::scr Seti@Home & Global Warming

[David Cantrell]

On Fri, May 17, 2002 at 01:36:52PM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote:

> Distributed computing is a very lazy, inefficent way of doing massive
> calculations and only works as long as there's only few calculations
> being done.

Not true.  For *some* types of calculations, it is the most efficient way
of doing them.  eg, rendering video (parcel individual frames out to
individual computers, or even individual parts of frames), or, for problems
where we don't have fancy-schmancy algorithms, proving by exhaustive search.

Of course, there are other problems for which it won't work, including
drawing polygon people for you to blow up on $console_of_choice.  Such
problems can not be conveniently split into independent sections, and
rely on getting a guaranteed amount of data crunched in a set period.

-- 
David Cantrell | david@cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

   it's amazing that your parents can be so kind and
   thoughtful and produce ... well ... you
             -- Greg McCarroll, speaking to me on IRC