Milkyway@home

     So, what are these guys trying to do?  Well, according to their web site, they are "creating a highly accurate three dimensional model of the Milky Way galaxy.1"  So, they want a picture of the galaxy that we live in and they are using observations from The Sloan Digital Sky Survey and your computer cycles to figure out what the galaxy looks like.  Ok, that's cool and all, but I've got a different idea. 

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:

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

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 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 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