What is APS@Home?

      Sadly, APS@Home is in a persistent vegetative state.  The project WAS doing some kind of atmospheric simulations, but, according the the APS@Home site, "it more efficient to wait for local machines to finish jobs than putting in the considerable effort required to keep a BOINC project running."  Too bad. 

     Because I don't have a lot to say here, I'll also add this:

Possible New BOINC Projects part 1

     BOINC wide teams is a wonderful thing.  If you have a BOINC team, like TEAM: Brian for instance, every time you join a new BOINC project, you have to create the same old team on the new project.  It gets tedious after a while.  So, from the makers of BOINC comes, BOINC wide teams.  You create a team once, and whenever someone creates a new, BOINC project, your automatically get your team created in that project.  Sweet!  Also, you get e-mailed when a new project is created, so it's kind of like insider info on the newest projects.  That's what this series of posts will be about.  Possible new BOINC projects that I find out about through

What is Pirates@Home

For the first, legitimate post of the new TEAM: Brian blog, I had to do my favorite project, Pirates@Home.  These guys are my favorite because they really take the pirate thing seriously.  They also, don't really

Let the New Information BEGIN!

     I have moved everything over from the old web page, and it makes me a little sad to see it go, but only a little.  An actual web page is a pain to maintain and unless you are dedicated to it, which I am definitely NOT!   I am decidedly not dedicated to either this blog, that web page, or the concept of BOINC teams as a whole, much less my own, personal team (which I created!)  I did this out of boredom and continued it out of novelty and trying to see if I could get a Google search to come up with my site first when I searched Team: Brian, which I did.  (I also tried to see if I could get it to come up when i searched Brian, which I didn't.)  That would have taken a LOT more dedication, which, as you know, i just don't have for this.  The theme for Team: Brian is apathy and the theme for this blog is whatever. 

     So, anyway, everything of any importance is here and it is now time to start updating information.  In transferring stuff, I realized that a lot of the information is really out of date and a lot of my attempted humor falls flat, especially if you are not reading the entire thing, beginning to end, like i wrote it.  So, all that will change, at some point.

     I don't think I'll release this to blogging sites or BOINC sites or the general public anytime soon.  Not until it is siginifigantly improved.  So, at this point, I guess I'm just talking to myself.  As usual.

Brian

What is XtremLab?

It's like, so xtreme! No, not really. It's more grids. You might want to see my previous ignorant rant on grids in the What is PrimeGrid? section, or you may find that bashing your head against the wall is less painful. Whatever you choose to do, I don't suggest you do either one. I suggest you go outside and run around like an idiot. Sure, you look dumb, but at least your outside.

What is PrimeGrid?

More grids people. Ok, what is with all the grids and protein? Huh? All this stuff started in space. SPACE people! Looking for ET! Of the fifteen projects I am or were a member of, only four still have something to do with space. Three were about computers. and three more are about the weather, a particle accelerator, and and computer graphics. Everything else is about protein, grids, or protein and grids. I can sort of understand the protein part, but what is a GRID and why do so many people really, really care about them?
Sorry, little rant for no reason. Anyway,

What is Rosetta@home?

Folding protein? Hey, look, the good people at Rosetta@home have a ton of info on their project. I won't do them the injustice of poorly explaining what they took so much time to do really well. Go to their site and at the top there is a link "What is Rosetta@home?" Click it and read.
Brian

What is LHC@home?

      LHC@Home is a project used to simulate the actions of particles in the newly opened Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator.  They simulate what the particles will do so they can fine tune the real thing, which begs the question, why spend all that time and money building it if you can simulate it?  Must be the difference between sending probes into space and men to the moon.  (Or not!)

     I bet you're wondering, what's a hadron, why is it large, and why do they collide them?  A hadron is a

What is The Lattice Project?

More grid type stuff? I don't know. It is in alpha testing, but the are taking members, so you can join. Oh, their web site has this to say, "A community of scientists at the University of Maryland are working to integrate and deploy computing resources, Grid middleware, specialized scientific application software and semantic web services in a comprehensive Grid system for scientific analysis. We call this effort the Lattice Project." So, grids. I like the 3X3 grid myself. You can play tic-tac-toe on it.
Brian

What is Orbit@home?

     Orbit@Home may just be the most important BOINC project there is, or, it will be, if they can ever get going.  Orbit@Home tracks asteroids.  Asteroids that might hit the Earth.  Asteroids that might hit the Earth, killing everyone.  Yeah, that's important. See, selfishly, I'd like to live.  However, I'd like to live in this world, or maybe a slightly better version of it.  I wouldn't like to live in a deteriorating, nightmarish, post apocalyptic, hell-scape caused by a Texas sized rock smashing into the planet.  That would suck.

     Of course, my living depends on this project getting out of the beta testing phase.  They seem to be very close, and I understand that building a BOINC project from scratch is difficult, but, I'm selfish, and I want to live, and I need

What is Predictor@home?

It is yet another BOINC project. If you read the other three What is X? pages, you know my apathy. If not, please refer to What is climateprediction.net? There you will find the reason for my lack of explanation of what Predictor@home? is. Anyway,

What is BURP?

YABP.* Most likely the second least scientific of the six projects that I am a part of now. They are trying to start some kind of online graphics rendering thing. Read about it on their main BURP page. Ok, so it is not science,

What is ClimatePrediction.net?

      ClimatePrediction.net is a BOINC project trying to predict climate change to the year 2080.  They also test the effectiveness of climate prediction models so that they can better predict future climate change.  Good idea.  I for one would like to know exactly how long until we all die.  Or, I suppose,

What is Einstein@Home?

     Very basically, Einstein@Home is looking for pulsars using data from the LIGO gravitational wave detector and, I think, sometimes, radio data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.  The Arecibo Observatory is a giant freaking radio telescope (think satellite dish carved into a mountain valley,) a gravitational wave detector is two long buildings, exactly the same length, with mirrors at both ends that a laser bounces between, and a pulsar is a

What is SETI@home/AstroPulse Beta?

     SETI@home/AstroPulse Beta is the testing project for SETI@Home.  This is where they work the bugs out of new applications they will run on SETI@Home.  Now, how do you tell if a program designed to find alien radio signals is working correctly?  No, really, how do you know when it's working correctly?  Does it find aliens?   

What is SETI@home

     As I update old information that was on the old TEAM: Brian web site, I will leave the old page intact, below the new information, if only for historical value.  The rich and vast history of TEAM: Brian, which, surely, be highly valued by future historians.  (Right...anyway...)

      SETI@Home is the original BOINC project.  It is the original distributed computing project.  And, all at the same time, the one project that

How to join TEAM: Brian

So, you want to know how to join TEAM: Brian. Why? Anyway, here is how it works. There are currently multiple TEAM: Brians. One for each project that I am in. Pick a project that you want to join or that you are already a member of. Got one? Good. Find it in the list below and click something.

Why join a team?

Why join a team? I can't see a good reason. Some people do it because they are all in the same office or lab or whatever. Some people seem to take it way too seriously. Like they really care about team stats and encourage members to do something and get all worked up about new work or high stats and stuff like that. Please. This is supposed to be like a Ron Popeil oven, just set it and forget it. In other words,

What is BOINC?

Software created at Berkeley that allows you to run multiple @Home type projects on one computer. It allows you to join multiple projects, allows the projects to easily update software and share in a larger base of members. Their site is here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/
Brian

What is TEAM: Brian?

Please note: I wrote this when I first started this site. I edited it once, to try to keep up with the ever increasing number of projects that I join, but, well, I'm just too lazy and just don't care enough to try again. So, when you are reading this, please keep in mind that I now list 15+ projects on the site and I have a TEAM: Brian for all of them.

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What is TEAM: Brian? Well, if you have never heard to SETI@Home or any of the other @Home projects, this will take a bit of explaining.

Rebirth

     Years ago, my car was in the shop for an extended period of time, and I, being unable to go very far, was bored.  In my boredom, I created a BOINC team, TEAM: Brian, for each project I was a member of and a web site for those teams.  I expected no one to join and offer nothing to team mates.  I was bored and killing time.  I was not looking for a long term commitment.  Over 4 years, I have updated the maybe 9 times. 

     Now, I am turning that site into a blog.  Why?  Well, it makes it easier to update.  Also, the resource that the old page is on may die soon.  In any case, I am still not looking for a long term commitment to organizing and managing a collection of BOINC teams.  I still offer nothing to team metes but apathy and a promise not to bug them with team related anything, or anything else for that matter. 

     For now, I will be transfering the old site over as is.  Improvements may come later.  Don't hold your breath.  I updated the last one maybe twice a year and the updates were small at best.  This blog will be more frequently updated, but that's not saying much.  I suppose I can also use it as my own, personal blog as well, however, I don't see too many of those posts in my future either.  I can think of one right now, and that's about it.

     So, hello world, again.

Brian