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.

Imitation vs. Innovation

So, at meetings for my group lately, my boss has been hounding us to improve the interface of our site. (Yes, I'm being intentionally vague). One thing he's always asking is 'what does Google do?'. Another guy always comes up with ideas that start 'when Google encounters this, here's what they do'. Now, our site deals with search so it seems to make sense to want to repeat what Google did right, but I don't think that filter is there anymore. The simple fact that Google did it implies that it's good and should be in our product.

This is where I silently disagree. Did Google make it big because they did what Yahoo! or Microsoft did, or did they make it big because they did something extremely well? Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but I think it would be much better to actually come up with something novel and good. Naturally, extending and improving on something Google has done can be part of that, but that isn't the point. The point is that blindly imitating with no regard to what you're imitating is a rather pedestrian way of trying to make a product. Sure, making something original is tough. Hell, it's really freakin' difficult. However, shouldn't that be an indication of its worth in doing? Surely Messrs. Page and Brin would agree that creating Google was no small feat.

Therefore, I say, take your Google imitation and shove it. If you want to be successful, go do something novel and original. Otherwise, resign yourself to being a hack with fleeting success at best.

Maybe this sounds harsh, but I think you need to ask yourself why you're imitating Google. Is it because Google is fashionable? Surely that can't be a good reason. Fashions change like the winds and you'll spend all your time and energy trying to keep up. Is everything Google does so incredibly perfect that they can do no wrong? I think not. So why? Why not at least try to come up with something novel. It's pathetic the way people follow like lemmings behind everything Google does. It can only come back to bite them in the ass.

Disclaimer: I like Google. This has nothing to do with them, but rather with no talent hacks that imitate them.
Another disclaimer: If you're reading this and you work for Google, feel free to disregard everything I just said. :)

Ambition?

I used to think I had ambition... video games seem to have sucked that away, though. Is entertainment merely an opiate for the masses? Truly, as Marx said, religion can be used to this extent as well, but does that also cover many forms of distraction and amusement?

Over the past 2 days, I've probably spend about 10 hours playing video games. Hell, probably more. This seems to be the most to date this year. Looking back, I realize that its completely without merit. In all fairness, this is something I realized while playing as well, but there's this addictive quality about it. It follows with tv as well. Even watching the news has this effect, though that's because the news is nothing more than entertainment anymore anyway.

So, I have nothing productive to say. Self-pity is nothing but emotional masturbation. Entertainment is an opiate for the masses; big freakin surprise there. I just need a way to strengthen my character and avoid repeats of these past two days. Ironically, give the mention of Marx a few paragraphs ago, I have reason to believe religion may be a means to achieve this. Then again, I'm ranting and its 4am. I'm only writing this so that I hopefully remember this feel tomorrow morning before starting to play more games...

PS: Sorry this post sucks. I also despise self pitying blogs. More meaningful content to come.

The Hot Topic of Concert Venues

I went to an Umphrey's McGee show last night at the House of Blues downtown. The show itself was good, but I can't get over the venue. I have never been so infuriated at a venue in my entire life. In fact, I never thought it was possible to hate a venue so vehemently. I had been looking forward to going to HOB simply because it was something new. I knew it was a chain, but I was hoping for something at least mederately unique and interesting.

It started as soon as I walked in the venue. As I was waiting in line to buy the show (UM usually sells a copy of the show immediately after it ends, pre-buying speeds up the process) I heard the merch girl explain the they weren't allowed to sell stickers because people usually stick them to walls in the venue during the show. A venue that doesn't want people vandalizing the inside? Curious. At most places vandalism = character. Once I got to the front of the line, the merch girl promptly informed me that they weren't selling the show, either. This, of course, is really freakin irritating. I can only assume this is because its a Clear Channel venue, and Clear Channel has a patent on the technology. Now, I've got my issues with patents, but that's best saved for another post.

Once we got in to the venue, I was absolutely appaled. I can't fully describe it simply because I don't have the words. It was so incredibly fake that it made my want to vomit. It was like they tried really really really hard to re-create the character of an 'edgy' venue. The only problem is that it looks like it was designed by people at a board meeting and not someone who knows what makes a good venue.

It was like someone took the soul of a real venue and ripped it out, leaving the festering husk in the middle of downtown Cleveland. Then, some enterprising corporation came by and tried to make it look like it was still alive, like it had a soul. There are a lot of things in this world that can be commercialized and commoditized, but there are some things that should never be. Maybe I like music too much, but what I saw last night really felt like sacrilidge; institutionalized scarilidge.

The whole experience was somewhat reminiscent of when MTV tries to be 'underground'. Its a joke, and everyone with half a brain knows its a lie. MTV can't be underground simply because they're the biggest, and when they try it comes off tired and lame. Its kind of like what Hot Topic did for the goth scene. I'm not, nor was I ever, a goth. However, I do have sympathy for the people who actually believed it. Originally, it was started by people who would take perfectly good clothes, and make their own out of it. It was really cheap, and very unique. Then, someone said, 'well shit, we can totally sell this crap!' Then, Hot Topic was born. It took the soul out of what was originally another anti-commercial movement, and left a commercialized wasteland in its wake that quickly because a breeding ground of fakers paying too much money for something they naively thought was 'edgy'.

Something similar to this happened with HOB. Someone said, 'well shit! We can make a venue that people think is 'edgy' but fake enough not to make people feel uncomfortable. The staff is obnoxious, the venue is small, but the sound was pretty good.

All that aside, the show was sweet. Seeing Pony play slap bass was amazingly satisfying, as it was my first time seeing that. Its nice to see him growing to do newer, and cooler, things. It also makes me want to get my bass back from MA. The show was a bit more jammy than I had seen in the past, which isn't my favorite, but it was still a lot of fun. The second set was much more entertaining than the first, and hopefully more approachable to people not very familiar with the band. Mostly, I didn't like the tons of jamming simply because I worry about people not familiar with UM not being able to appreciate the genius of the band. Then again, I'm not a huge jam band person, which might explain why I feel this way.

Overall:
Venue: 0/10
Show: 9.5/10

Wow...

I'm not going to say that patents should be entirely eliminated, but I think this will speak tomes for why software patents should be eilminated.

Roper, I hold you and your ilk completely responsible for this.

Evil patent application

Quote:" Method and apparatus for visually emphasizing numerical data contained within an electronic document"

Something to explain my childhood?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/health/03ugly.html?8hpib

Well, maybe not. I do like the comment about ugly people probably reproducing less...

Go Tourney Makes Keith Sad...

So, we had our end of semester go tournament today. Unfortunately, the turnout was less than optimal. We had 5 guys from the usual Cleveland club, and 2 from Columbus. Yep. That's right, a whopping 7 people. Looking back, we really messed up with not starting sooner. With everything going on with the semester, I had lost track of time and thought the tournament was further off than it really was.

I think I know how to fix it, though. I just made up a preliminary calendar of stuff to follow, with dates for almost everything. From simple things like making the advertising flyers to setting dates on which to start flyering. I need to add a couple things, and refine it, but I think this should help a lot.

On my list of things to do, though, is to update that website. I think if the site were better, we'd be able to attract more people on campus. I know it sounds stupid, but if we look more professional and organized, they'll be more likely to take us seriously. So, here's hoping. I should be able to do good things with that this summer. Another idea is to hold a workshop to teach people go. I figure if we can take over Thwing for a day and teach everyone who wants to learn, we'd be in good shape. Like what they do at Origins, but with the aim of boosting numbers for the club. Angel and Dwayne both had good ideas that I think could be easily combined. Angel said to have more than one workshop, and Dwayne said to have lectures at the workshops. So, if we had a beginners workshop, and a workshop for kyu level players, that might also help increase our presence. I'm worried about asking too much time from people, though. Who knows. We'll see what happens. I think one this fall is sufficient. If its good, we might do 2 in the spring.