News archive

April 1, 2008
Welcome to the Monkey House
The Primates@Home Project is testing the reaction of primates to a disturbance in their accustomed environment.

February 9, 2008
Pirates@Home Mechanical Turk
The Pirates@Home Mechanical Turk will reward you for solving reCAPTCHA tasks with pirate silver in the form of "pieces of eight"
More information about "Pirates@Home Mechanical Turk"...

January 4, 2008
Mechanical Turk Credit
This weekend credit for tasks performed on the Mechanical Turk will be separated from BOINC credit.
More information about "Mechanical Turk Credit"...

October 25, 2007 11:35 UTC
Pirates@Home Mechanical Turk
The Pirates@Home mechanical turk will give you BOINC credit for solving reCAPCHA tasks.
More information about "Pirates@Home Mechanical Turk"...

September 19, 2007
Talk Like a Pirate Day
Pirates@Home wants to remind everyone that today is International Talk Like a Pirate day. Avast, maties, and have a good time with it.

July 16, 2007 14:35 UTC
E-mail is working again
Outbound e-mail from the Pirates@Home server was backed up from 11 July (last Wedensday) until 15 July (Sunday), but should now be working normally.
More information about "E-mail is working again"...

June 8, 2007 13:47 UTC
Network outage
Pirates@Home was unavailable last night for about 6 hours due to network problems.
More information about "Network outage"...

January 17, 2007 13:49 UTC
A Pirates' Glossary
Pirates@Home now introduces a new glossary, using the same software used to run the Wikipedia
More information about "A Pirates' Glossary"...

January 6, 2007 13:49 UTC
Server crash
The Pirates@Home server crashed around 10:30PM EST on Jan 5th, and was brought up just before 9AM the next day. The cause of the crash is unknown.

December 15, 2006 17:22 UTC
Pirates@Home upgraded to BOINC 5.7.5
The Pirates@Home server software, including web pages, has been updated to BOINC version 5.7.5
More information about "Pirates@Home upgraded to BOINC 5.7.5"...

December 9, 2006 02:27 UTC
Team rankings
Pirates@Home team rankings now have two new categories, total credit per member and average credit per member.
More information about "Team rankings"...

December 6, 2006 14:16 UTC
BOINC on-line help
BOINC now has an on-line help system, which allows you to talk with a knowlegeable BOINC volunteer using Skype (text chat is also available)
More information about "BOINC on-line help"...

September 19, 2006 01:54 UTC
It's talk like a pirate day!
Avast, maties. A hearty international talk like a pirate day to the crew and their kin.
More information about "It's talk like a pirate day!"...

August 1, 2006 16:11 UTC
New forum features
Pirates@Home has some new forum features which need testing. Please try them out.
More information about "New forum features"...

July 24, 2006 22:09 UTC
BOINC survey
Please help improve BOINC by filling out the on-line BOINC survey.
More information about "BOINC survey"...

May 31, 2006 20:32 UTC
Einstein@Home is back up
Einstein@Home is back up. Further news there
More information about "Einstein@Home is back up"...

May 29, 2006 16:44 UTC
Einstein@Home is down
Einstein@Home is down due to an air conditioning failure and subsequent server crash.
More information about "Einstein@Home is down"...

May 22, 2006 14:47 UTC
By invitation only
Pirates@Home is testing a mechanism for restricting new account creation via 'invitation codes'. We want to verify that a client will attach using an e-mail/password, and that creating an account via the client is disabled.
More information about "By invitation only"...

April 7, 2006 01:24 UTC
Spring forward
The Pirates@Home web site and server software has been upgraded to BOINC 5.3.30. There may be some small problems as we adjust to some of the changes.
More information about "Spring forward"...

February 23, 2006 14:39 UTC
Trim those quotes
We are now testing some ways to encourage participants in the forums to trim quoted text when replying to a post.
More information about "Trim those quotes"...

February 2, 2006
Loose lips sink ships
As a part of our testing of modifications to the discussion forums, some of the forums have been closed to outsiders. You must be a member of the Pirates crew to read or to post to those discussions.
More information about "Loose lips sink ships"...

January 18, 2006
Network (DNS?) problems
There was a problem with our network connection today, apparently due to DNS issues. It seems to have been resolved.

January 17, 2006
Account creation enabled
Account creation has now been enabled, but with a twist. You now have to provide a valid invitation code. These will be distributed by various channels in the next few days.

January 15, 2006
Pirates@Home offline briefly
The Pirates@Home site was off-line for about 5 hours last night due to a brief power failure caused by high winds in the area. A corrupt database table which disabled the forums has been repaired. Please report further problems in the forums.

January 6, 2006
Pirates@Home upgraded to BOINC 5.2.15
The Pirates@Home site has been upgraded to use BOINC version 5.2.15. A lot of small things are not working yet, but we're working through fixing them as we find them.
More information about "Pirates@Home upgraded to BOINC 5.2.15"...

January 5, 2006
Pirates@Home has a new mission
The Pirates@Home project has returned, at least for a while, with a new mission. Pirates@Home will be used to test out the idea of using the BOINC discussion forum code for a separate project called Interactions in Understanding the Universe. See the announcements forum for more details.
More information about "Pirates@Home has a new mission"...

June 23, 2005
Pirates@Home shuts down tomorrow
The Pirates@Home project and web site will shut down sometime in the late morning (EST) on Friday, June 24th, 2005.
More information about "Pirates@Home shuts down tomorrow"...

June 22, 2005
Database corruption (again) repaired
The project database became corrupted again last night when a disk partition filled up. It was repaired in place this morning.

June 20, 2005
Database corruption repaired
The project database apparantly became corrupted sometime on Sunday. It was repaired in place on Monday morning.

June 16, 2005
Treachary amongst us?
Has a way been found to trick BOINC into giving out more credit, or does the Cap'n just run a loose ship? Find out here:
More information about "Treachary amongst us?"...

June 14, 2005
Pirates@Home hacked!
The Pirates@Home server was hacked on Sunday morning, June 12th. The intrusion was detected quickly and the machine was blocked from the network. Getting back up required a full system inspection and re-install, and we used the opportunity to perform an already planned system upgrade. Details will be posted to the forums when the database server is back on-line.
More information about "Pirates@Home hacked!"...

May 25, 2005
Testing latest BOINC build software
We are releasing new versions of the Pirates applications to test the latest version of the BOINC software.

May 21, 2005
Server problems Friday night
Our server developed problems on Friday night, May 20th. Service was restored about 24 hrs later.
More information about "Server problems Friday night"...

April 28, 2005
More News testing...
Today we are doing some more testing of the front page/RSS news system.
More information about "More News testing..."...

6 April 2005
Profile picture upload is working
The past problems with uploading a picture for your profile have been solved (a while ago now). You should be able to upload a profile picture or avatar for the forums with no problems.

31 March 2005
Testing, testing...
We are testing some news management software...

24 March 2005
Power Failure
The Pirates@Home server went down around 2:00AM EST this morning due to a loss of power on the Vassar campus caused by bad weather. The server should be restored by this evening.

28 February 2005
Pirates@Home upgraded to BOINC 4.66
The Pirates@Home web site has been upgraded to BOINC version 4.66. Some problems have already been found, but reports are welcomed.
More information about "Pirates@Home upgraded to BOINC 4.66"...

17 January 2005
Test MacOS X installer
A prototype of an installation script for MacOS X is now available from the 'Download BOINC core client' page, and feedback and suggestions are welcomed.
More information about "Test MacOS X installer"...

31 December 2004
Upgraded to BOINC 4.57
The Pirates@Home web site has been upgraded to BOINC version 4.57, and work is being given out for scroll 4.60 compiled with BOINC 4.57. Happy New Year to all BOINC users.

21 November 2004
Some work is being let out, just to test screensaver improvements.

10 November 2004
Image upload now working
Image upload is now working for profiles and forum avatars.

9 November 2004
Forums fixed
The problem with the forums has been found and fixed.

7 November 2004
After the upgrade posting to the forums seems to be broken. We're looking into the problem...

6 November 2004
The project web site has been upgraded to BOINC version 4.54. Let us know (via the forums) if you see anything wrong.

31 October 2004
Welcome KECK pirates
Welcome to new members of the Pirates crew from the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium

19 September 2004
Arrr! Greetings to the crew on this fine Talk Like a Pirate Day. We are continuing to let out a few short workunits to test scheduling and graphics.

16 September 2004
Arrr! We just want to make sure all the crew know that September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day. The gravity wave hunters in Hannover will probably want to talk like a Pirate auf Deutsch.

12 September 2004
We 'found our keys', and now the scheduler is up and unrestricted. We are letting out some very small test workunits, but only a few at a time to see how they do. BOINC version 4 is now the required client.

9 September 2004
The download problem has been fixed. It was just a missing directory, not a problem with signatures. We are continuing to 'tweak' and try out the whole cycle of work creation and validation with BOINC 4.

8 September 2004
New account creation has been enabled. We are mostly converted over to BOINC 4 but there are still a few problems. In particular downloading of executables (BOINC itself or applications) is not working correctly, probably due to bad file signatures. We will post a note when it's fixed.

7 September 2004
Discussion Forums
The discussion forums are now working, both the Helpdesk (Questions and Problems) and the Message Boards.
More information about "Discussion Forums"...

2 September 2004
New account creation is disabled while we work on converting over from BOINC version 3 to version 4. If you want to join the project please come back later.

29 August 2004
We will be updating to BOINC version 4 sometime in the next week or two, after we see that SETI@Home and Predictor@Home have succeeded in doing so. ClimatePrediction.net has just started using BOINC and they are already using version 4. You should therefore consider upgrading your version of BOINC over the next few weeks, but you should also consult the web sites for the other projects in which you participate for better news about their plans. (You have to upgrade the core client manually, it is not done automatically).
We will continue to give out work mainly to just a few selected sites as we test our code, but we will occasionally give out work for everybody in the project when that aids our testing. Thank you, as always, for letting us use your computers.

5 August 2004
Work is only being given out to selected sites as we test our code with our collaborators. Please feel free to look around and attach to the project, but please don't expect work for a while as we go through internal testing.

29 July 2004
We now have a working screensaver that does some simple graphics, to show that we think we know what we are doing. :-)

21 July 2004
Arrgh! Our small test server has been overloaded by all the new users, so we are throttling back on work. We really were not ready for users, we are just testing our project setup. We hope you'll come back later when we are ready for you.

20 July 2004
Welcome to all our recent new users. We don't have much work for you yet. We are trying to get graphics to appear in the screen saver, not just the 'Show Graphics' pulldown, but it's not happening yet. Also, credit may or may not be given, so please don't worry about that yet. But we do appreciate you joining the project. Please stay tuned...

9 July 2004
We now have apps for Windows with simple screensaver graphics. Don't be surprised if your screen turns yellow for a bit.

5 July 2004
Credit is now being given for some simple jobs. Please keep in mind that since this is a test project not all jobs will be given credit, and credit might be reset from time to time.

2 July 2004
We now have apps to run for Windows, but there are no graphics yet.

24 June 2004
Hello again, now we can do file input as well as output.

16 June 2004
Hello World! Today we had our first successful app run on another host.

9 June 2004
We have succeeded in creating a single work unit. Wow.

8 June 2004
Account login/logout on the web site now working.

7 June 2004
Primitive news system working (as you can see).

6 June 2004
Accounts can now be created. Please read the Rules and Policies page first.

2 June 2004
Project created.

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