Put your PC to work! ENWorld Grid Computing Team

For those familiar with seti@home, I have been a member for the past couple of years. With the seti@home project winding down I've decided it is time to look for a new use for my spare cycles...

Enter IBM's new World Community Grid project:

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/index.html

Instead of using distributed computing to find potential alien radio signals the WCG project is crunching numbers on protein folding. To put it shortly, this has the potential to help scientists find a cure for cancer & innumerable other diseases.

So I encourage anyone who wants to help the project (or who just wants to show how much computing power ENWorlders have at their disposal), stop by the link posted above, download the software and start crunching some numbers! Don't forget to join the ENWorld team which can be found at:

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=B95RSMBR9N1

The recent donation drive for the new server opened my eyes to just how powerful this community can be when it sets it's mind to something. This project is a good cause and will ultimately benefit all of us in the long run.

FWIW I am going to ask Morrus & PirateCat if we can get the new servers to help add some muscle to the team.

I'm in! (user name rjm5f)

What about http://folding.stanford.edu/ ? The project is older, AFAIK, and more popular.

Here are some team stats: http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teamstats

I seriously considered going with folding@home or the BOINC set@home follow-up.

The fact that WGC is just start up was a bonus in my book. I really like the idea of getting in on the ground floor & being there as the project grows.

If enough folks become interested and would prefer one of the other distributed computing options I would certainly be willing to change to go along with the majority wish.

However if we get a good turnout for the WGC project ENWorld team there is a good chance that the team will be far more competitive in the overall rankings.

Neat idea.

I'm already doing Stanford's folding@home via the Google Toolbar client, and I don't wanna switch clients. Though if someone starts an ENWorld team on folding@home I'll gladly abandon Google's team and join the ENWorld one.

The new BOINC system is also handling more than just SETI@Home now, too (since anyone can write projects for it). I'm currently running:
SETI@Home
Predictor@Home (related to Folding@Home)
LHC@Home (CERN experiment design)
Einstein@Home (Evaporating black hole search)
ClimatePrediction.Net

There are also several other projects in either alpha or development stage already, with many more on the way, and some of the older projects like Folding@Home (which I'm also still running separately) will be migrating to BOINC eventually.

BOINC allows you to sign up for whatever projects that you want to contribute to and specify the percent of CPU to give to each one. I rather like the whole scheme they've got going.

Krieg said:

However if we get a good turnout for the WGC project ENWorld team there is a good chance that the team will be far more competitive in the overall rankings.

Click to expand...

There have to be more than just 3 of us who are willing to sign up for this...

Come on people! With just 3 of us we at #312 in rank. With just a few more we can be higher!

CL what do you think of the Grid client so far? So far, it seems a bit like a step back when compared to BOINC & folding@home. Are you satisfied with sticking with it or do some of the other projects look more attractive at this point?

Looks like a good cause, Krieg. I'm in.

Krieg said:

CL what do you think of the Grid client so far? So far, it seems a bit like a step back when compared to BOINC & folding@home. Are you satisfied with sticking with it or do some of the other projects look more attractive at this point?

Click to expand...

Truthfully, I've never looked at BOINC or folding@home. I used to do seti@home until I got tired of it, and wanted a more interesting screensaver. I'm up for either continuing this one, or switching to another one if others think it is more effective or useful.