We used to run a decentralized server on our office PCs to aid in protein folding. The program would lie in the background and monitor CPU usage, then spring in

We used to run a decentralized server on our office PCs to aid in protein folding. The program would lie in the background and monitor CPU usage, then spring into action once the CPU was idle for some time, and utilize all but one CPU core to process one of the work packages available on a central server. To fold proteins, you'd just add your request to the queue, and some time later, you'd get the results, calculated on various PCs from customer support to the labs. Good times.