Has anybody ever considered the idea of doing otherwise-useful CPU work
   with the power currently expended  by computing hashes in Bitcoin
   mining?  The most obvious application would be weather forecasting:  It
   could use a huge amount of computation, on a continuously ongoing
   basis, and is valuable to every nation on earth.  Whether it can be
   lasso'ed into a bitcoin-mining engine, I don't know.
                 Jim Bell

   Just to answer this directly, yes, a lot of people have had such
   ideas.  Many have likely been implemented in altchains.
   I have software development experience and I would assist a project
   using permanent storage and serving of arbitrary community data as its
   proof of work.  Such a chain could also offer anonymous behavior.