Many people already know about BOINC, a free program from UC Berkely which allows users to donate their unused computer power to solving some of the worlds Big Problems.

There are many different projects available to join such as FightAIDS@home which tries to find new medicines to fight HIV and AIDS, several projects doing protein folding (which may lead to cures for many different diseases), LHC@home which seeks to help the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, and (the larges and oldest project) SETI@home which analyzes radio-observatory data in search of transmissions from Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent Lifeforms (aliens, that is).

You can download BOINC for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux based computers at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ .

Many projects allow you to join teams, or create your own. There's even a BleepingComputer.com team on some projects!

So, why not do a little something to help the world while you're working/playing/surfing with your computer?

O you guys want to help out the world well this website rihgt here http://www.freerice.com/ All you have to do is tell the right defination for a word and they donate 20seed grains for rice for each word you got right check it out its really neat.

Oh, yeah; I like that site. It's one of the few sites for which I disable my Adblock Plus (because the ads pay for the rice)

Suffice it to say, there are many ways in which one can improve the world. Everyday, every human being has the opportunity to change things for the better, if only a tiny bit. How often do we forget that and do nothing?

I think it is more the fact that not many people knwo about the @Home projects or FreeRice etc. I mean, try this if you want; ask someone you see on the street if they knwo about Folding@Home or FightAIDS@Home or FreeRice, I guarantee no one will know what it is That is where the problem is.

what effect does this have on the pc? will it slow it down? As far as the aliens go can you listen to what the project is listening to?

BOINC lets you control when and how the calculations are run, you can set it to only do work while the computer is idle, or all the time. Obviously, while the calculations are running, the program consumes system resources, but you can also set the maximum percentage of system resources it can use. Old computers will noticeably slow while the program's running while newer more powerful machines won't.

As for eavesdropping on interstellar communications, I'm shocked SHOCKED that you would invade the privacy of aliens!! [:D] Some of the projects (including SETI@home include a screensaver which displays the current analysis. Check this out:

Thanks Thelastleap for the FreeRice site. It looks like an interesting project... I have already managed to donate 300 grains of rice!

I have donated around 20,000 or so

(Honestly I have)

These are both really cool ideas. I think I'd heard of them before somewhere.