing projects page.
I am not willing to pay a hardback book price for an ebook. If an ebook were 1/4 the price of a hardback book (or paperback book if the book is in paperback), I would consider it. And I am not willing to try to use an ebook in some closed or proprietary format that I won't be able to use in a few years when formats and technologies change.
I have been reading free ebooks from memoware.com on my Palm IIIxe (using the free and simple text reader CSpotRun) for years. Most of these books are from Project Gutenberg, so they are from before 1925, but there are a lot of good stories that are still interesting and/or relevant now. Reading a book on a Palm Pilot is not completely practical, but I have read "War and Peace" that way and it's manageable.
LHC@home has not finished: it has only finished its current group of work units. From its October 28 news announcement: "The current group of studies is coming to an end.... There will probably be a pause while the results are studied." This is similar to its August 24 news announcement: "The studies are almost done.... We will then do post analysis to determine where there is more work needed." LHC@home uses the results of one set of work units to help it create the next set of work units. As the project's 4th status report shows, the project will have more work for a long time.
This feature of the project shows one of the strengths of BOINC: instead of LHC@home participants having to shut down an LHC@home-only computing client, start up a different project-specific client, and check the project's website regularly to see when new work units are available, they don't have to do anything: their BOINC client will automatically work on other BOINC projects until LHC@home has work units available, and will then automatically start working on LHC@home again.
You can help prove Riemann's hypothesis
on
Prime Obsession
·
· Score: 1
While you are reading this book, put your computer to work helping to prove the hypothesis in the Zetagrid project (see my short summary of the project here). If your computer can run Java applications, it can run the small ZetaGrid client. In the 3.3 years the project has run, participants have discovered almost 1 trillion "nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function."
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.
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.
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.
BOINC doesn't run multiple projects at the same time. It runs one project at a time, but it divides its time between projects according to percentages that you choose.
There are no active, public projects besides SETI@home yet.
Predictor@home
is running a public alpha test of its client that anyone can participate in. climateprediction.net began a private alpha test of its client today, and plans to begin a public beta test next month.
Folding@home is developing a client, but has not announced any alpha or beta testing for it yet. BOINC Beta Test is still beta testing the BOINC client and may create an Astropulse project based on the client. Einstein@Home may be developing a client based on BOINC for its project which begins in 2005.
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.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not ask for some volunteers to write your application for BOINC, a popular, open-source distributed computing platform? This would give you the added benefit of global, free computing resources for your project(s). Several people are knowledgeable about writing applications for the BOINC platform, and several others have experience writing code for other BOINC-based scientific applications and might be interested in contributing to yours.
Thanks, for posting an interesting article about something I knew nothing about. I was happy to follow the link and learn something new. Which.....is why I lurk here.
Thanks for un-lurking and giving your positive feedback!
Their next project is OGR-26, as they announced today.
Pfff, 25-mark. Wake me up when they get the 26-mark. </unimpressedslashdotuser>
Instead of sleeping, why not help them find it?
is listed on my site: http://distributedcomputing.info/ . If you leave your computer on all the time and it isn't doing anything useful when you aren't using it, please look through these projects and pick one or more to contribute to.
Wait no longer: climateprediction.net
It has already been done with the PS2.
Have you read anything about Folding@home before you started criticizing it? It is run by a public university, not a privately-held organization. The university will not profit from the research. If you can't bother to learn about the project, at least read it's FAQ.
It's nice to see Sony formalize something which was attempted informally on the PS2. Some distributed computing projects, like Distributed Folding enabled PS2 users to run distributed computing projects on their game consoles. But since users had to install Linux on their consoles and connect their consoles to the Internet consoles, not many users contributed to these projects.
Now with the PS3, users won't have to know how to install Linux on their console, and won't have to download any distributed computing project software. They can just enable the project software on the PS3 and let it do its thing (and they can watch the fancy screensaver and learn more about protein folding in the process). And if the distributed computing software can be updated, the Folding@home researchers (and hopefully researchers from other distributed computing projects) will be able to learn how to make the best use of the Cell processor.
"of course the WSJ would much rather you where crunching numbers for their drugs companies under the guise of "fighting cancer" or "protein folding" so your results can be turned into their profit (you didnt think that cure/treatment would be free like your CPU did you?)"
What drug companies does the Wall Street Journal own? Also, here is a complete list of distributed computing projects open to public participation. Back up your argument by showing us which projects are being run by drug companies, which projects are researching something other than what they actually say they are researching, and which projects are being run in order to create profitable products for drug companies.
We're waiting...
I have seen the argument that drug companies are profiting from our donated CPU cycles many, many times, but no one can ever back it up with proof. It's time to put that argument to rest and to support these important projects which will benefit the global public.
"Of course, I'm waiting for a project that hits closer to home, YETI@home. Damn, those things are elusive."
Don't wait another minute! Rush to yeti@home and offer your support now!
"I'd rather see extra cycles go towards things that have a larger impact for people on Earth: weather analysis, drug creation, protein folding, etc."
Cycles are going to those things, in addition to SETI@home. See a complete list (in English) of projects that you can contribute your CPU cycles to on my distributed computing projects page.
I am not willing to pay a hardback book price for an ebook. If an ebook were 1/4 the price of a hardback book (or paperback book if the book is in paperback), I would consider it. And I am not willing to try to use an ebook in some closed or proprietary format that I won't be able to use in a few years when formats and technologies change.
I have been reading free ebooks from memoware.com on my Palm IIIxe (using the free and simple text reader CSpotRun) for years. Most of these books are from Project Gutenberg, so they are from before 1925, but there are a lot of good stories that are still interesting and/or relevant now. Reading a book on a Palm Pilot is not completely practical, but I have read "War and Peace" that way and it's manageable.
LHC@home has not finished: it has only finished its current group of work units. From its October 28 news announcement: "The current group of studies is coming to an end. ... There will probably be a pause while the results are studied." This is similar to its August 24 news announcement: "The studies are almost done. ... We will then do post analysis to determine where there is more work needed." LHC@home uses the results of one set of work units to help it create the next set of work units. As the project's 4th status report shows, the project will have more work for a long time.
This feature of the project shows one of the strengths of BOINC: instead of LHC@home participants having to shut down an LHC@home-only computing client, start up a different project-specific client, and check the project's website regularly to see when new work units are available, they don't have to do anything: their BOINC client will automatically work on other BOINC projects until LHC@home has work units available, and will then automatically start working on LHC@home again.
While you are reading this book, put your computer to work helping to prove the hypothesis in the Zetagrid project (see my short summary of the project here). If your computer can run Java applications, it can run the small ZetaGrid client. In the 3.3 years the project has run, participants have discovered almost 1 trillion "nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function."
Wikinews is the future of journalism.
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.
grid.org and World Community Grid are the same project. See this discussion thread from grid.org.
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.
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.
BOINC doesn't run multiple projects at the same time. It runs one project at a time, but it divides its time between projects according to percentages that you choose.
There are no active, public projects besides SETI@home yet. Predictor@home is running a public alpha test of its client that anyone can participate in. climateprediction.net began a private alpha test of its client today, and plans to begin a public beta test next month. Folding@home is developing a client, but has not announced any alpha or beta testing for it yet. BOINC Beta Test is still beta testing the BOINC client and may create an Astropulse project based on the client. Einstein@Home may be developing a client based on BOINC for its project which begins in 2005.
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
Why wait for the future when you can see more projects like this now? Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects