It seems to me that knowing that you’re doing something to help people makes one feel good, even if there isn’t a lot of effort one has to exert to be helpful.  It’s quite a boon to be able to contribute to society on an ongoing basis, without having to do anything more than a quick one-time action.

You can find just that kind of opportunity with the World Community Grid (WGC).  It’s a project sponsored by IBM, with heavy contributions from Stanford.  Here’s how it works:

• You follow this link and download the software — it’s called “BOINC” (PC, Mac, or Linux)
• You install the software, somewhere along the way creating an account by just giving your e-mail and creating a password
• then,
  • Option A (for people who like to fiddle around):  edit whatever options you’d like in BOINC, including deciding which specific projects you’d like your computer to work on (e.g., curing AIDS or Cancer; creating clean energy; increasing access to clean water), if you don’t want it to do a little bit of all of them
  • Option B (for people who want to just install the software and forget about it): move on to the next step
• Now, BOINC will do its thing.  Namely, the central server sends it a big math problem to work on, and it starts crunching numbers (though never at the expense of your computer’s performance while you’re using it — unless you’re an Option A person and set it to purposefully use resources even when you’re at your computer).  When it’s done, it sends the results back to the main server where it uses that information to solve a much bigger math problem.  
• This is called ‘Distributed Computing’ because the task is distributed among numerous computers, and the result is then assembled.  It’s nice because your computer spends a lot of the day just spinning, with the processor literally wasting process cycles.  With BOINC installed, those otherwise wasted cycles go to very good use.

Now, I should mention one thing:  That link up there?  if you follow it, by default WCG will ask you if you want to join the “XtremeSystems” WCG team.  I’m a member of that team, and would love it if you’d join even if you aren’t an XtremeSystems community member (XtremeSystems is a community for computer hardware enthusiasts, and specifically those who like to tweak and / or overclock their computers).  But, even if you find another team, or don’t join a team at all — I just know you’ll be happy when you check BOINC once every day or so, and see the progress that you’ve contributed to various projects.

P.S.  There’s no money in this for anyone — points are just for keeping track and motivating people.  And team affiliations can be changed at your whim.

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