Ive been a big supporter of distributed computing since its birth. Ive been a part of 3 very different projects involving DC. RC5 (cryptography), SETI (scanning space), and the Human Genome Project (genetics research). I have a 24 hour server at home which I donate spare cpu off of.
DC is a powerful concept with a strong future. And possibly a scary one (note the projects merging a million computers into one AI). But none of the programs so far allow for cloud sharing, so you have to pick just one project. This just isnt the one Id pick.
I mostly wanted to let Shrapnel know there were choices. Thanks for the BOINC page. Here are some others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...uting_projects
http://www.distributedcomputing.info/projects.html
http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/...ting/Projects/