Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
boinc.berkeley.edu
Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
1–10 of 90 posts
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#2The SETI@Home screensaver [0] (the predecessor to BOINC) was the peak of nerd-cool when I was 11 or 12 years old. I had no idea what any of the graphs meant, and still don't, but I knew that I could help find _aliens_, and look like a hacker doing it
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home?useskin=vector#/medi...
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#3I have tried Boinc in the past, I didn't find anything that was visually interesting for me locally - one cool thing about SETI was the screensaver and graphics, if anyone has any suggestions for something cool and fun I could exchange my energy money for, that'd be appreciated.
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#4I have tried Boinc in the past, I didn't find anything that was visually interesting for me locally - one cool thing about SETI was the screensaver and graphics, if anyone has any suggestions for something cool and fun I could exchange my energy money for, that'd be appreciated.
It's not based on Boinc, but I think Folding@Home has some decent visualizations
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#5i miss the days when running this sort of thing was not an obvious energy (and fan noise) tradeoff. i was big into the distributed.net [1] client in the late 90s, running it on my powermac. when i got to college in '98 seti@home had taken over everybody's screensavers.
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#6Old desktops with Boinc running 24/7 make an useful alternative to direct electric heating. Of course a heat pump is more efficient, but not everyone has that.
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#7Before there was the mining of bitcoins, there was BOINC. Where your spare computing cycles helped cure cancer, find aliens, solve mathematical proofs.
And then self-interest trumped altruism.
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#8Before there was the mining of bitcoins, there was BOINC. Where your spare computing cycles helped cure cancer, find aliens, solve mathematical proofs. And then self-interest trumped altruism.
I've commented this previously but I think the major impact to these applications was that CPUs more effectively idle themselves and reduce the fan speeds. Previously there was no noticeable impact with the PC running 100% all the time. Now the fan will go crazy compared to sitting idle. Not to mention there are computers that basically can't run 100% without some sort of duty cycle to cool back down and they will thermally throttle.
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#9The SETI@Home screensaver [0] (the predecessor to BOINC) was the peak of nerd-cool when I was 11 or 12 years old. I had no idea what any of the graphs meant, and still don't, but I knew that I could help find _aliens_, and look like a hacker doing it [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home?useskin=vector#/medi...
> Since its launch on May 17, 1999, the project has logged over two million years of aggregate computing time
What a waste of computing time!
Re: Boinc lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer
#10Here's a backstory at https://continuum-hypothesis.com/boinc_history.php
It's quite interesting to see how it all began.
The peak of this project is largely behind us, although I was a proud member about 10 years ago.