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SETI@Home to Crunch More Data

Posted by michael on from the little-furry-animals-with-big-sharp-teeth dept.

BigDave writes: "In this article on Wired, it describes how SETI is gradually running out of data, as the current data acquisition system cannot keep up with the rate of processing (since they now have 3 million users processing data). They have acquired a new high-speed digital data recorder which is Linux-powered, and was donated by Hewlett-Packard."

2 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is it not a waste? by xmath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yea, but the idea of searching for ET is more appealing to people than cracking RC5 keys of solving the protein folding problem.

    It's just the idea that matter, searching for little green men is something people can imagine, while cryptographic keys or proteins is not "close" enough to the people, if you know what I mean..

    - xmath

  2. The roots... by Aldreis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of the early supporters of SETI@Home ( myself included ) joined it mostly as a political statement.

    "You are going to cut our funds?? Big deal. We'll find another way.
    Guess what? Now we have the biggest computer power in the world, all by volunteers!"

    It was one of the first glimpses of the Internet as a tool for "light civil disobedience", followed (?) by PGP, MP3, etc...