Cavers tend to be science minded so I thought you guys would be interested in this-
These programs use the idle time and spare processing power of your computer to study all sorts of different projects. They work on the idea that 1000 regular home PCs working together can be just as powerful as a million dollar supercomputer.
First get the BOINC software here-
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/
Then select a project that interests you and attach to it.
Here's some popular projects you can sign up for-
Seti@home- analyze radio telescope data looking for possible extraterrestrial signals.
Einstein@home- search through data gathered by LIGO and Arecibo to look for gravitational waves and radio pulsars.
Want something more down to earth?
Rosetta@home- studies protein structure prediction and also does applied research on malaria, Alzheimer's disease and other pathologies.
Climateprediction.net- attempts to reduce the uncertainty ranges of various climate models.
World Community Grid- studies a variety of problems in biology, medicine and the environment.
Of course there are others you can choose from-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_di ... g_projects
As you run these projects you earn credits to compare with your friends and encourage some friendly competition. Here's my stats-
http://allprojectstats.com/showuser.php ... r=JR-Orion
1,943,522 credits and growing across four different projects
It's a fun way to do some good for a few bucks a month on your electric bill. :) Though I usually let my PC run 24 hours a day to get max credit.