It's great to see pics of Hayley around the Web.  It might just help this project I am doing:

Basically, I participate in four distributed computing (DC) programs run under a framework called BOINC (http://boinc.berkeley.edu) located at UC Berkeley, California.  You sign up, you download their prog, and you pick from about 2 dozen projects that are running... anything from proteins to prime numbers, atom smashing to SETI.  I picked four: 2 on protein folding (which might help with cancer cures and prion diseases like CJD), one on nanotech biology (which would help with cancer, etc at an atomic level) and 1 on artificial intelligence (like politicians have, only they use sophistry and lies, not intelligence) :p

You let the program download projects from the choice(s) you make vis-a-vis projects you want to work with, and the program then uses the unused flops (essentially, free CPU time and power) of your computer to do its work.  It then uploads the results back to Berkeley and finds you new work.

Hayley, though... well, each user in any project can create a profile if he wishes, said profile supporting a picture of your choice.  I chose one for this project called POEM... it deals with protein folding, medicinal solutions through protein therapy, etc.  However, I'm too ugly to be famous :p , so logic dictates a pic of a pretty girl, one easy on the eyes, might get someone to read my profile and maybe sign up themselves (anyone here included, hint hint).  Guess whom I picked for my "poster child"? :D  I credited her, of course, and did not pretend to be her.  I have extolled her voice and accomplishments.  For the record, the whole deal is non-profit and non-controversial, no stem cells or anything, and I get nothing but points (they keep track of your work) and a good feeling in my heart for my participation.

Since I lost a grandmother, great aunt, almost my dad (they caught it early), and would have lost my grandpa to cancer (he died of an MI, had prostate cancer also); and because one of three Americans will have it at some time, there's no reasonable argument against associating Hayley in a very minor way with something she surely would support (though I made no mention of any feelings she might have).  The end justifies the means here, and I'm not seeking approval from the community for this one :)  Hey, it's one more place she can be publicized, on a site from America, and free publicity of any kind from a philanthropic project can only be good.

Oh, the business about just getting points and a warm fuzzy feeling?  Well, there's one other thing you can get, which you have no control of: User of the Day status for a project.  They gave it to me on this POEM job, mainly for being, well, a happenin' contributor... check Hayley and me out...

http://boinc.fzk.de/poem/view_profile.php?userid=15160

I have a Net friend who has an aggressive form of leukemia, and I have dedicated my work on another similar project, known as Rosetta, to her.  I shall take the liberty of uniting my crunching of data on POEM to Hayley's UNICEF work, specifically her work on clean water supplies in Ghana.  While bikes for kids is certainly noble, cancer, prions, CJD, and sickle cell anemia, as well as polluted water, can kill.

Interestingly, there's also a malarial treatment project in this DC program, and if any scourges can take your life anywhere in Africa, they're cholera (from water) and malaria (from the anopheles mosquito).  Clean water stops cholera, and if we beat malaria, we can devote more time to beating sickle cell... which is a one-amino acid mutation that nature created to keep people from getting malaria!  Nature is cruel, and it realized that life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa was so short anyhow, it might as well lengthen it some by protecting people from the #1 parasitic killer out there (maybe #2 after cholera).  It did a ghoulish job of accomplishing this: a painful, generally fatal syndrome that will hurt you for 20 or more years in exchange for protection against a killer that can put you down in a week or less.  Indeed, people with ordinary to severe sickling rarely get malaria.

There you have it.  My recent work for humanity.  If any of you would like to work on this project, won't you get in touch with me? :)  We can combine our efforts under one name, say, "Hayley's Crusaders" or "Pure Intentions" or "Research Odyssey" (I'd change my user ID to a common one from Cesium_133).  I would be willing to handle the tech specs and help with whatever.  Anyone interested, please PM me or email me at <veryprocanadian@yahoo.com>.  Anyone who likes techno-geek work, this is one project you'd jump for... :)