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| SETI@Home
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Well, this is just the thing I needed to find on the internet: something to absorb my millions of lost cycles!
All this time, I've been wasting electricity with my machines connected to the internet, burning millions of idle
processing cycles for nothing! It's really a shame there isn't a single way to share out (safely) your computer's
idle time to various agencies you select as worthy. I know there are hundreds out there who would like to take advantage
of the infinite resources of the computing public, but not so many have the resources or focus as SETI.
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For more info or to download the client, go to SETI@Home.
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What do I think about Extra-Terrestrials?
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They need a bath, first off. All the ones I've met in Austin seem a little on the uptight side--or maybe I'm confusing
them with computer professionals. It's hard to say.
To be honest, I don't know if there is anyone out there or not. I think it is irresponsible for us to believe one way or the
other without first investigating. The lack of a positive contact does not imply nobody is out there, of course, so perhaps our
methods are not yet advanced enough to detect other life forms. All of this also presumes that the life forms we seek are
advanced enough to emit signals in a means we attempt to detect. Taken as a whole, our chances are incredibly small that we
will find anything significant while we remain on Earth. Of course, this is only my opinion. My opinion is that our best
chances of contact will be during expeditions. Unfortunately, that is an unpopular term--'manned space expeditions'--so for
the forseeable future, we can only hope that luck prevails and our nearest neighbors are only a few hundred light years away.
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So if we don't expect to find them, why bother?
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Because it's the right thing to do. If you don't look, you cannot find. All too often, as humans we make up our minds without
the slightest tremble of doubt, based upon what? Instincts. Gut feelings. Heritage. Conventional wisdom. Sorry, these are
fine for some people, but I find it difficult to swallow knowing as little as we do about even our own solar system. Even as
little as we know about our own planet. While we do tackle the tough questions that are of importance locally because we can
attempt to answer them more readily in our lifetimes, it will take generations of scientists, decades or centuries of effort
and comparable donations in terms of time and computing resources from the public to help make a dent in detection of other life
forms. Until we can do more, this is the most direct approach. I choose to run the SETI@Home client on all my home and work
machines because I can. It's either that, or burn our fossil fuels and nuclear energy so our Windows 98 machines can
churn out Flying Toasters at mach 7 when not fiddling with Solitaire. You be the judge.
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