I signed up here more than 13 years ago.


Before that a friend of mine told me, that you could do something good and constructive with your computer system when you did not use it. I liked the idea. And for some time i searched for extraterrestrial life with Seti@Home. But I am somehow more "down to earth" when it comes to solving problems. Not so much about what happens in space or solving mathematical problems. I like fighting diseases.

There has been long periods where I have not been active. But Distributed Computing has always been "on my mind".

I have no particular personal, private nor professional reasons for being interested in fighting diseases. It's just about who I am. There is sometthing bigger than me. Rosetta is bigger than me. And I am just a part of that.

Today Rosetta is my first priority - with cool graphics! If there are server problems or no work units - then Folding@Home is my Plan B. And I do whatever I can to tell other people about how computers can make a difference. Also during these years with Covid-19.


What is your story? How and when did your hear about distributed computing? How did you become "hooked"? And are you trying to "spread the word"?

(I hope this makes sense. I apologize for spelling and such. English is not my primary language.)

I was just a kid when I first started with DC. It was a false start anyway.
I joined SETI@home but I didn't know how it worked and I though my computer was communicating with space looking for aliens (lol) so I uninstalled it.
Less than a year later, in March 2009, I started with BOINC again though I don't really remember why - maybe I was browsing software and found BOINC.

I signed up for basically every BOINC project I could find but a couple of months later I was focused on WCG, Rosetta, Milkyway@home and Einstein@home with my super fast Intel Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz (no HT) and my dual core Intel T2350 laptop.

I've been running BOINC ever since.

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I started crunching when my sons friend should me his computer with Seti running on it in the late 80's and as they say the 'rest is history'. I too have joined most Boinc Projects over the years and am now hunting hours at each project by getting new and bigger badges at wuprop https://wuprop.boinc-af.org/ that tracks the actual hours your computer crunches for each application at each project. I also did the Bitcoin Utopia Boinc Project for a bit even buying a few Asic miners to get even more Bitcoins that were then donated to other Boinc Projects and other things the Admin thought was worthwhile. Crunching for Bitcoin Utopia gave me the credits to rise to #3 in the World and I'm very proud of that achievement. I am starting to fall behind though as the new gpu's have such astronomical costs despite me growing from a single pc to 17+ pc's that comprise my Farm. I have also started using Raspberry Pi's due to their low cost compared to more traditional pc's but they are not nearly as much fun to watch crunch as a 16 core pc going thru tasks like no tomorrow!! Long ago I realized that the screen savers most Projects have use cpu cycles that can be used for crunching if you don't use them so for years I have used the power button to turn off the monitors.

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