Wanna be a lazy super hero?
I know how it is. You wake up in the morning and long for the opportunity to change the world. Yet, let’s face it, you’re lazy or maybe you’re too busy to change the world today. Well, here’s a solution for you.
Have you heard of distributed computing? Ok, I can hear the crickets chirping. Distributed computing uses individual home computers to process large data projects via the Internet. The idea is that in the middle of the night, these programs use your computers processing capacity to work on large projects such as scientific research projects or even going through the data transmissions to look for extraterretrial activity. Rather than purchasing expensive computers, people can harness the power of 1,000s of idal home computers and get the same results.
Google labs is currently working in conjuction with Stanford University’s Folding@Home to help them process research. Distributed Computing projects is a website that lists upcoming and completed projects. It’s a good place to get a feel for what has been done and what will be done in distributed computing. Of course, if extraterrestrial’s are your thing, you can always donate your computer processing power to Seti. This is a project designed to use distributed computing to analyse all of the radio frequency information collected by radio telescope. It is a project of my alma mater, UC Berkeley (Go Bears!).
So, if you want to change the world, but don’t want to do too much, this just might be your option!
Filed under: Distractions
