I'm sure everyone knows about COVID-19, caused by the Coronavirus. While I'm sure research is ongoing to find a cure for this virus, we can all help boost this research. In this blog post, I will explain all the options available to us, but first things first.
Caution! Depending on how you already use your computer(s), BOINC and FOLDING@home may cause the power consumption of your computer(s) to go up. Needless to say, this will add to your electricity bill.
BOINC is short for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. BOINC is used for many scientific projects. It enables 'average Joe' to help with scientific research. Here's how it works.
You begin by downloading and installing the BOINC Manager. After installing the BOINC Manager, you choose the project(s) you want to help with. To help find a cure for COVID-19, you'll want to add the project ROSETTA@home. You'll be asked to make an account for each of them. The BOINC Manager then goes through a constant cycle.
Download some work, process the work, and send the results back.It will keep doing this until you quit the BOINC Manager.
You begin by browsing to this page, where you'll find a link to download the application.
There may be times when FOLDING@home can't give you a workunit. That's because its popularity exploded when the Coronavirus hit and it ended up getting more volunteers than it had workunits for.
If you want to help find a cure for COVID-19, but you'd rather let Google's computers do the hard work, then this is the way to go.
This approach doesn't require any computing power of your own, but it does require a little tinkering. Don't worry though, because I will guide you through the whole procedure.
import os.path
!apt-get update
!apt-get install boinc boinc-client
!cp /usr/bin/boinc /content
!cp /usr/bin/boinccmd /content
if not os.path.exists('/content/slots'):
!mkdir slots
if not os.path.exists('/content/slots/0'):
!boinc --daemon --attach_project "http://www.primegrid.com/" "paste-weak-key-here"
else:
!boinc --daemon
!boinccmd --set_gpu_mode always
!tail -f stdoutdae.txt
Paste this code into your Colaboratory page. Please make sure that there's nothing above or below the code. Also, please make sure that the line that says "!mkdir slots" is indented, as well as the two lines starting with "!boinc --daemon".
Open PrimeGrid in another tab or window. If you don't have an account on there already, then please make one now. Log into your PrimeGrid account if you're not logged into it already. Click on "My account" in the left column and copy your weak account key.
REPEAT: ...your weak account key.
Switch back to your Colaboratory tab/window and look for where it says "paste-weak-key-here". Paste your weak account key there.
Lastly, please click the big, black button in the upper left corner to run your code. If all is well, you should see it produce a lot of lines.
Google Colaboratory is used a lot. As a result, you may get a message saying "cannot connect to GPU backend." If that happens, just give the code a name and try again later.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, then please let me know in the form down below.
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