Distributed Philanthropy
Unfortunately, most of my posts to this journal have been very blippy. I just don’t have time to write at length, as most of that time has gone towards writing my ex-principal about a proposed plan to elect a student to the school board. I might write more on this later, or just publish the e-mail dialogue. Anyway, I just came across this site in Wired, and it’s pretty cool. The site is http://www.fightaidsathome.com, and it is the web site for a group that is trying to use distributed computing technology similar to distributed.net or SETI@home to help research potential AIDS drugs. The most interesting thing, is that this isn’t entirely a non-profit venture. The company, Entropia, dedicates a portion of the computer crunching to for-profit ventures. While this could lead to some scary conflict of interest scenerios, overall, I am really thrilled about the whole profit for a purpose idea. It’s gotten me thinking about what other applications could use a distributed computing model to achieve a greater good. Also, the massive donations received to upgrade blogger, have started me thinking about how groups trying to achieve positive social change in society can obtain funding.