Another non gardening post but one I just have to share. Ever heard of Rosetta@home? Here is a blurb from their site:
Rosetta@home needs your help to determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases. By running the Rosetta program on your computer while you don’t need it you will help us speed up and extend our research in ways we couldn’t possibly attempt without your help. You will also be helping our efforts at designing new proteins to fight diseases such as HIV, Malaria, Cancer, and Alzheimer’s (See our Disease Related Research for more information). Please join us in our efforts! Rosetta@home is not for profit.
There are a number of projects out there that are doing the same type of thing. Rather than try to come up with all of the money needed to purchase the computing power they recruit people all over to donate computer time. The job gets done much quicker and for less. Basically it works like this. You install a small program on your computer and when your computer screen saver comes on your computer goes into calculate mode doing calculations for the project. Data is passed from the University server to your computer and back. Brilliant idea and a great use of an otherwise unused resource. How many can say they participated in finding the cure to HIV etc? Plus, now I have even more of an excuse to get off the computer and into the garden.