MetaFilter on the grid November 18, 2010 11:39 AM Subscribe
World Community Grid celebrates its sixth birthday today. WCG is a distributed computing project that allows participants to donate unused cycles on their home or business machines, and to designate the scientific project which will use those cycles. Since its inception, the 43,000 members of WCG have processed 110,000 years of donated time and have provided 200 million results to the research teams involved. The MetaFilter team is responsible for slightly more than 8.5 years of donated computer time and about 12,500 results.
MeFites have donated cycles to every WCG project, but the team's biggest contributions to date are FightAIDS@Home, Human Proteome Folding, and Help Conquer Cancer. News releases and project updates for all active and completed projects that have used the grid can be found here.
If you would like to join the MetaFilter team, click here to register with WCG. You'll need to download the client [available for Windows, Mac, and *nix variants]; you can configure system use limits in the desktop client, and you can choose the projects you want to support through the Web page. (If you have a new Sony VAIO, the client may be pre-installed.)
MeFites have donated cycles to every WCG project, but the team's biggest contributions to date are FightAIDS@Home, Human Proteome Folding, and Help Conquer Cancer. News releases and project updates for all active and completed projects that have used the grid can be found here.
If you would like to join the MetaFilter team, click here to register with WCG. You'll need to download the client [available for Windows, Mac, and *nix variants]; you can configure system use limits in the desktop client, and you can choose the projects you want to support through the Web page. (If you have a new Sony VAIO, the client may be pre-installed.)
Given that most PCs these days have some sort of SpeedStep and/or Cool n' Quiet technology built-in, are these sort of distributed projects still prudent in terms of energy usage?
posted by schmod at 2:30 PM on November 18, 2010
posted by schmod at 2:30 PM on November 18, 2010
No, they're not. You're also de facto giving them money because you will consume more electricity in this process.
posted by GuyZero at 2:34 PM on November 18, 2010
posted by GuyZero at 2:34 PM on November 18, 2010
Damnit, I was in the lead for ages before catlet swooped in and beat me on points and results returned, despite a lower run time!
what d'you mean it's not a competition?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:47 PM on November 18, 2010
what d'you mean it's not a competition?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:47 PM on November 18, 2010
I just run the client during the winter, since my heat is partly electric anyway. I get the same amount of warmth per watt-hour whether it's doing useful computation or not.
posted by hattifattener at 10:38 PM on November 18, 2010
posted by hattifattener at 10:38 PM on November 18, 2010
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posted by catlet at 11:40 AM on November 18, 2010