# Anyone on the World Community Grid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 30, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-on-the-world-community-grid/296892 "2005-03-30T04:14:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-on-the-world-community-grid/296892/1 "2005-03-30T04:14:58Z")
> **[Home](https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/index.html)** > > World Community Grid enables anyone with a computer or Android device to donate their unused computing power to advance cutting-edge scientific research on topics related to health and sustainability. > [@](#): > > Grid computing joins together many individual computers, creating a large system with massive computational power that far surpasses the power of a handful of supercomputers. Because the work is split into small pieces that can be processed simultaneously, research time is reduced from years to months. > > Our first project, Human Proteome Folding, is identifying the proteins produced by human genes. With this information, scientists can understand how defects in proteins can cause disease, making it easier to find cures. Basically, you download a program, it runs in the background using up only the computing power that you weren’t using anyway, and it indirectly helps scientists with medical research. Sounds like a pretty win-win type thing to me. So… anyone else on it? If there are more than, say, two of us, we could start an SDMB “team” which means we pool all our “points” together. Not that the points really matter. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-on-the-world-community-grid/296892/2 "2005-03-30T14:01:49Z")
I run the HPF client, except it’s the one from United Devices ([http://www.grid.org](http://www.grid.org)). Same idea, as far as I can tell, just fewer letters. There may or may not already be a Straight Dope team, but I’m not on it. ---
**Author:** ![VenusProbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e495f1/32.png) [@VenusProbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VenusProbe)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-on-the-world-community-grid/296892/3 "2005-03-30T14:46:06Z")
I have a small (5 boxen) folding farm, but I use [Folding@Home](http://folding.stanford.edu/). I’m on the [[H]ard|OCP](http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=33) team. It’s a great project now matter how you do it. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-on-the-world-community-grid/296892/4 "2005-03-30T15:43:57Z")
I have it running right now, and it says “Primary task is executing,” and I’ve been running it for 9 minutes now but it still says 0% completed. What am I doing wrong? ---
**Author:** ![VenusProbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e495f1/32.png) [@VenusProbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VenusProbe)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-on-the-world-community-grid/296892/5 "2005-03-30T15:56:37Z")
> [@iampunha](#): > > What am I doing wrong? Nothing, the work units are pretty big on my slowest box it can take a week or more to finish one. Wait an hour or two. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-on-the-world-community-grid/296892/6 "2005-03-31T00:15:21Z")
There _is_ a Straight Dope group, started by yours truly in November or so. Search for Teeming Millions; I’m away from my own computer at the moment and can’t give you the link.