Tonight I decided to join a distributed computing project. Most of you are probably familiar with seti@home and folding@home. If not, basically you download a piece of software that runs on your home computer, then when idle your computer does scientific research. You complete work units and earn points for your team. I joined BOINC which actually allows you to chose which distributed projects you want to take part in so you can pick and chose. So go here and download the client software: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php
I have already come across the project "SETI" which stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. Actually this project aims at utilizing the idle computing resources to find out the ET away from our planet. Though sounds odd, this initiative will definitely help better understand the presence of human like beings living on some other distant planets