This article is originally created by 10101, but I hope everyone will share it more, thank you. If someone asked me before how to help those in need, my thoughts were: 1) to be a doctor without borders (www.msf.org.hk); 2) join the Red Cross; 3) make donations. But recently, I accidentally discovered a group of people who are helping many people in the world. The correct statement should be that they are fighting against diseases for all humanity, but their strength is very weak and they also need help from others. Who are they? They are a research organization from the University of California, currently dedicated to deciphering difficult-to-treat diseases such as cancer, AIDS, dengue fever, etc. They need to use computers to crack the cells or virus genes of the above-mentioned diseases in order to develop drugs against them. Their strength is very thin, without many powerful supercomputers, without much research funding, without much modern equipment seen on TV, but they have a wisdom, coming up with a way for friends who want to help others to participate together. There is no need for us to be doctors without borders, no need to join the Red Cross, no need for us to donate money, we can also contribute to the research. As long as we are willing to help others, we can participate - distributed computing! Use the remaining resources of your computer to do something meaningful for all humanity! After looking at this organization's website, I feel that this distributed computing is very meaningful. Generally, schools or non-profit research institutions find it difficult to obtain large computer systems with strong computing power to quickly analyze some human incurable diseases such as cancer, AIDS, dengue fever, even the recent avian influenza and various kinds of pathogenic viruses or cancer cell genes. Therefore, the concept of distributed computing was born. For example, if calculating the gene mutation of cancer cells would take the research institution's computer 100,000 years to calculate the result, we can simply think that if there are 100,000 computers, each machine helps calculate a block, then it could take only one year to crack this gene structure, thus allowing the development of drugs to treat this kind of cancer.
Let me give another simple example. Have you ever seen a map? This distributed computing means that a big computing project is like a very large map. If one person had to measure all the places within this map range and then draw it out, it would take 100 years (36,500 days) to complete. However, if this map is divided into 1,000 regions, and 1,000 workers each go to their respective regions to measure and draw their own region maps, after completion, everyone gathers together and assembles their measured and drawn maps. Then, the time needed would only be 36,500 days / 1,000 equals 36.5 days to complete the entire large map. Isn't this demonstrating the spirit of division of labor and collective effort? What we need now is this spirit of division.
The computing performance of our current computers is not much different from super servers of a few years ago, and may even surpass them. You can right-click the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, select "Task Manager", then select "Performance" to see the resources currently used by our computers. We usually use less than 10% of the computing power, leaving 90% idle waiting. Why don't we contribute part of our excess resources? Since January 3, 2008, I've been participating in the calculations. When the computer starts, this calculator automatically starts. It loads some calculation blocks in pieces, automatically sends them back to the research institution after completion, and the whole process requires no manual intervention. It occupies very little resources and can be set to start calculating when the system is idle. During the entire process of using the computer, I don't even notice its existence. Since we don't have to pay anything to help others (life is unpredictable, maybe someday we'll help relatives, friends, or even ourselves), why not do it?
The organization's website: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org. Everyone might want to browse it. The participants on the site are quite active, and the site has forums where people exchange ideas and suggestions. However, currently, there seem to be very few people from our country participating, which makes me feel disappointed. I hope it's due to the language barrier. However, the English on the website is quite simple and shouldn't be difficult for us descendants of Yanhuang. If you're willing to participate, just click the "Download Now" icon on the homepage, then fill in some basic information, including a nickname and email address, just like registering for a forum account on a website. Also, you can choose your group (many people are part of a school or an organization). If you don't want to join any group, you can skip this step. Or, if you prefer, you can create a new group. After that, the website will allow you to download a computing program. Once installed (this program supports simplified Chinese display), you basically don't need to worry about it anymore (of course, if you like, you can manually intervene and adjust its working mode and resource usage). It will start with the computer and download one or more calculation blocks when the computer is idle. After completing one block, it will move on to the next, upload the completed ones back to the website, and download new blocks to continue calculating, repeating endlessly. You won't feel its presence. It will quietly work and silently calculate your score to let you know how much you've contributed. This website is not a profit-making organization, and all the computer equipment they currently use needs sponsorship from IBM. We shouldn't expect to get anything. What we gain is helping others. To quote a phrase from the Bible: "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
As a member of humanity, don't let yourself live on Earth every day just competing or consuming resources. Let's do something for those in need. The research institute is from the University of California, Berkeley. I hope everyone will visit their organization's webpage (although there is currently no Chinese version. I sent an email to the school a few days ago asking if I could help translate the entire webpage into Chinese, but the reply was that they are already doing this), so hopefully, the Chinese version of the webpage will be available soon. The URL is: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/. If you are interested in joining the calculation team and encounter any problems, feel free to comment on this post, and I will try my best to answer any questions you may have.
PS. Currently, I am in the "CFIDO" group, which is China Wide Network. If you or your friends were members of the early China Wide Network, you are welcome to join. Even if you are not, you are still welcome to join, or you can create a new group, or you can choose not to join any group and calculate independently. Additionally, if you are a doctor, if you can join Doctors Without Borders, it is a highly honorable achievement. The website for Doctors Without Borders is www.msf.org.hk.