[Microns]

From the New Scientist website -

"Martin Rees, England's Astronomer Royal, says the search for alien life is now more urgent than any other task in astronomy."


Not discounting the importance of other projects. Just advocating for my personal favorite.

Those other red and orange teams are uncomfortably close...
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993924

BTW - Martin Rees is a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Cambridge

[Shaktai]

I just wish they would get Astropulse and SETI II up and going. I felt a long time ago, that the current SETI@Home science was too limited in its range, to be effective, that was why I moved on to other projects. However, if they ever get it off the ground, Astropulse and SETI II, provides a wider spectrum and expansive scientific basis, that is more likely to produce useful results.

[OneMacGuy]

Originally posted by Shaktai:
I just wish they would get Astropulse and SETI II up and going. I felt a long time ago, that the current SETI@Home science was too limited in its range, to be effective, that was why I moved on to other projects. However, if they ever get it off the ground, Astropulse and SETI II, provides a wider spectrum and expansive scientific basis, that is more likely to produce useful results.

I ran SETI for years, only because it was the only screen saver that would run on my older Macs under MacOS 8.6 and up. It is, IMHO, an absolute waste of money and resources to look for aliens.

Let's use our computing cycles for something productive, like cancer research and disease fighting, real world benefits that any of us or our loved ones may need. We don't have to guess if there is cancer or smallpox, we know we are working for a cure for real problems, not just a theory!

[jarling]

To understand the value of a project, in my mind, you have to multiply the importance of the discovery by its probability of occuring (kind of like how risk is measured). While there is only a miniscule chance of finding intelligent alien life, the social, scientific, political etc...implications would be eunormous. Who knows, they might even have a cure for cancer.

Now, for a project with low probabilities and little importance, check out RC-5 (OK, low blow, I apologize. But I think a project that can crunch its way through a New York Times crossword puzzle has more value )

[Microns]

Originally posted by OneMacGuy:
I ran SETI for years, only because it was the only screen saver that would run on my older Macs under MacOS 8.6 and up. It is, IMHO, an absolute waste of money and resources to look for aliens.

Let's use our computing cycles for something productive, like cancer research and disease fighting, real world benefits that any of us or our loved ones may need. We don't have to guess if there is cancer or smallpox, we know we are working for a cure for real problems, not just a theory!

*Large sigh, rises to bait*

Please don't take my post as a criticism of projects other than S@H.

As I said in my first post: "Not discounting the importance of other projects. Just advocating for my personal favorite."

It is, of course, your prerogative to use your idle cpu cycles where ever you choose.

[OneMacGuy]

Originally posted by Microns:
*Large sigh, rises to bait*

Please don't take my post as a criticism of projects other than S@H.

As I said in my first post: "Not discounting the importance of other projects. Just advocating for my personal favorite."

It is, of course, your prerogative to use your idle cpu cycles where ever you choose.

Hey, I really did not mean that the way that it came off. I never could stand the "holier than thou" types who always knew what was best for everyone else.

I guess with several friends whose kids are in Afghanistan or Iraq, I got a little sensitized to the need to do smallpox vaccine research. It really soured me on the whole SETI thing cause we have real problems, today, here, now that we need to deal with, not some theoretical alien race that maybe used radio communications? When you look at SETI and see they have 4.5 Million users (who knows how are active?), what could we do with that kind of horsepower to really fix some immediate problems.

I vote for a DC that would calculate how to determine who the next terrorist will be that actually has access to WMD. Yea, I know, not feasible, but maybe something else that is really important to someone who has to deal with a disease today.

Ask a cancer victim what they would like to see research resources used for.

[jarling]

My response was partially tongue in cheek. I dont really think anything is going to come of SETI and I dont really like how they have an intentionally inefficient program so that there will be enough work for everyone to do.

I was the 5th person to register on the folding@home MacNN team because I was itching to put my computer to a better use. Also, to those RC-5 people I might have offended, I think there is some value in having a strong mac presence in that area because it so wonderfully utilizes the mac architecture.

Personally, I wish climateprediction.net would create an OS X version of their software because I see that as being one of the largest issues in the upcoming century. Again, its personal choice, some may not care at all and thats why its nice to have many DC options.

[SciFrog]

SETI II should be Altivec aware, amen!