A short story of how I got into Gridcoin

Hello All, 

This is my first post here on Steemit, so I’d thought I’d take a few lines to introduce myself. While I’m still going to hide behind my internet handle, I will let you know a little bit more about me. Although computing has always been a hobby, I am an accountant by profession. As such, I am always interested in the incremental value provided with each investment in technology. 

 

In the mid-90s (if memory serves me), I was part of the original SETI@Home project before it migrated to BOINC. I don’t recall how many units my computer crunched while running its screensaver, but it was a fun distraction. After that computer died, I never really bothered with it on my next machine.  

Fast forward nearly 20 years later 

My consumer NAS device began to fail and I struggled to find a suitable replacement. I decided to build my own server powered by FreeNAS. A small disadvantage to this setup was the need to leave the server running and the drives spinning all the time. I tried to find something to do with my idle CPU time. Looking at ways to sell excess CPU time, I was not taken by any of the options available. 

I then stumbled across ways to donate excess CPU time, specifically via the World Community Grid. I noticed that one of its projects was anchored by the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Seeing as I had several family members treated for cancer at this hospital, I felt compelled to give back. While crunching at WCG was going to lead to a small increase in my monthly electricity costs, I felt this was a worthwhile “donation” to the cause. 

Getting BOINC to work in a FreeNAS jail was a bit cumbersome but I managed to get it going. After FreeNAS was upgraded a few versions, I was able to deploy BOINC via a Virtual Machine running Linux. This lead to faster processing of the work units (don’t ask me how, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?). 

At the same time, I bumped into an advertisement for Gridcoin. While I was a bit weary of cryptocurrencies, I thought it couldn’t do much harm to join up as I was running BOINC anyway. Several months later, I have several devices (1 server, 1 laptop and 3 mobile devices) crunching away on various whitelisted projects. 

What’s next? Perhaps a cluster of ODROID XU4s…anyone have any fun with these?