Want to do something with your computer more useful than reading Forumosa all day ? Leave your computer on all the time ? Use your spare CPU cycles to cure cancer !
I’ve been doing it for a couple of years since my wife’s cousin died of Cancer at the age of 39, I thought it would nice to set up a team and do it with my fellow Forumosans.
CPU cycles are analogous to the second hand ticking by on a clock; they’re just how your computer’s operating time is measured. A computer can calculate things at a certain number of cycles per second, and IIRC that’s connected to the speed measurement of the processor. Basically this program, and others like it like SETI@Home, detect when your computer is idle (ie not using it’s cycles for anything - like you sitting on your arse not using your seconds) and puts that idle time to use in numbercruching work.
EDIT: See here for the explanation of the concept behind the program, and here for info about the project itself.
Explain how does it happen? What’s CPU cycles?[/quote]If you’ve got a 4GHz Pentium, whilst it may be being pushed to the limit playing Doom 3, it’s feeling a bit underused surfing Forumosa or during your lunch break, it could be doing something more demanding at the same time, like testing how 1 of 3 billion chemicals reacts with a cancer cell.
Link I gave above was ok after all, It just takes a long time to update changes.
[quote=“sandman”]How about if your computer is part a network? Would this program create headaches for a SYS admin?[/quote]Why should it ? unless it’s blocked by a firewall or something. It’s processor intensive, not bandwidth intensive.
Ah well, I tried but it wouldn’t let me. The website does talk about proxys and firewalls and inputting things to sneak around the firewall, but that just doesn’t sound like something I should do without permission from above. Still, I have the program now, so I will ask.
Yay, we’re getting results in now :bravo: The stats are a day or so behind, and it takes a couple of days to process a block, so they should start coming in steadily now.
We’re the 7635th biggest team, and the 35000th most productive so far, keep it up
I downloaded it and then it asked me to register. After choosing a username and password, it kept telling me they weren’t in the system. How do I simply register my name and password so I can get this thing going?
cheers
[quote=“Damage”]I downloaded it and then it asked me to register. After choosing a username and password, it kept telling me they weren’t in the system. How do I simply register my name and password so I can get this thing going?
cheers[/quote]
I had that problem initially too - check at the top of the register thing for the program: there’s a box that you need to uncheck, something about being already registered. I don’t think it was checked at first, but after one failed attempt (name already taken, probably) it auto-checked it for some reason.
If it’s anything like GIMPS (another project like this one or SETI@Home - GIMPS (www.mersenne.org) is credited with finding the 6 largest known Mersenne Primes), it periodically saves the data on your hard drive. It resumes from the point of the last piece of saved data after you restart your computer.[/url]
[quote=“smithsgj”]1. Is there a security risk, I wonder[/quote]Not according to this grid.org/help/faq_security.htm Remember it’s been running for several years with over a million users, someone would have noticed something
[quote]2. What happens if you shut your computer down[/quote]If there’s a power cut it should start again from the last molecule, always best to shut down manually to avoid corrupted files anyway
[quote]3. The screensaver is pretty cool[/quote]Runs faster if you disable your screensaver, which I just remembered to do
[quote=“Roach”]I guess I’ll just have to wait…[/quote]Yeah it’s a bit annoying, you can’t even see yesterday’s stats when it does that.
If you want to only run the cancer project and not the Rosetta project (Which is studying DNA to cure deseases, also a worthy cause) you can choose which projects you do by following the instructions on the bottom of this page: grid.org/help/faq_member_services.htm
