Multitasking while Scripting
Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2003 4:36 am
You script you character 24/7 killing them salamanders and earning some exp, but whats the rest of your computer doing? Not a whole lot. Mega takes very little CPU time--time which can be put to good use. Screensavers suck, be they dancing babies or flying toasters, but I've found some that actually do things. Distributed computing is a means to harness idle CPU time either by running as a screensaver or in the background. Your computer gets a packet of work while its scripting, processes it, and sends it off. Whats it used for? Pretty much everything from useless crap like simulating a thousand monkeys at type-writers to finding a cure for aids(mmmmm, aids) and looking for aliens.
Browse through them and find something that tickles (heh) your fancy (heh, heh):
Project list (http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/distrib-projects.html)
These things actually work. SETI@Home pulls 71 TERRAFLOPS PER SECOND from hundreds of thousands of computers. Other projects could use more clock cycles though. I'm on ZetaGrid. Theres sure to be something there you'll like.
Browse through them and find something that tickles (heh) your fancy (heh, heh):
Project list (http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/distrib-projects.html)
These things actually work. SETI@Home pulls 71 TERRAFLOPS PER SECOND from hundreds of thousands of computers. Other projects could use more clock cycles though. I'm on ZetaGrid. Theres sure to be something there you'll like.