Playing with Seti@home
Nov. 27th, 2005 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisI've been running the Seti@home screen saver since 3/22/01 on various machines around the house. The iMac and Linux boxes are on 24x7 so they've done the bulk of the work, but the Windows XP boxes chip in periodically when they're busy not crashing.
For the non-geek, this software runs as a screen saver (or low priority application), fetching datasets from a source computer on the Internet to perform intensive calculations and return a result, all using the otherwise unused cpu time of your computer. The individual isn't out anything except electricity while the research project gets to use free cpu cycles on potentially thousands of computers across the planet to perform numerically intensive research which would otherwise be uneconomical or exceedingly difficult to coordinate. Projects include modeling protein folding, climate modeling and such. My machines are participating in analysis of recorded radio signals in the hope of narrowing the focus for listening for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
In all, the app tells me my boxes have completed 3,368 units with 44,657 hours of computing time. Not bad, but I wish I could run it on some of the hardware at work to take advantage of the spare CPU cycles.
Of late, a window has been informing me that the old software will be retired Dec. 15 in favour of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing architecture (aka BOINC). The new software allows one to participate in multiple different distributed computing projects simultaneously, either by allocating timeslices to each enrolled project or --in the case of computers with multiple cpus-- the ability to assign one or more cpus to each project. Neat!
Everything seems to be working well on the Linux box, the iMac and one XP workstation. The other XP box is still working on a data unit from the old software; I'll wait until it is completed so I don't lose the calculations performed thus far.
I'm not part of any computing team currently... I started looking through the list to see if there are any I might consider joining but there is a vast list of them... reading through is taking more time than I had guessed so I've given up on that task for the moment.
Anyone else out there running BOINC or its predecessor? Anyone participating in a team?
For the non-geek, this software runs as a screen saver (or low priority application), fetching datasets from a source computer on the Internet to perform intensive calculations and return a result, all using the otherwise unused cpu time of your computer. The individual isn't out anything except electricity while the research project gets to use free cpu cycles on potentially thousands of computers across the planet to perform numerically intensive research which would otherwise be uneconomical or exceedingly difficult to coordinate. Projects include modeling protein folding, climate modeling and such. My machines are participating in analysis of recorded radio signals in the hope of narrowing the focus for listening for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
In all, the app tells me my boxes have completed 3,368 units with 44,657 hours of computing time. Not bad, but I wish I could run it on some of the hardware at work to take advantage of the spare CPU cycles.
Of late, a window has been informing me that the old software will be retired Dec. 15 in favour of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing architecture (aka BOINC). The new software allows one to participate in multiple different distributed computing projects simultaneously, either by allocating timeslices to each enrolled project or --in the case of computers with multiple cpus-- the ability to assign one or more cpus to each project. Neat!
Everything seems to be working well on the Linux box, the iMac and one XP workstation. The other XP box is still working on a data unit from the old software; I'll wait until it is completed so I don't lose the calculations performed thus far.
I'm not part of any computing team currently... I started looking through the list to see if there are any I might consider joining but there is a vast list of them... reading through is taking more time than I had guessed so I've given up on that task for the moment.
Anyone else out there running BOINC or its predecessor? Anyone participating in a team?
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Switched from seraching for ET for an AIDS 'cure'
Date: 2005-12-03 04:47 am (UTC)I've recently found a non-profit called "World Community Grid," http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ . Similar concept as SETI but the user can select from all or specific non-profit endeavors. I'm using their product and selected the "AIDS Project" only which searches for more treatments for HIV. It gives me a sense of hope and perhaps it's a little more realistic.
Unless ET has a cure for HIV, my time and money is on "FightAIDS@Home".