The world community grid

[Kthx]

If you read cracked , then you probably already know about this (or if you're one of the 500,000 people who know how to find ways to help the world without reading a stupid comedy site), but if you don't, then I introduce you to:

 

THE WORLD COMMUNITY GRID

 

It may sound 1984esque, but the world community grid is a program that you can download and your computer's processing power will be used to help thousand of projects - WHILE YOU'RE AFK. That's right. While you're [cabbage]ing in the bathroom, or microwaving some hot pockets, you could be helping find a cure for AIDS.

 

"But wait! What if somebody is using my computer to help them build a death star!?"

A: While you are automatically opted in to all projects of the world community grid, you are allowed to opt out or pause a project whenever you need to. The specific project you're (sleeping/slacking from writing a book report, etc.) on will always be displayed on the program.

 

"What a load of cheapstakes! Why don't they just use their own computers, for Peter's sake!"

A: Not only does a collective grid of thousands of computers far surpass what supercomputers are capable of, but it is also much more cost effective, and the money saved can be used to more efficiently contribute to other things that can't be solved with millions of people watching rebecca black.

 

"My PC sucks! It's made out of sticks and mud and I'm not sure if such a pathetic PC will be able to handle the awesomeness of the world community grid. Can I see the system requirements?"

A: You can see a full list of system requirements here

 

"What does "idle" exactly mean?"

A: It depends entirely up to you. There's a preferences button when you can adjust things like how much processing power it uses, how much disk space it's allowed to use, etc. And yes, it does include a setting for what "idle" means (anywhere from 0-60 minutes of eating food in the kitchen before bringing back a 2 liter coke to your basement)

 

Awesome projects your laziness has helped complete:

-Influenza Antiviral Drug research

-The Clean energy project

-Discovering Dengue drugs - Together

-Nutritious rice for the world

-Africanclimate@home

-Help cure muscular distrophy

-Genome comparison

-Help defeat cancer

-Human proteome folding

 

I don't know what the definition of complete is, considering the fact that cancer hasn't been defeated yet and we're not using much clean energy, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Plus it's existed since 2004, and backed up by companies like IBM. Besides, if I weren't too lazy to look it up, then I wouldn't have downloaded this program and actually be doing my own research.

Edited September 25, 2011 by obfuscator
changed title to something more appropriate ;)

[Nomrombom]

I used to do this, but there's one main problem: if you tell it to use a lot of power, it goes fast but takes up a LOT of power. If you tell it to use less power, it goes a lot slower and takes forever to finish one unit. I could never find a happy medium.

[champion]

That's interesting I guess. Not planning on using it however.

[Omar]

I used to do this, but there's one main problem: if you tell it to use a lot of power, it goes fast but takes up a LOT of power. If you tell it to use less power, it goes a lot slower and takes forever to finish one unit. I could never find a happy medium.

It can't "pause" the unit and send it to a new idle computer?

[Kthx]

I used to do this, but there's one main problem: if you tell it to use a lot of power, it goes fast but takes up a LOT of power. If you tell it to use less power, it goes a lot slower and takes forever to finish one unit. I could never find a happy medium.

Yeah, my only beef with it is the lag if you give it too much power to use. I'm hoping they make it so that you can set it so that you allow it to use a greater amount of power after x amount of idle minutes. Other than that, I have to set it at 10%, 100m disk space all the time. My other complaint (not for the program, but for the site itself) is that it requires you to make an account to download. I know it's a minor nuance to a person who wants to download it, but there's been studies done that show an exponential increase when the account making requirement is removed. I guess it'd help them get closer to achieving a true world grid.

[Nomrombom]

I used to do this, but there's one main problem: if you tell it to use a lot of power, it goes fast but takes up a LOT of power. If you tell it to use less power, it goes a lot slower and takes forever to finish one unit. I could never find a happy medium.

It can't "pause" the unit and send it to a new idle computer?

 

I don't believe so.

[jasignhagj]

Or I could mine bitcoins and make money.

[Nomrombom]

Or I could mine bitcoins and make money.

 

You need a very good GPU to have it be efficient at all. Definitely beyond what the average person has.

[indy500fan]

I did Einstein@Home, which is a similar distributed computing project. It is one of the BOINC distributed computing projects. Folding@Home is probably the most popular one, also you do it by default with the PS3 screensaver.