World Community Grid -- Join the Humanitarian Effort!

[Cervantes]

World Community Grid

A Computer Grid to Benefit Humanity

It's been a year since IBM first started their World Community Grid, which uses the power of many personal, otherwise idle computers to solve problems.

In the past, World Community Grid (WCG) has been focusing on the human proteome; a proteome is much like a genome, except that it maps the proteins that the genes code for. The Human Proteome Folding Project uses the processing power of our computers to predict how a particular chain of amino acids (what makes up proteins) will fold into their 3dimensioanl conformation.

Recently, WCG has begun a fight against AIDS. It uses the processing power of our computers to computationally test how small molecules, "drug candidates", will react with HIV protease.

I've registered, and hope to contribute a lot to this most wonderful and inspiring of causes. I want everyone on CompSci.ca to register as well and donate their idle computer time.

A neat thing: WCG allows Teams to form, to compete in members, total run time, points, etc. I've started a CompSci.ca team. When registering your account, make sure to select the CompSci.ca team to join; the option to join a team is the last one in the list. Click "Select..." and do a search for "compsci".

Also to note: Windows and Linux are supported. Although currently linux users are only able to donate their idle computer time to the Human Proteome Folding Project.

This is truly a fantastic cause. Hopefully everyone will register and donate at least some of their idle computer time to this scientific, humanitarian, and not-for-profit endeavour.

[Dan]

This seems very intrestings but i whould whont greatines that the data being proces is only for such things and not like IBM trying to use us all for there own gains.

[Tony]

EULA wrote:

IT IS ANTICIPATED EVENTUALLY THAT IBM WILL TRANSFER WORLD COMMUNITY GRID TO A NON-IBM OWNED WORLD COMMUNITY GRID ENTITY OR ANOTHER ENTITY. IF AND WHEN THAT OCCURS, THIS AGREEMENT WILL ALSO APPLY TO THAT WORLD COMMUNITY GRID ENTITY

Don't think they'll have personal gains from giving the project away.

I'm liking their idea of teams. I'm in.

[Naveg]

Excellent cause, I joined the team.

[Dan]

I will read over all the legal stuff on there site and if it is ok i will join up and start some severs working on it.

[[Gandalf]]

I haven't looked into this too much, so if anyone can answer, thanks!

What stops them from using this to access and/or gain other data from the computer 'giving idle time'? Either than some vague 'agreement' statements?

Won't this contribute to power/cpu usage + overheating? More usage = more power consumption, no?

-Cervantes, you make a great salesperson .

[Tony]

[Gandalf] wrote:

What stops them from using this to access and/or gain other data from the computer 'giving idle time'?

They can't afford to get sued There are 3 674 Slashdot users, about as many from IBM (spread over different regional teams). Someone would catch on to what's happening.

[Gandalf] wrote:

Won't this contribute to power/cpu usage + overheating? More usage = more power consumption, no?

Yes, that is what you're donating to the cause though.

[Cervantes]

[Gandalf] wrote:

Won't this contribute to power/cpu usage + overheating? More usage = more power consumption, no?

Link!

In short, the answer is not to any significant amount, according to this.

[[Gandalf]]

Very interesting... It doesn't cover overheating? But I guess with a decent cooling system you don't have to worry about that too much. Well, I'll think about it...

In other news, Cervantes, you see to be the only one who hasn't generated any points for the team yet .

*edit* Anyone care to explain this further?

Quote:

TO BE IN THE PROJECT, YOU MAY RECEIVE SOFTWARE THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO DOWNLOAD ONTO YOUR COMPUTER, SUCH AS CERTAIN SOFTWARE FROM UNITED DEVICES, INC. YOU WILL COMPLY WITH ALL PROVISIONS OF THE APPLICABLE SOFTWARE LICENSE FOR THE SOFTWARE, AND YOU WILL USE THE SOFTWARE ONLY AS PERMITTED BY ITS LICENSE.

[Naveg]

That's just the software they give you to do the stuff they need. Its a little icon that sits in your taskbar and you can watch its progress. Made by united devices.

[codemage]

Distributed processing services like this don't usually max out your system. It won't bump power consumption or heat much b/c the processes can run with the monitor off, and drives and expansion cards idle.

[Tony]

codemage wrote:

It won't bump power consumption or heat much

So you should sign up and join the team.

Group stats seem to be slow to update.

my stats wrote:

Points Generated (Rank) 672 (#98,635)
Results Returned (Rank) 3 (#95,090)

[Dan]

I will try runing it on my laptop for a bit and see how it gose. It is not bad my litte lab is not up and runing, other wise we could have had some fun....

[Hikaru79]

Oh, cool! I was already part of the Folding@Home project, which is very similar, but since there's a compsci.ca team for this one, I'll switch

[Cervantes]

[Gandalf] wrote:

In other news, Cervantes, you see to be the only one who hasn't generated any points for the team yet .

Turns out I couldn't get the linux app working. I made a post, and threw it in the pile of things to check after I upgrade to Breezy. Which is tonight.

Edit: Oh yeah, during my spare I might set up an extra computer or two to do this. Then I'll be flying.