Pirates@Home

From BOINC
Pirates@Home
Piratelogo.gif
InstitutionSpy Hill Research (under contract to LIGO)
Statusinactive (permanent test project)
Official Launch02-06-2004
PlatformsWindows, Mac OS X, Linux
Web Sitehttp://pirates.spy-hill.net/

Pirates@Home was originally set up as a prototype for Einstein@Home. The name was chosen to make it clear that it was only a test project, not the beginning of Einstein@Home. The original Pirates@Home was shut down in June 2005 after Einstein@Home was underway. The project reappeared in January 2006 on a different server to act as a test stand for another LIGO-related project, called Interactions in Understanding the Universe (I2U2).

The additions made to BOINC for I2U2 were primarily in the social interaction software, not the distributed computation software. The forums were modified to add privacy, to add attachments to postings, to give users limited but rechargable ratings points, and to add keyword classification of postings. An extension for MediaWiki was also developed which allows a wiki to be attached seamlessly to a BOINC project, using the user database of the BOINC project instead of a separate user database for the wiki. (See Extension:BOINC Authentication for details, and see the glossary on the Pirates@Home site for an example.)

The project has also been used to try out modifications to BOINC that have nothing to do with I2U2, many of which are listed in the project wiki. There are also pages in the wiki classified as BOINC Hacks which show project administrators and application developers how they can have more refined control over their projects. For example, there is a very complete list of all the ways to implement scheduler restrictions.