SETI....Worthless rubbish OR Worth Trying Anyway

I started running Seti@Home shortly after it came out (97 or 98 I think?) on a 486DX (Imagine how slow that was ;-))

Went back to it a couple of times but stopped when they ported to the BOINC platform as that was more obtrusive than a simple scr app.

A number of years ago I read an interview with some scientists involved in the project who believed it was a worthwhile project, but they did point out that it was unlikely that any advanced civilisation would be visible in the radio frequency range for long; they believed that once you progressed beyond a certain point that communications would gradually change to a more focused tight signal technology, e.g. what is happening here now with satellite communications. So eventually the spillout of radio signals would decrease.

That said, I've downloaded it again and will give it a whack on the desktop machine. Maybe we'll get lucky!

Trev

Trevor, Consider my team when you get going.

Keanan, If i change my sig to something non irish, will you vote yes?
(gentle vote rigging)

The vote is not a truely impartial vote anyway. I have intentionally worded it that way. If you were voting in your local elections and the voting card had a big Fianna Fail sticker on the bottom of it, would'nt there be a massive out cry of vote rigging.

I think my avatar and signiture are a clear indication of what way i voted.
also i could have been much more politically correct in the words that are displayed when you make your decision.

I think most people well understand this and the poll is just a rough guide as to people's thinking.
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Seti@home is a very simple thing that i can do in my own home to help in the search for life elsewhere in the universe.

Went back to it a couple of times but stopped when they ported to the BOINC platform as that was more obtrusive than a simple scr app.

Its a little more involved now but you should have no problems getting it going on windows. I guess the thing to remember is that bionc isnt seti@home, once you have boinc set up then you can join seti@home or one of any number of other projects.

I did a little bit of work on the solaris x86 version, the cool thing about it is how easy (relativly!) it is to get your own processing dished out to clients to process which is why you have so many projects using it. Now if more of those projects supported Solaris SPARC they would get a lot more work units from me

Seti is searching the radio frequencies which assumes that another civilisation is broadcasting random signals similar to us. OSETI is searching for optical signals and assumes that an itelligent civilisation is actively trying to communicate with others. I personally think that OSETI is a very long shot given our own politcal and financial constraints. However at the end of the day, regardless of the results, it is better to be able to say that we tried.
I would be happy with signs of non intelligent life, either microbes in the Martian sub surface or in the seas of Europa or Enceladus. Evidence of life in these harse environments would provide fairly compeling proof that nature abhors a vacuum.

Kieran

My thoughts exactly, if life can exist in 3 separate and isolated places in 1 solar system, then it bodes well for the rest of the galaxy.

We will see if this works.

{edit}Did'nt work.