
BOINC: Compute for Science - smpetrey
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php
======
threeio
Wow... I haven't seen BOINC in a decade.. As I remember SETI@Home converted
its project from its custom program over to BOINC back in the day. \--
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home)

The initial software platform, now referred to as "SETI@home Classic", ran
from May 17, 1999 to December 15, 2005. \-- So about a decade ;)

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ChrisGranger
As a longtime BOINC user, I'm sometimes frustrated by how tiny a percentage of
our global (idle) processing power is being used by distributed computing
projects, _especially_ projects related to medicine. It seems like such a good
idea, and I wish we were doing more...

~~~
tedunangst
If every idle process started running simulations full bore, that'd be a lot
of heat... I have maybe 100W of computers "online" at the moment. But the
heavy load draw would be well over 1000W. Idle time isn't free.

The exceptions would be some previous gen consoles like the PS3, which didn't
idle efficiently, but only if you assume they're being left on continuously. I
used to run folding@home during the winter to help heat my apartment.

------
Forbo
In case helping to advance science isn't enough of a reward for you, there's
also Gridcoin[0], the cryptocurrency that you mine by contributing processing
power to BOINC.

[0] [https://gridcoin.us/](https://gridcoin.us/)

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ebcase
Good to see BOINC floating by on HN today. I've recently been dusting off some
old Mac minis that run Leopard or Snow Leopard (but no newer OS versions), and
was pleasantly surprised that older BOINC versions still function!

However, not all BOINC projects support all platform architectures. This
site[0] lets you see which projects support a specific architecture; only five
support PowerPC Macs.

[0] [http://wuprop.boinc-
af.org/results/delai.py?plateforme=mac_p...](http://wuprop.boinc-
af.org/results/delai.py?plateforme=mac_ppc&tri=projet&sort=asc&min=&max=)

------
x43b
I always wondered, but not enough to do calculations, that if instead of
increasing one's electricity bill by $10, one could donate $15 (tax
deductible) to an organization to run the computation themselves. Which is
more efficient?

~~~
robzyb
Back of the envelope thoughts: Donating money is unlikely to be more
efficient.

They have to be electron-juice too, and while it might be cheaper for them to
buy it, they also have to pay for hardware on top of it.

Option A) You spend $10 on electricity and give them X MIPS.

Option B) You give them $15, they spend $5 on electricity, and then they have
$10 to spend on hardware. I bet that they'd get far less than X MIPS!

~~~
zornthewise
They _might_ be able to save up money and get more efficient hardware that
eventually beats the science/electricity cost of distributed computing.

