Topic:	CLIMATE CHANGE- The BBC needs use of home computers
morgarrow Posts: 379 Posted: 18.Feb 2006 - 14:22	The BBC are organising the world's largest ever climate experiment, and need the help of thousands of home computer users. As some of you spend hours in this forum and no doubt using the web generally it's an opportunity to use your computers spare capacity while you're writing those so very interesting postings to the forum. Using a technique known as distributed computing, the BBC are hoping to harness the power of thousands of PCs around the world. If 10,000 people sign up, they'll be faster than the world’s biggest computer. And the BBC are hoping to be even better than that. The experiment works by making use of home PC spare processing power. All you have to do is use your computer exactly as you normally would, and the programme will run calculations in the background. When it’s done, it will send results back to scientists in Oxford, who will combine everyone’s results. The more people who take part, the more complete their predictions about the future climate will be. Now that's some of the guff from their web site- but it'll be better if you go to it yourselves and get the full run-down. I've signed on recently and apart from a few glitches in the downloading process it now seems to be working okay. Have a look at the info on the experiment anyway on: www.bbc.co.uk/s...iment1.shtml
chris Posts: 1405 Posted: 18.Feb 2006 - 16:22	Sounds like it runs along the same lines as the SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
frenchie Posts: 1691 Posted: 19.Feb 2006 - 00:10	Maybe the C24 forum users could allocate their processors to help work out the cost of an affordable home..
Stonefly Posts: 694 Posted: 19.Feb 2006 - 00:28	frenchie...you're a *****
Stonefly Posts: 694 Posted: 19.Feb 2006 - 00:28	t w a t was the word I wanted!
frenchie Posts: 1691 Posted: 19.Feb 2006 - 00:35	Quotet w a t was the word I wanted! at least you managed to find your word by the second post, good job it wasn't more than four letters, you may have needed a BBC computer project to help you...
Stonefly Posts: 694 Posted: 19.Feb 2006 - 00:39	frenchie...do you honestly believe that I give a flying ***** what you think?
Stonefly Posts: 694 Posted: 19.Feb 2006 - 00:39	Didn't your stars tell you?
fancyabrew Posts: 1362 Posted: 1.Mar 2006 - 13:04	A bit perverse this one. Calculate how much extra C02 will be produced by all these PC’s running when they could be switched off.
morgarrow Posts: 379 Posted: 1.Mar 2006 - 13:23	Good point fancybrew - They do advise that you don't leave your computers on any longer than you would do normally. However human nature being what it is I am sure some people will get carried away by being part of such a project that they'll want to be helpful by leaving their computers switched on and online that little bit longer than normal.
troll Posts: 567 Posted: 1.Mar 2006 - 18:15	If it's the same as the United Devices software then you can leave it running and it uses any spare CPU cycles for the calculations as you work.