Edit 2019: This grid computing project is no more, but you can try this instead.
My UD desktop client didn’t feel like connecting to the server anymore this week, and when I checked the grid.org website today I found out that the seven-year project to create the biggest distributed supercomputer ever had ended.
Crap? No, not really, this is what they have to say about it:
“On Friday, April 27, 2007, Grid.org announced it has completed its mission to demonstrate the viability and benefits of large-scale Internet-based grid computing, and will be retiring its famous efforts to support critical health research.
Grid.org was the largest and most ambitious public interest grid venture ever attempted, and thanks to Grid.org and its millions of members, dozens of similar global grid projects have been able to catch on and succeed by following its footsteps.”
Cudos for the grid folks I say, and I was glad to spend my redundant CPU cycles for science’s sake. There’re worse ways to spend electricity I’m sure. However now that it’s done, I’m checking out some other grid projects (listed nicely on the grid.org page btw) and decided to give the Folding@Home project a shot.
It’s another medical project, which I find more useful than the SETI one for instance to find alien civilisations in the galaxy. Seriously, that’s like asking to be butt probed, isn’t it? Folding@Home seems to be slightly more geekish as well since they have a selection of clients to run, such as a command line based version that can run as a service (geek!), a Linux version (geeeek!) and even a PS3 version (geeeeeeeek!).
Sweet!
Feel like folding some proteins yourself as well? Well join in then!