How doing nothing can change the world... (really!)

So, while perusing the Internet recently, I came across something that should be of interest to everyone who's reading this. I did some reaseach into distributed computing to help research all over the world. Now, before you get geeked out and stop reading, just hear me out. Essentially, it takes the time that you aren't using your computer, and uses it to help researchers do things that wouldn't be possible otherwise. It's as simple as that. You install a program on your computer once, and it sits there and does work while you aren't.

If you want, you can help in many important areas, like medical research or even helping to design a particle accelerator! To turn your computer into part of the largest supercomputer in the world download either the BOINC or GRID.ORG client and following the instructions to get it running. It'll sit there and use your computer's idle time to help out with some truly important research. If you're not sure, read on to get a better idea of what's going on...

(NOTE: I divided this up into parts so you don't have to read anything you don't want to)

What kind of research is being done?
What options are there?
How to join
Technical explanation

What kind of research is being done?

The main area of research that I've seen is in biomed. The projects that I've personally joined are all about protein folding, which is an integral part of a great deal of medical research. Grid.org is completely dedicated to this, but BOINC gives you the option of other scientific pursuits. For instance, you can help to design a particle accelerator, or search for signs of alien life. There are also a lot of projects for BOINC that will be coming online in the near future to do even more interesting things.

What options are there?

Well, Hitchman and I have done some research and we've both championed our favorite causes. These two programs are BOINC and GRID.ORG, respectively. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and both help worldwide research immensely.

BOINC
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing(BOINC) is, quite obviously, made at UC Berkeley. Its main advantages are that you can choose what projects you help out with, and it's open source, so it's under constant improvement. The main disadvantages are the problems that stem from the advantages, unfortunately. For one, you have to actively manage what projects you join, and if one completes its task, its possible it'll just sit there and do nothing. However, this can be fixed by joining many projects that won't be done for many many years.

GRID.ORG
Grid.org is a site run by a private company that is doing some great research and has a massive number of people helping. For example, it generates about 239 YEARS of computing power every day! That's right, YEARS! So, research done on this network is some of the best out there, since its done so quickly. There are, however, downsides. For one, you can't really choose what project you work on. It seems to get delegated. This can be a good thing, however, if you want to be as lazy as possible. There is one more drawback, though. The time you donate is then sold by this company. Yeah, that's right. Not everyone has a problem with this, but I certainly do. I take issue with someone making money off of CPU time that I donate, especially when BOINC is completely non-profit. I'm trying to be as fair as possible, since grid.org is a great system, but its a bit hard.

How to join

BOINC
BOINC is the more complicated of the two to join. The first step is to download the BOINC software. Then, you need to go to the project page of the project you want to join. Those can all be found on the BOINC homepage. Once there, register and follow the instructions. The webpage will give you a code to use. Go to the BOINC program and "Attach" to the project by clicking the "Attach to Project" button and entering the information you just got from the webpage. Its important to remember that the program that runs on your computer is controlled by what you enter on the website. Once you update your settings, you need to go into the BOINC program and click the "Update All" button so that the changes will take effect, or you can wait until it updates itself in a little bit. Odds are, however, that you'll only ever make one or two changes to the program.

GRID.ORG
GRID.ORG is exceedingly simple to join. Simply go to www.grid.org, download the client, install it, and follow the instructions. It takes only a few minutes and it sets almost everything up automatically.

Technical Explanation

How is this helping?
The problem this whole idea solved is that some things are just a pain in the ass to compute. Researchers need to know things like protein binding sites, but calculating that would take months on the world's fastest supercomputers. What it does, essentially, is create a supercomputer that is many hundreds, or even thousands, of times more powerful than any single supercomputer. This is possible because of the fact that any supercomputer is little more than one computer with many hundreds of processors linked together. Each of these processors are no more powerful than what most people have at home. So, by networking the power of what people have at home, you can create a distributed supercomputer capable of absolutely amazing things.

How does this work?
Well, this whole set up is all designed to simply use your processor when you aren't. You see, every processor in a home computer always operates at the same rate. If it has something to do, it crunches numbers to do what you tell it to. When it's idle, it really isn't. All it's doing is adding 0+0 at the same rate it would normally do work. this is because there is no way to make it work any slower, even when there is no work to be done. All these programs do is give it something to do when it has nothing better. Now, the constant speed thing changes slightly for laptops, but both of these programs are designed with that in mind, and won't kill your battery.

So, in conclusion, by taking 10 minutes out of your life, you can contribute to some of the most important research being done today. Every single person that joins matters, so you really will be making a difference.