So you have the BIG idea that the Church or community needs to develop. Discuss that idea here. Maybe you just want to make a suggestion on a new forum topic. Let us know.
Michael wrote:Hey Tomw,
How much cooperations is there between the church's IT department and BYU's IT department? It seems that both could benefit from mutual coorperation on projects, etc.
I could only guess and my guess would be that there is not too much as they run as a separate entity.
I tend to think that MLS computers should be excluded from anything of this nature due mainly to the sensitivity of the data on them (would be nasty to find out the program in question was doing something beyond using idle cpu time - there are probably policy issues that would be run afoul of by doing something like this too). FHC computers (many of which have decent internet connections) could be a good fit though.
If something of this nature were to be done, I guess I'd rather it was BYU than some other third party making use of the cycles.
BYU's computer science department uses a distributed computing program they developed called DOGMA. It is hooked to the MaryLou supercomputer and some campus workstations. Unfortunately, the website it not up-to-date and there is very little content. Nor did I see anything about Internet users being able to volunteer computer cycles.
I love RussellHltn suggestion about signing up at www.grid.org. They are doing some worthy research.
During idle time we could have the ward computer access the genealogical database to determine the level of cousin-hood between any two members of that particular ward, for all members of the ward.
Knowing how closely we are related could enhance our interactions with each other. For example: if I knew that I had a less-active, 2nd cousin, once-removed in the ward, I would make a stronger effort to pay that cousin a visit. And a discussion of our common ancestors could help to get my foot in the door.
On a lighter note, we could enhance the gene pool by arranging dates between totally unrelated young singles.
Darn. After nearly 5 years of donated CPU time, http://www.grid.org has closed shop. Looks like I'll have to find another project to join. I know they've moved from project to project, so it's a surprise that they've completely ended. I've really liked their agent. Never a problem. Only uses whatever I'm not using and stays out of the way and never slows me down.