Distributed Computing

orthicon

You can use your spare CPU cycles to solve some of the world's problems. And I just think it's really neat:

http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/distrib-projects.html

orthicon

http://www.find-a-drug.org/ is a non-profit organization that uses distributed computing to search for disease cures. The forum is very friendly and helpful.

What happens is you download a program that runs in the background, using spare CPU cycles. It crunches molecules, looking for hits that may lead to a new drug. You won't

I've started a team, The Straight Dope, #2058, so come on and join. Or maybe someone could start a Techexams.net team...?

Webmaster

I was a real maniac with the SETI@home project, I used to run it on 4 to 5 machines daily. I worked at a company once where they always wanted the newest fastest servers from Compaq, which I had to install... always fun to see how fast a package was analyzed, now that I'm thinking about it, I sort of used it as a benchmarking tool

Unfortunately, I have no spare CPU time, when I'm not at the keyboards I have 3D studio MAX redendering heavy DVD quality animations (for fun/hobby, check out my other site www.3dvalley.com ) and I can do that only for a couple of hours because than my AMD gets a little too hot... 76 degree and my server is too noisy to leave it running if I'm not using it
I'm going to install it anyway, maybe soon I'll take the time to buy me a new cooler...