I've been having some problems with Folding@home on my home PC. Apart from it taking weeks to process a work unit due to not being on all the time and just being generally slow, I've had several units crash out, so wasting several days of processing. I've not found a workaround, so for now I'm putting this PC back on distibuted.net. It has no benefit to medical science, and I'm not totally sure about it's benefits to anyone else, but at least my PC is contributing to something. I hate to see a processor idle.

I changed my start-up script to swap things over, but when I rebooted I ended up at a console. It took me a while to sort it. It seems that it was actually due to an update I had run earlier which had not completed properly. Running 'apt-get -f install' fixed it.

distributed.net has achieved a few things. It has cracked a few encryption challenges and has calculated some optimum Golomb rulers, but the latest challenge seems ambitious. They have been working on the RC5-72 encryption challenge for a few years and, at current rates, will take another 1000 years to cover all the keyspace. Of course the key may be found in the first 1% and computers will get faster, but I think this already shows how hard a task it is. I think they have less contributors than in the past as many have moved to other projects. Looking at their stats on the platforms in use, it's amazing to see the variety. There are even some old Amigas still processing.

Maybe I'll look at Folding@home again when I have a faster, probably dual core, PC. The F@H client is gaining the ability to exploit all cores without the user having to set up multiple instances. Dnet has had that for several years, as I found when I ran it on an old dual CPU server. It will be intesting to see the results when Sony release the F@H client for the PS3.

I've been looking for a while for a way to convert programmes I've recorded from Freeview to a more compact format. I was thinking of DVD, but as my player can do Divx that may be suitable. I remember when that first appeared and the fun we had converting DVDs. I ran some tests with mencoder and that looks promising, even if it lacks a GUI. I was going to convert a programme from last night for the wife to take to work, but Channel 4 changed the schedule at the last minute.

Minor excitement in the garden today when a sparrowhawk took out a dove. I missed the kill and it flew off before I could get my camera.