Grid Computing

[testuser]

Just a little word about grid computing.
Once upon a time, there were supercomputers. However, companies soon realized that those were quite expensive and... bulky. There came the idea of grid computing.
Grid computing is, basically, dividing a computational load in little packets, sending the packets to different computers, which in turn do the computation individually and then send back the packets which are then reassembled. Get it?
Ok. All that was not for nothing.
There's a site called http://www.grid.org
On this site, you can download a program. Let me explain what that program do.
Your computer is not always functioning at 100% capacity. That can be considered as a waist of energy. That program uses your cpu when you're not using it, to do computations. Those computations help research new molecules that could eventually help cure cancer or prevent from biological attack. So, if you want to contribute to the global help against cancer, just use the program. It costs you virtually nothing, and every little helps.

Now. I think that's enough. More info can be found on their site...

[Ven]

There are a few projects like this going, probably the most famous is SETI (search for extra terrestrial intellegence (I think)). Here you receive packets of radiowave data received from far into space, and your cpu analyses it for recognisable signals. Not as useful as a cure for cancer, but cool anyway.

I don't have a link. Google SETI