SETI Goes to Arecibo To Stat *Candidates*

Neuropol writes "In the most rescent Seti@home news letter. Seti recieved (only!) 24 hours of telescope time at Arecibo to investigate interesting points in the sky where signals have not only shown up once but several times in data crunches in the last 4 years. The Planetary Society web site has an excellent summary of the reobservations. The Seti web site lists the reobservation targets and the 7,000 users whose computations directly contributed to finding them."

Comments

Eh?

[The Bungi]

rescent

What you say?

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody set up you the Troll.

Re:Eh?

[more fool you]

recieved
rescent
reobservation

Thank god for the "Editor" union...

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

rescented. It stunk so much they had to pour perfume on it twice.

24 hours?

[Exiler]

they sound like geeks, I wonder how much $FAVORITE_CAFFINE_PRODUCT they used over that time.

Re:24 hours?

[tupshin]

Ummmm...read the article. Three days, eight hours each. They sound very non-geeky ;-)

-Tupshin

Re:24 hours?

[Exiler]

Yea, I read that right after I posted. At least I'm normal for a slashdotter. ;P

Re:24 hours?

[IvyMike]

I hope an actual radio astronomer comes and clears things up, but...I suspect that the image given in "Contact" of radio astronomers sitting near the equipment, monitoring it for a signal and guiding the search moment to moment is probably quite misleading.

Instead, I bet they write something like a perl script that executes a well-researched plan on a preset schedule. In theory, the 24 hours of data collection could have been a very non-eventful period, hardly requiring any caffeine at all.

Of course, once the results all come in, that's probably when diet coke and vivarin time really starts.

Re:24 hours?

[Dr. Photo]

Ummmm...read the article. Three days, eight hours each. They sound very non-geeky ;-)

That's terrible!

Don't these people realize they're looking for signals from the stars, and the stars only come out at night?!

And even if they do find something, anything an alien civilization happens to broadcast during daylight hours is likely to be nothing more than soap operas, talk shows and infomercials.

I insist that the scientists wait until prime-time, and equip the telescope with a cable descrambler, to catch all the good alien shows.

Re:24 hours?

[edgrale]

I insist that the scientists wait until prime-time, and equip the telescope with a cable descrambler, to catch all the good alien shows.

Nothing like Good Alien Pron. I hope they're green =)

Re:24 hours?

[sholden]

Well even if they wanted to it's hard to point a telescope (whether it is radio or not) at something which is currently on the other side of the Earth.

Re:24 hours?

[Ashran]

Actually there are also stars aviable for search during day time but they are not visible for the normal eye as the sun outshines them.
But a RADIO Telescope can still look at them.

Re:24 hours?

[sholden]

Day and night time has nothing to do with stars being on the wrong side of the Earth.

A radio telescope can't see though a planet sized lump of rock.

Re:24 hours?

[grahamlee]

In the words of the time honoured Spectrum games, Congraturation! You sucsess!

You're exactly right. The eStar project is a robotic telescope network, as well as having various databases of previous observations. The telescopes and the databases can be queried in the same way, with the databases returning rows and the telescopes zooming off to look at the object in question. All of this is controlled in Perl.

This takes some of the glamour out of astronomy in favour of more rapid results. I still remember the images of Hubble sat at the lower end of a very very big telescope, gripping a notebook in one hand and a pipe between his teeth as he readied himself for a night-long observing session. Still, if Larry Wall can find us some aliens then more power to him, I say.

Re:24 hours?

[Aliencow]

But then they'll get sued by some kind of Super alien DMCA... I wonder if their encryption is like DVD, crackable with a few lines of perl... Actually maybe they code in english, and talk in perl...they're aliens and probably sound like it anyways..

Re:24 hours?

[irving47]

I hope you're not suggesting they hack their cards or illegally unencrypt signals just because "they happen to be falling into our backyard anyway."
I don't think I want us to have to deal with an alien DMCA lawsuit with their version of the MPAA. Maybe it's just me.

Re:24 hours?

[Dimensio]

Except that in the time that it takes for the signals to travel to earth, the copyright time might have expired (except for relatively close star systems).

Say, DirecTV and other companies should be lobbying Congress for longer extensions to copyright holdings, lest some alien civilization start freeloading off of them in 200 years!

Re:24 hours?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they are looking at Radio signals not light, which is not affected by the Sun rising.

However, if they are pointing at a particular region of space, it does rise and set just like the Sun, and that will actually determine the time of day when those signals are accessible.

Its just not night/day dependent.

This sucks

[CptChipJew]

Regardless of how you feel about Seti@Home's mission, whether or not it's worthwhile, I think 24 hours is quite a bit short.

Re:This sucks

[Drakin]

24 hours is a bit short, yes. But I beleive getting time on the big radio telescopes is a difficult feat to start with.

At least they were able to reschedual the 2nd and 3rd 8 hour periods, seeing solar flares washd out the original dates.

Re:This sucks

[TMB]

3 days where you observe 1/3-1/2 the day is a very typical length of time for an observing run.

[TMB]

Aw man

[ericdano]

My name is not on the list. Damn. Oh well, I hope we find something regardless.

Re:Aw man

[pe1rxq]

Me neither....
Lets just say that with us checking the rest we made it possible for these lucky guys to find a real hit :)

Jeroen

Re:Aw man

[pla]

My name is not on the list. Damn. Oh well, I hope we find something regardless.

Well, as someone who *did* make it to the list...

I feel exactly the same as you do.

I don't care about some top-6000 candidates list (although I will admit, I did originally hope to make it to the top 1000 overall... But failed, sigh. Just couldn't compete with the likes of SGI and Pixar <G>).

I care that maybe, just maybe, all that otherwise-wasted CPU power went toward helping us find the first real proof of intelligent life off-planet.

Re:Aw man

[mjmalone]

From what I understand there is a very limited amount of time available for use on telescopes globally. The fact that the SETI team got 3 days, 8 hours each day, on a large radio telescope like this shows that their work is being recognized as a legitimate project that could very well end in some new discoveries.

Re:Aw man

[eclectic4]

My name's not on the list either. Oh well. I too hope we find something regardless.

Why in the WORLD did you get 4 karma for being funny? These moderators are smoking crack sometimes, I swear it.

Re:Aw man

[Anonymous Coward]

I care that maybe, just maybe, all that otherwise-wasted CPU power went toward helping us find the first real proof of intelligent life off-planet.

But first we must find intelligent life here on Earth, my friend! :)

Re:Aw man

[Stonan]

Mine's not on the list either but I'm pretty sure I'll be on the 'next' list. The last 10 packets I've done are all from 1999-2000. Looks like I'm doing a bunch of 2nd & 3rd decodes...

Re:Aw man

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine is. :)

Although it says I found the same thing twice?!?!?

Re:Aw man

[waveclaw]

My name is not on the list. Damn

Well, just make sure its on this list (Petition to Call for the Support of Future Space Exploration.) The Planetary Society does more than just SETI, you know.

Re:Aw man

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the wasted computer time? I just put my computer to sleep when I'm not using it and it only sucks 3W instead of ~50W of coal power.

Why waste this world looking for aliens.

father figure

[Debian Troll Returns]

let's just hope that if they ever find anything using SETI that it's not fucking jodie foster's dad.

Re:father figure

[Kurt Russell]

I hope they something that looks like this.

Re:father figure

[Debian Troll Returns]

speaking of contact, did anyone else notice that in the scene where jodie foster is sitting on the bonnet of her car with her laptop that she's actually updating her apt.sources to include the SETI@home client? thank you.

Re:father figure

[drdink]

Impressive, seeing the movie came out in 1997 and Seti@Home was released May 17, 1999. I'm sure Jodie knew that Debian would have that package 2+ years later, though...

Re:father figure

[Alan Partridge]

I hope it's not fucking ANYONE, it might get annoyed at the disturbance.

Re:father figure

[Anonymous Coward]

you sir, are an idiot.

Re:father figure

[Debian Troll]

I'm sure Jodie knew that Debian would have that package 2+ years later, though...

Jodie, unfortunately, was all too aware of the Debian release cycle.

Re:father figure

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking into consideration that the scene you mentioned takes place in the US, she'd be sitting on the hood of her car. Get over it, England is a small country of small people with small penises that nobody really cares about. Not even other Europeans. Maybe if you'd get off your asses and actually contribute something... like, oh, say, the ESA?

It only figures that when England finally decides to contribute anything significant to the ESA, they name it Beagle. Beagles are the worst kind of dogs, BTW.

Re:father figure

[Debian Troll Returns]

i'm in australia you fucking tool.

sydney, australia. the home of apt-get.

thank you.

Re:father figure

[xdroop]

let's just hope that if they ever find anything using SETI that it's not fucking jodie foster's dad.

I think we all hope that what ever it is, it has better things to do than that.

Re:father figure

[Anonymous Coward]

that wasn't funny. please don't post anymore.

thank you.

Re:father figure

[FroMan]

Hmm, I'd assume Jodie Foster's dad is either here on earth or here in earth. Either way. I'd say that seti is looking for life in the wrong place if its fscking Jodie Foster's dad.

Well, that's just my two cents.

Re:father figure

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore that other AC. That was very funny.

Re:father figure

[Anonymous Coward]

But what if they look like this instead?

Re:father figure

[Thing 1]

Anybody else lose their "suspension of disbelief" when Jodie Foster pronounced "primer" as "primmer" -- twice?

I mean, attention to details...

Re:father figure

[Anonymous Coward]

A black hole! Avoid at all cost.

Re:father figure

[rhombic]

You are aware, of course, that in English the word primer is pronounced with a short i when the meaning is an introductory schoolbook, and with a long I otherwise (as in a surface coating or priming a pump).

So no, no loss of suspension of disbelief. Just a realization that Jodie knows English (unlike, of course, most slashdotters)

Re:father figure

[Thing 1]

Um, you just proved my point. She wasn't talking about an introductory schoolbook, she was talking about something that starts an equation (i.e., priming a pump).

Thanks though. See here for the truth.

i thought

[Madcapjack]

I thought that I had read a couple weeks ago that the SETI reinvestigations had turned up nothing. I think i read this on google news...

Re:i thought

[Troed]

this article?

Although the SETI@home team was ready to pounce on any possible extraterrestrial signal the minute it was detected, nothing resembling such a signal was detected in real time, during the observations. This, however, is no cause for discouragement: real-time analysis is very rough, and would only detect the strongest and most obvious extraterrestrial signals.

Re:i thought

[Wolfrider]

--Personally, I'd rather be sending astronauts into space and developing a permanent presence there (moonbases anyone? saturn exploration anyone? asteroid mining? ... Bueller?) rather than listening intently for some stupid signal that might never arrive.

Re:i thought

[el-spectre]

well, if it's a stupid signal, why bother... 'take me to your, er... duuhhhh'

Seriously though, it's not as though SETI is competing with space exploration in any serious way. Since it's been privatized (and even before, actually), the yearly budget for SETI is _much_ lower than the cost of launching the cheapest satellite. Interplanetary travel is orders of magnitude more expensive.

Re:i thought

[JonnyCalcutta]

I just assumed that since every Brit get's a free trip to either Moonbase Alpha or Gallifrey every year that it happened in the USA as well. I guess that's why they told us to keep it under our hats.

Re:i thought

[Eminence]

It is way cheaper to analyze radio data, especially in the way SETI@Home does it (using voluntary contributions of computing power and data being a side product of other observations) than to send even a single astronaut into low orbit. We should keep on sending people into space but projects like SETI@Home don't harm that effort any more than other astronomy research.

Re:i thought

[DjReagan]

Why does it have to be one or the other? Let one group of people send astronauts, and let another group listen for radio signals.

Re:i thought

[73939133]

Personally, I'd rather be sending astronauts into space and developing a permanent presence there (moonbases anyone? saturn exploration anyone? asteroid mining?

So would just about everybody else. But any permanent presence in space, let alone a self-sustaining independent presence, seems completely infeasible at this point. It will probably be another century or two until technology is up to that. Until then, we should focus on unmanned exploration.

Re:i thought

[banzai51]

So when the extra-terristrial version of Cortez comes around, you'd like to be the Inca?

Re:i thought

[Wolfrider]

> It will probably be another century or two until technology is up to that.

--No. It shouldn't *have* to be that way! We put a man on the moon within 10 years due to Kennedy's vision and boldness, we should be able to say+do the same for a Moon base.

--The US economy is stagnant because there are no "frontiers" anymore. We can *do* this, we just don't have the *will* or the *mandate* to do so.

--I can't take credit for this idea (saw it on /. a few months ago) but I truly believe the economy would start to SKYROCKET if something like the following happened:

o Prez declares that all space-based development efforts will be tax-free for the next 20 years.

o R+D goes into overdrive developing tech that can only be done in space.

o Permanent moon base inside of 15 years, with an inexpensive and reliable way opened up for colonization. Volunteers? Hell *I'd* go - and so would most of the people reading this forum, I bet. "First post" from the Moon!!

--Seriously, wouldn't you like to help found a new nation on the Moon? Personally, I would love to help terraform it. I wanna see some of these science-fiction stories I've been reading all my life come into existence before I die!!

Re:i thought

[jandrese]

15 years? I see you havn't talked about this idea in a crowd of real people. No industry is going to rush to a space based production system for a measly 15 year tax break. By the time they're finally getting stuff in orbit it'd be taxed again and you wouldn't even get back your ruinous launch costs, not to mention the enormous amount of R&D money, plus your competitors would no doubt invent better and cheaper ways to do whatever you're doing while you spend all of your time and effort trying to figure out how to do it in space.

Re:i thought

[juhaz]

What has that to do with SETI-projects, OR physical exploration of solar system? Right. Nothing. Nor does it have anything to do with anything except your overactive imagination.

Even if one would imagine something based on that encounter, example would be quite the opposite. If indians would've had an "search for cross-atlantic intelligence" project running, they'd known in advance that Cortez was a human, not god, and kicked the spaniards gold-greedy asses right to orbit when they first landed.

I'm sure they did have some coastal craft running around (in comparison to exploring the "near waters" of solar system), and much good did that do.

BTW. They don't come. They can't come. We're talking about distances *slightly* bigger than few thousand km's of atlantic ocean here.

Re:i thought

[banzai51]

If you find the idea of contacting other potentially intelligent life and taking in new culture and technology so useless why do you post on Slashdot?

Plus, the Spaniards (and everyone else of the era) would have had a much harder time justifying their expeditions if they intelligent communication prior to bumping into each other.

Re:i thought

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised nobody has responded to this, as it seems like a rather valid concern.

Re:i thought

[juhaz]

If you really have so hard time reading (and understanding) few comments, as well as expressing your own concerns why do you post on Slashdot?

Hint: grandparent post was not mocking seti@home or other communication, or in any other way claimed it was useless. Neither was I. Didn't I give a damn example that said indians would've beaten Spaniards if they knew about hem in advance?

And gp specially said it was cheap compared to physical space missions (it is) and that it doesn't harm anything. Thus, both are good and certainly not exlusive. How the heck can anyone misunderstand that as "no-comm" advocacy goes beoynd me.

Re:i thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention govt contractors can incorporate offshore to avoid taxes.

Re:i thought

[Eminence]

Sorry, but you missed my point. SETI@Home doesn't hurt manned space flight at all. But taking your analogy, I would at least want to know he's coming.

(Actually it was well within Inca's capabilities to defend against Cortez, but their religious beliefs caused them not to fight with Spaniards. They were not sure whether he is not one of their Gods.)

First Light! ;-)

[richie2000]

Telescope geeks rejoice. But what should one say for a radio telescope? "First wave"?

Re:First Light! ;-)

[cra]

Nah. . . It would probably be a Troll anyway. . .

Re:First Light! ;-)

[Sabalon]

I though radio signals were just light in another wavelength...so first light holds...of course this also means that Puerto Rico will be covered with clouds (or something to block the radio wavelengths :)

Re:First Light! ;-)

[richie2000]

I though radio signals were just light in another wavelength.

I'm no physics professor, but that probably depends on if you see it as a particle or a wave. As a particle, light is photons while radio is electrons. As waves, it's the same (EM radiation) and my post is just a lame attempt at a joke.

I like to think of them as wavy particles, kinda like really fast sperm, hitting the eye. :-)

Re:First Light! ;-)

[Oms]

"First fringes", actually.

Re:First Light! ;-)

[kalidasa]

As a particle, light is photons while radio is electrons.

What imbecile told you that RF was made up of electrons? RF (radio frequency) is photons. So is microwave. So is gamma. So is IR. So is UV.

24h is a lot

[imsabbel]

Hey, this isnt your neigbours dish antenna, they got a whole day on the largest radio-telescope in the world. This thing has 300m diameter. Compare this to the fact that the "normal" data they use is from a insignificant, tiny telescope.

Re:24h is a lot

[zcat_NZ]

Compare this to the fact that the "normal" data they use is from a insignificant, tiny telescope.

Uhhhh no. The data they get is ALL from Arecibo, but most of the time it's just 'wherever it happens to be pointing for someone else's research'. The only difference is that for 24 hours they got to decide what it's pointed at.

Re:24h is a lot

[imsabbel]

I Could be wrong but i believe they use a telescope from arecibo, but not the main one but a 20(?)meter secondary telescope.
Well, but of course it would make perfect sense to give all the data a second use....

Re:24h is a lot

[Mafiew]

They use a different receiver mounted near the one that is generally used for gathering data.

Re:24h is a lot

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> The only difference is that for 24 hours they
> got to decide what it's pointed at.

Does anyone know if Drummlin was fuming or happy at this? He hates "nonsense" research, but on the other hand, he's a suck-ass who prolly realized Seti@home was rather popular and he knows what side his bread is buttered on!

Re:24h is a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderation; 30% Funny, 20% Flamebait, 20% Insightful, 2% Butterscotch Ripple.

Where's the other 28%?

Re:24h is a lot

[zcat_NZ]

28% Slashdot Maths. It doesn't always add up.

Re:24h is a lot

[ChrisCampbell47]

And just to clarify further, it's a "different receiver" mounted over the same BIG reflector surface that everyone else is using. There are some great pictures on the S@H site of their most recent visit -- the scale of that thing is amazing.

exactly what i was wondering

[lingqi]

being the largest antenna and its SET IN THE ground - how they turn this thing?
two things can happen:

1) they turn it very very slowly - a lot of the 24 hr is wasted pointing the dish
2) they don't turn it and wait until the dish points in the right place - a lot of the 24 hr is wasted waiting

anybody knows?

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[Jarnis]

Earth turns, does it not? Basically the huge dish sees what's right above it at any given time. 24h time allocation lets the reobservers see the whole sky. They just 'listen in carefully' at each reobservation point as the sky turns.

They can also (I assume) do limited 'pointing' by turning the reception gear that is hanging at the center of the huge dish.

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[AlecC]

Mostly, they just observe what happens to be above as the earth turns. They can effectively move the viewing position by two degrees either way by moging the position of the receiver across the focus, and the tilt of the earths axis "nods" the view up and down over the year, so in a year they get to see about half the total sky. Lokk at the maps on the Seti@home page to see what they can see.

For many purposes, Arecibo is quite restrictive; for seti@home, it is excellent - unless, of course, ET lives due north or south.

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[imsabbel]

They use the earth's rotation as one axis of movement, plus they can move the reciever around (it is hanging from cables).
Naturally, the second is rather limited.
So they basically sort the targets in the correct order and then watch evey one of them when it becomes visible

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[oloferne]

> being the largest antenna and its SET IN THE ground - how they turn this thing?

Arecibo people do not turn the antenna: they move the suspended receivers, allowing for a (limited) pointing capability. Being the largest and (probabily) the most expensive antenna, they put a lot of care in observing efficiency, so observations are all mixed to never let unoccupied the antenna. The scheduling software is smart!

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[crisco]

I'm a little fuzzy on the geometric and astronomic terms to ask this, but does the plane of the Earth's orbit come close to matching the galactic plane?

If so, Arecibo could cover most of the galaxy, excluding the stars in the local neighborhood to the North or South.

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[Wolfrider]

> unless, of course, ET lives due north or south...

--Heh; I guess that's *one* way to hide in plain sight... One of my favorite theories is that they're just on the opposite side of the sun.

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[Omestes]

Actually, the hanging focus is set on wires, by adding tension they can change the angle of the focus, hence in effect moving the dish. At least this is what my geeky freind says, he may be wrong, but it makes sense.

I'm guessing that it would still have a limited area of observation, though.

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[KewlPC]

I would imagine that the plane of Earth's orbit would be largely irrelevant, because the Earth's axis is not perpendicular to its orbital plane. In other words, the Earth is "tilted."

Unless the Arecibo radio telescope was so carefully planed that it was built juuust the right distance from the equator so as to be aligned with the galactic plane, it's either going to point "down" or "up", and either way that's largely away from the galactic disc.

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[Gorm the DBA]

Ahh, Gor, counter-earth, and no advanced technology... In other words, the Priest-Kings require everyone to use Windows.

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[Gilmoure]

Don't forget the librarian chicks in thongs!

Re:exactly what i was wondering

[Carnivore]

Unless the Arecibo radio telescope was so carefully planned that it was built juuust the right distance from the equator

Nope. They found a convienient dish-shaped hole in the topography and built it there.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[pe1rxq]

I'm only 30, heavy smoker but I think with stem cell research I can always get a new pair of lungs long enough to see the day I can fly me to the moon.


With an attitude like this you can better hope for stem cell research to come up with an artificial brain....

Jeroen

chechechecheckitout

[jayoyayo]

Check it out...
1 - 20 of the computers who crunched data that lead to discovery of these "reobservation points" come from computers in Antarctica!

Whew

[Timesprout]

Thank god they did not have more telescope time or they might have found my secret super villian orbital base where I am currently using the weightless environment to concoct a series of deadly patents which will allow me to take over the world.
(insert evil laugh here)

Re:Whew

[comet_11]

I'm sorry, I've already thought of and patented the process of hatching an evil scheme.

Re:Whew

[Timesprout]

Expect my killers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers to be in touch with you shorly

Re:Whew

[Anonymous Coward]

What upsets me most about this "Funny" moderation is that more than one fuckheaded moderator actually thought the parent TRIPE was _funny_ and worthy of moderation. The mind...boggles.

Re:Whew

[Anonymous Coward]

It does boggle the mind to imagine some fuckwit reading that and getting their best laugh of the day out of it.

Prolly can't wait until Joe Dirt or some Ernest movie comes on TBS in mid-afternoon.

Re:Whew

[jpmkm]

Stop doing that stupid ^H shit. IT'S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE.

Re:Whew

[daVinci1980]

It never^H^H^H^H^Hnever was.

Re:Whew

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off.^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HLighten up.

Re:Whew

[Alsee]

I got around your patent by draining my evil schemes out of the eggshell with a straw.

-

What is arecibo used for the other 364 days?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it just sit there doing nothing because nobody has the funds to fire it up, or is it actually in consant use?

And if it is in constant use, what else is it looking for? quasars/pulsars/supernovas etc.?

no, u chechechecheckitout dumbass

[jayoyayo]

oops i mean 1 - 20 of the "reobservation points" were discovered by computers in Antarctica! Damn you, Mary Jane!

Re:no, u chechechecheckitout dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been in the mod weed again, haven't you?

What the signal will look like?

[jabbadabbadoo]

It'll be "intelligent noise". Any civilization capabable of sending radio signals will be poluting the universe with signals from various sources, just like we've done for the past 80 years.

Perhaps if we're lucky, we'll receive the first episode of their SCI-FI series - "Pale Men From Earth!"

Re:What the signal will look like?

[phagstrom]

Perhaps if we're lucky, we'll receive the first episode of their SCI-FI series - "Pale Men From Earth!"

yeah, or their version of the "I love Lucy" show....

Hey, maybe if we're really, really lucky we'll be able to tune in on "Earth"

Re:What the signal will look like?

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> It'll be "intelligent noise". Any civilization
> capabable of sending radio signals will be
> poluting the universe with signals from various
> sources, just like we've done for the past 80
> years.

ASSuming there is no way for faster-than-light communication, which, if it exists, will probably not be radio-based.

If it does exist, we could be in the brief sliver of time of a civilization between when they develop radio and when they develop whatever-it-is.

Re:What the signal will look like?

[Carnivorous Carrot]

Some better, choice quotes:

"Ugly bags of mostly-water."

and another that has nothing to do with anything...

"We raise our children in fibrous husks."

Damn, I can't even type that sh** without laughing. Thanks, ST:TNG!

Re:What the signal will look like?

[khakipuce]

"just like we've done for the past 80 years"

But not for much longer and definietly not on the frequencies Seti is searching. I give our current single carrier based broadcast signals another 70 years before they are completely replaced by cable, line of sight, spread specturm, laser or whatever. Any of which will substantially reduce power and/or off-planet radiation.

SETI doesn't search the easy to use frequecies used by broadcast media because they would be swamped by terestrial signals. But they argue that some benevolent advaned race (the Vulcans I guess) will be broadcasting in some strange area of the microwave spectrum because it has something to do with water (you're gonna have fun with that aren't you).

So put all that together and plug it into the famous equation and I get a probablility of $lt;1 that we will find ET. 150 years of braodcast in a >10 billion year old universe!

But for all we know the signals from aliens could be encoded in the DNA of space fairing viruses. Aliens who "see" with radio could be happily spewing light into the galaxy for anyone to detect. A non-water based life form may be broadcasting to us at the "sulphuring hole" frequencies.

You've got to be pretty lucky to find an alien.

Re:What the signal will look like?

[The Lynxpro]

and just my luck, they'll broadcast it in the PAL signal and not NTSC...

Re:What the signal will look like?

[juhaz]

We probably can't detect that kind of radio pollution anyway, not from any farther than few nearest stars, at least. First, it's rather low-power to begin with, second, it's planetary communication and only a fraction of that low power will get sent to space (no sense in wasting) and even that will scatter to all around universe, very little will reach Earth and natural radio noise of universe will drown it.

We are almost blind and deaf, and probably need someone out there to focus narrow and powerful beam very near to the damn solar system to pick anything up... it's no wonder we can't find anything.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[AvantLegion]

I think in the next 50 years we will see space travel as common as transcontinental passenger jets are today.

Doubtful. The thing about passenger jets is that they take you to places that you have business going to - places with stuff like oxygen.

How long will it be before "common" space flight is even possible, let alone with destinations to go to?

50 years is far too short.

what if they missed it

[MoFoYa]

the 24 hrs were broken into 3 sets of 8 hrs. during the first set they reobserved 80something targets. passing over the area near each for a short time. so, ~10 targets an hr is about 6min each.

what if the aliens took a 10 min break?

or what if whatever organization on the alien world that signals to us was only allowed 1 day, and it was yesterday.

a place as big as the universe could be constantly monitored for 1000's of years, and may still come up with nothing.

Re:what if they missed it

[Anonymous Coward]

if it was yesterday that they transmitted something then it won't be here for a couple million years at least you jack ass.

Re:what if they missed it

[Eminence]

what if the aliens took a 10 min break? etc.

Bad luck then. This is - to some extent - a game of chance. But you have to play it to have any chance to win.

Re:what if they missed it

[MoFoYa]

you're missing the whole point. i probably should have stated: what if it was *received* yesterday? any intellegent person would have overlooked my 3:30AM thinking/typing and simply responded to the underlying point of my comment. you awful jackass.

Re:what if they missed it

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> what if the aliens took a 10 min break?

I'd be sorry to hear that since it would indicate a minor, hobby-group of aliens, rather than a concentrated, large-scale effort on their part.

Re:what if they missed it

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> the 24 hrs were broken into 3 sets of 8 hrs.
> during the first set they reobserved
> 80something targets

That'd be one damned boring episode of 24.

Jack! JACK! I need you to go...get me some more coffee.

Re:what if they missed it

[tigersha]

> what if the aliens took a 10 min break?

That would be akin to the entire Earth, with all transmissions from it, including all Tv/Radio/Cellular/Military/Naval/Commercial Comms/3D Holographic Programming (this is the Aliens transmitting, remember) switch off and take a 10 minute break at the same time. Ain't gonna happen.

Unless they had some serious planetary moment-of-silence thing going on just when we looked.

Re:what if they missed it

[leeward]

what if the aliens took a 10 min break?

SETI is looking for extremely narrow band signals, simply because we really don't have the technology to detect anything else at astronomical distances. An extremely narrow band signal is really only good for one thing; a beacon that simply runs all the time.

That would be akin to the entire Earth, with all transmissions from it, including all Tv/Radio/Cellular/Military/Naval/Commercial Comms/3D Holographic Programming (this is the Aliens transmitting, remember) switch off and take a 10 minute break at the same time. Ain't gonna happen.

Most of those signals, probably including 3D Holographic are wideband signals. SETI is simply incapable of detecting wideband signals.

RESCENT?

[Alan Partridge]

What the fuck kind of crapulous spellchecker let this one through?

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that the Slashdot editors don't actually USE the cocoaspell service that's part of the OS on their shiny Ti books.

Gahdamn Aliens!

[teamhasnoi]

Its just some aliens that were trying to hack SETI to increase their job numbers.

Pay no attention to those scabs!

Only?

[eericson]

I know 24 hours may not sound like a lot, but just consider all they other "hard" science projects out there competing for resources. Getting 3 days on one of the largest radiotelescopes in the world is actually quite an achievement. Especially if you consider than most scientists consider SETI to be a bunch of crackpots.

-E2

Re:Only?

[Anonymous Coward]

stfu k thx ..>

Re:Only?

[el-spectre]

Kinda unfortunate that they are thought of that way. While the odds of contact soon are low, there's nothing wrong with the science or basic assumption that there is other life out there.

Re:Only?

[Dr. Evil]

They seem to be doing a good job mapping, indexing and cataloguing the radio-map of the sky. I bet there are people on SETI who don't think there's a chance of finding an ET, they just want to check out and catalogue cool unexplained signals.

SETI has also done a good job with distributed computing.

They've also captured the interest of millions of people around the world.

Re:Only?

[PsibrII]

That's 24 hours on the biggest ear on the top half of the earth. And further data on regions of space that produce weird signals like that is bound to be interesting to the radio astronmy nuts. Such as, say they are picking up reflected pulsar noise from a region of space where there's "nothing" . You tweek you own FFT processing using SETI data, and you find a really neat cloud of dust, and can write papers on how to use pulsars reflections as deep space radar, and then all your other radio astronomy dorks, er scientists will thing you are really cool. There's bound to be a lot of spin offs from SETI research into "practical" science applications becauses theres bound to be SOMETHING interesting about a region of space spitting out signals that can pass though multiple FFT filtering passes.

Re:Only?

[SuperBanana]

Kinda unfortunate that they[SETI 'scientists] are thought of that way[as crackpots].

Let's say tomorrow we get some green alien saying "Hello, anyone out there?". We reply, and a thousand years from now, his 500th generation hears "Yes!" Maybe they figure it out. Now what? It's like two single people meeting at a party. "Hi." "Hello." "Um, so...uh...send radio signals often?"

Why shouldn't they be considered crackpots? The SETI people ignore all the basic facts- namely that any signal we could "see" today will have been sent from at least thousands of years ago, given we know there are no planets with intelligent life within at least a couple hundred light years. That presents some practical problems- a reply would never reach "them" for another zillion years, by which time, it could be that neither of us is around.

Then, who says they have developed technology to the point they can use radio? Who says they're looking, and looking in the right direction? Then, who says they even recognize it as something? Then, who says they figure out what it means? That they decide to send a reply?(nevermind the whole lets-send-an-invasion-force so popular in Hollywood). That there is anyone here still looking for an answer?

Nevermind that it took "us" this long to get where we are- who says any other planets beat us to the punch? Anything's possible, but it just adds to the unlikelyness of the whole thing. Mysterious aliens aren't going to be faxing us plans for travel gates, people...

Re:Only?

[el-spectre]

We know that there are none within a couple of hundred light years? Really?

I must have missed the memo. I was under the impression that we were just now (last 10 years or so) able to detect planets, and indirectly at that. I think it's a tad early to start declaring omniscience (sp?) and declare the search unworthy.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait? The parent is a SMOKER, for fuck's sake! Any derogatory comments made about a fucking SMOKER should be taken in stride. Smokers are no different than terrorists, and they deserve to die for the annoyance and health problems they inflict on others.

This is old news

[MoobY]

The reobservations have been done halfway March (which is stated on the page that is linked too), so this is not really *news*. For now, there do not seem to be any interesting results from these reobservations.

Re:This is old news

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I'm a seti@home fan, and have cranked out nearly 500 workunits since I started in mid-March, I'm a bit concerned about the dearth of other news.

Can anyone say anything about the status of the Parkes, Australia observations? There are a number of pages on the seti@home web site that appear to have been written a year or two ago, talking about what's going to happen in early 2003...

It would be interesting for the seti@home crew to get some time at both Arecibo and Parkes (and elsewhere, for that matter) when their respective dishes/'scopes are pointed at the moon, just to see how much crap at 1420MHz is being generated on Earth and is being bounced back to us by the moon!
(Actually, come to think of it, it would be an interesting instrument calibration exercise).

Of course, having a few hams pounding out some "CQ EME" on 1296 at the same time might be fun, too.

Re: This is old news

[Black Parrot]

> The reobservations have been done halfway March (which is stated on the page that is linked too), so this is not really *news*.

That's ok, this is not really a news site.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[t0qer]

What are you cryin for?

My mother smoked while I was in her womb, for years growin up, despite being geeky smart, my behavior was erradict. (noisiest in class, never sitting still)

Until I started chain smoking at 10 (I love you cigarette machine)

Despite school, and everyone else trying to deny my stoge, when I started to use nicotine on a consistant basis my grades IMPROVED because I could actually sit still for a minute and concentrate. No it wasn't ADD, I suffered from, I truly believe I was suffering from nicotine withdrawel all those years.

THANKS MOM YOU FUCKING WHORE I HOPE YOU DIE CUNT!

when we make first contact.....

[Anonymous Coward]

and the aliens are hostiles, all you SETI@home guys are gonna feel like real dumbasses. you're dooming us all!

Re:when we make first contact.....

[vrassoc]

Yeah, but we've got the bastards' names so we can make sure we get them before the aliens get us.

Re:when we make first contact.....

[YrWrstNtmr]

If they are that hostile, they'll attack anyway. Wouldn't you want at least a little forewarning?

Re:when we make first contact.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I made that list, but I'm still waiting for that phone call from Seven of Nine.

Not even a stinkin' certificate. :(

50 years isn't too short for frequent space travel

[arcite]

All you will need is money....lots and lots of money. So a mere mortal such as myself will probably not get to go to space, the mega rich will. In the next 20 years we should have atleast one space hotel, or I will be VERY disapointed! So I may not make it, but you can be Cher will!

Some precisions

[IIEFreeMan]

In fact the re-observations happened a long time ago (in March i believe) but the scientists are preparing the data to analysed by the SETI@Home program. Apparently it is quite a hard task as they used different instruments than for their usual data.

Last SETI Update : 21/05/2003

Inclination to galactic disc...

[Kjella]

For many purposes, Arecibo is quite restrictive; for seti@home, it is excellent - unless, of course, ET lives due north or south.

The Milky way is quite "flat" when you look at the whole galaxy, so if the earth is rotating in the same plane, you should be able to hear quite much. Right "up" or "down" there probably won't be as many candidates. Anyone know on what "scale" we're listening? Would that even matter, or are we trying to listen "locally", galactically speaking.

Kjella

Re:Inclination to galactic disc...

[KewlPC]

Except that the Earth is tilted. Therefor, the Arecibo radio telescope doesn't point straight into the galactic disc.

And it only looks flat when you view it from afar. Just look out at the night sky, and see how many stars are "North" of you, and how many are "South" of you. There are stars in the Southern hemisphere that can't be seen from the Northern hemisphere, and vice versa. Because of this, one could assume that since Arecibo has such a limited view of the sky, we could very well miss a star from which the telltale signals of an alien civilization would emerge.

Worse, they don't even get the Arecibo telescope for a continuous 24 hours. Rather, they get it for 8 hours a day, making it even more limited.

Re:Inclination to galactic disc...

[Betelgeuse]

All of this is true, but it's also beside the point. Even if the Earth wasn't tilted with respect to the plane of the solar system, we still wouldn't have to worry about the Galaxy. In fact, there is no reason to expect that the plane of the solar system would be aligned with with the plane of the Galaxy (and, in fact, is not).

And anyway, there is plenty of sky to look at with "just" 24 hours.

Re:Inclination to galactic disc...

[juhaz]

Worse, they don't even get the Arecibo telescope for a continuous 24 hours. Rather, they get it for 8 hours a day, making it even more limited.

Not really. Less limited. Much less. They don't want to see the whole sky (this time) but concentrate on few "hot spots" they've picked up during normal research, so by scheduling those 8 hour periods to times that the telescope is directed at points of interest, they gain more time observing exactly what they want and less time waiting Earth to turn towards next one.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an ex-smoker; have been for holy shit, 8 years now. I smoked, pretty heavily, from the age of 14 until I was 28. If I could quit, so can you. Until then, you're just a wanna-be, gonna-be, cocksuckin' pranksta. Smokers are terrorists, and deserve DEATH BY HANGING.

Dupe... :D

[Seahawk]

Latest research concludes that the average memory of a member of the online community "Slashdot", seems to be something less than 3 months(original story)

That, or the internet is severely lagged at the moment(There was that IP over avian carrier thingy...)

Re:Dupe... :D

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of an idiot would even try to remember something they saw on slashdot, of all places? This is light-hearted entertainment, just like the geek shows of yore where people watched geeks biting heads off chickens, only now we look at geeks display amazing feats of idiocy.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Anonymous Coward]

"Near the middle of the last century we learned how to make rockets which took us beyond our earth for the first time."

And in those 50 years we have just got better at making overgrown, unreliable, inefficient, at best, only partially reusable bloody FIREWORKS. Our space programs are a sick joke, flinging man and machine into the big black through brute force because we haven't thought of a better way. In 50 years we have gone virtually nowhere in terms of technological advancement: we have cleverer probes, faster rockets, bigger payloads but there is nothing fundamentally different from the V2 rocket. Before space travel can really - for what of a better term - take off we need to get a technology that doesn't rely on strapping the traveller to a giant tube containing huge quantities of volatile chemicals in big tanks and then igniting them in a combustion chamber.

Would you prefer...

[mraymer]

A giant taco that poops ice cream?

The world would be a sad, sad place without South Park. ;)

Re:Would you prefer...

[KewlPC]

God dammit you guys! For the last time, I am not under alien control!

*ZAP*

I love to sing-ah, 'bout the moon-ah
And the June-ah and the spring-ah
I love to sing-ah

Patterns......

[PS-SCUD]

Please don't mod this a troll because It's not.

I just find it fascinating, how the SETI project is looking for signals coming from outer space that have the tiniest pattern to them. Because, they assume, if it has a pattern, it was created by intelligent life. But back on Earth, they have been studying DNA, which has an incredible pattern. Yet they say that it doesn't have an intelligent creator.

Re:Patterns......

[PsibrII]

This is all part of the fun of science. You never really know where a project that starts out as one thing is going to go. I remember there was a series in scientific american, connections by james burke I think.

You have all these people doing these really interesting projects, and eventually you get a chain reaction where a bunch of em line up and you get something really amazing as a result.

For someone who is strictly set in a technological mindset where off the shelf parts A,B,C with work become product D, that person is not going to be interested in how pruduct ZZj 200 years from now might result. That's not the type of person you want doing science of this sort because they're going to get all in a huff because they didn't get results the first try.

Science is full of millions of dead ends, and in the process, people learn from that and things get done in the long run. Those who can't handle that can stick to nice safe careers like civil engineering or accounting.

Re:Patterns......

[Rxke]

If this is not a troll, then it is certainly comparing apples with pears, DNA!= radiosignal.... Really, i can't, for the love of my life, imagine what you're trying to prove? creationism? or...... No. Doesn't make sense to me, sorry. Would you care to elaborate?

Re:Patterns......

[Admiral Kirk]

Without going into any further discussion, creationism is a recursive argument.

I you accept that anything as complex as living beings can not exist through randomness and nature, you define this as a rule.
Apply that same rule to the god that created this life, and you come to the conclusion that he/she/it too has been created by a higher being.
Again applying the rule, the higher being....

This loops on forever, which creates the problem that as the loop never ends, the ultimate creator is never reached, making the whole argument void.

BTW, almost every religion has a creation-myth, almost all those myths directly contradict eachother. Why should we believe any?

Re:Patterns......

[Black Parrot]

> I just find it fascinating, how the SETI project is looking for signals coming from outer space that have the tiniest pattern to them. Because, they assume, if it has a pattern, it was created by intelligent life. But back on Earth, they have been studying DNA, which has an incredible pattern. Yet they say that it doesn't have an intelligent creator.

The atoms in a dog turd sport "an incredible pattern", yet no one claims that dog turds have intelligent creators.

Re:Patterns......

[Alsee]

It's easy to see "contradictions" when you throw in false assumptions.

Intelligece tends to create complex patterns. Not all complex patterns are created by intelligence.

(Human) intelligence often create arches. Not all arches are created by by intelligence.

Evolution is a powerful natural process of creating complex patterns. If there is a natural system undergoing evolution and emmiting radio signals they could contain arbitrarily complex patterns without intelligent creation. That would be a huge scientific discovery even if there is no intelligent source.

When Seti finds patterns their FIRST priority is always to search for natural explanations for those patterns.

-

Re:Patterns......

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that we (I group myself with the rational) base our reality on reasonably accurate observations, not on fictional fantasies and fluffy make-you-happy concepts like "faith".

They are both a "religion" of sorts. We just prefer facts over fiction for our foundation.

(AC becuase my opponents like to bomb people for not having the "right" "faith")

Re:Patterns......

[gurps_npc]

Your ignorance is telling. Patterns are an indication that their MIGHT be an intelligence behind it, not that there MUST be an intelligence behind it. There are lots of things that develop complex, repeating patterns, life being a major one of them.

There are in fact many distint differences between patterns generated by intelligence, patterns generated by Life, and patterns generated by non-living natural forces.

Patterns generated by intelligence are less likely to be repeated quickly/nearby. (Libraries have lots of copies of DIFFERENT books, not tons of copies of a single book) Patterns generated by life tend to be cleaner, having less garbage near them. Patterns generated by non-living natural forces tend to be have more repetion, and tends to have garbage near them, making them harder to detect.

Look at DNA. It's major factors are it is surrounded by junk (tons of similar biological molecules that are not DNA and not a pattern) and is repeated BILLIONS of times. If it was made by an intelligent being, then that being would realize that you only need the full DNA in the gonads. Everywhere else he could save tons of effort by just putting in partial DNA (Really, does your hand need to know how to make a heart, a liver, a brain, a foot, a leg, a stomache, a spleen, a throat, etc. etc. etc.) Even setting up a system where the DNA in one cell controled 1,000 cellss would be much more effecient than our current system where each and every cell in our entire body has a complete DNA copy.

feedback?

[interstellar_donkey]

Just out of curiosity, does Seti@home tell its users if they picked up any interesting data or patterns?

I've been running this off and on for years, and the only thing they've sent me is congratulations emails for processing a certain number of data sets. So I wonder, if I did find something of interest, would they let me know?

I think...

[dfj225]

that SETI is just trying to get free HBO for three days :-P

I can imagine the fun

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Seti: "Hey Look - We can confirm that this is a radio signal!"

World:(begins to panic)"Really? How far away are they? How old's the signal?"

Seti: "Well, these signals came from that star cluster over there about 950,000 years ago."

World:(disappointed)"Almost a million years ago - and they never invented space travel"

World: //scraps space plans

Re:I can imagine the fun

[Space cowboy]

Funny perhaps, but an interesting point - if we did detect something from 1M years ago, why would they have come our way in the meantime ?

I mean, *light* has only just got here, and galactically speaking, we were pretty boring a million years ago (hell, in even inter-solar-system terms, we're pretty boring now!) I wouldn't get out of bed to travel a million light years to see if there's something here ...

So, they may have colonised their entire sector/galaxy/galactic cluster using weirdo-science space travel; just because they didn't make it here yet, doesn't mean they didn't/couldn't...

Simon.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Fweeky]

Give materials science another decade or so, and hopefully we'll be able to make a space elevator or three.

Good enough for you?

Re:secret villain base

[Jogar the Barbarian]

I mean, Linux runs on ANYTHING! It's compatible with my orbiting brain lasers!

/. made it

[skamp]

Seems like /. is in the list, with less than a thousand units returned. Way to go!

Patterns? - Read the protocols

[ianscot]

Because, they assume, if it has a pattern, it was created by intelligent life.

Who assumes that? Certainly not the SETI @ Home people.

There are quite elaborate "protocols" for weeding through the many, many signal patterns the SETI project does hear, precisely because it ain't necessarily so. That's, um, a whole lot of what the SETI project is doing, if you would care to consider what all those home boxes are up to with their spare cycles.

The most obvious example of a naturally occurring regular pattern -- mentioned prominently in the article /. linked to -- is pulsars, which tick away regularly and give off a very distinct radio signal pattern.

(You really want to read a criticism or two of the "watch watchmaker" thing you're arguing. Go find a critique or two of Darwin's Black Box, which is basically the same argument made on the same, sub-molecular level that you're already thinking of.)

Re:Patterns? - Read the protocols

[PS-SCUD]

Yes, but that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say what makes them think ANY pattern has an intelligent creator? No matter what protocals you use to weed them out. I'm not trying to PROVE anything. It's just an observation.

Re:Patterns? - Read the protocols

[Rxke]

phew, *wipes perspiration from large forehead* almost thought me ws so stupid to go into discussion w a creationist. Glad to see yer not one of those.... (do i sound obsessed? I'm not, just on caffeine and cayenne)

Re:Patterns? - Read the protocols

[wass]

The most obvious example of a naturally occurring regular pattern is pulsars

Interestingly enough, when pulsars were first discovered, some scientists thought they had to have some intelligence behind them because their rotational periods were too regular.

Re:Patterns? - Read the protocols

[juhaz]

Nothing. They'll just weed out most improbable patterns, there is obviously no guarantees that even the remaining ones have any kind of intelligence behind them, but if some astronomical object is for some reason beaming out source code for Soft Doors 3041 or Episode 40 of Season 8 of popular Sci-Fi show Stellar Expedition, it's kinda curious and requires closer examining even if it eventually turns out there is no intelligence behind it. No?

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Carnivorous Carrot]

Too bad that penalty wasn't applied to you at age 27.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it's cheaper (per passenger-kilometre) than travelling from Leicester Square to Covent Garden on the London Underground (GBP 1.60 for 280 metres!). Dennis Tito paid just GBP 14 million to reach the International Space Station and stay there for six days; that worked out at GBP 3.49 per passenger-kilometre rather than GBP 5.71 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1480175.stm; note that the Tube fare has gone up since then).

Admittedly, the London Underground can be one of the most expensive forms of transportation (so can buses if you only want to go one stop) but even so fireworks are relatively good value for money.

Mixed Metaphors

[Tewley]

Distributed Computing: If you have enough monkeys with typewriters you still can't write Hamlet, but you might be able to find a needle in a haystack.

Goldeneye is "hard" science

[WeeLad]

Anyone know if the filming of Goldeneye interfered with the scientific research going on at Arecibo, or was it just used in the wide shots?

How about moving it to Cuba, covering it with an artificial lake, and destroying part of the receiver in a fight with Boromir?

Re:Goldeneye is "hard" science

[jandrese]

IIRC, the "reflector" part of Arecibo is actually pretty flimsy, and if anybody rolled around on it like that they would damage the telescope.

The name

[what happen!]

I think I've said my piece.

nope, no feedback

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked on a whim and my username for SETI was on their list of those who's units were contributed to this, and it was - but I was never notified of anything about it

Re:nope, no feedback

[el_gordo101]

Ditto. One of my work units was on the list and I had no clue until I read this article and followed the link.

Re:Water's not the only liquid in universe

[tigersha]

And what, may I ask are you going to do with an Alien? Screw it/her? Not bloody likely. This is not Startrek, you know, its Real Life!

Old news

[MntlChaos]

This has been out since March. It is now June. Where have all you been for the past three months?

Distribution of promising sources

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting to know statistically how the distribution of the promising sources matched up to a random distribution. Looking at the map there appears to be a couple of areas of clumping. Such areas probably have natural explanations, but such natural explanations could be factored into the statistical analysis. Of course there would be factors such as the density of matter through the solid angle of the galaxy and also the methodology used to create the initial data set. On the other hand, there is a reasonable argument for clumping being a manifestation of intelligent (expanding) sources.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Anonymous Coward]

Right then, you get right on making something better. When you have it I'm sure the world will beat a path to your door.

Sure, there's nuclear but imagine how much fun the last space shuttle crash would have been if there had been dangerously radioactive materials in the mix.

Let's start a pool

[Anonymous Coward]

What will happen first? SETI will find proof of extra terrestrial intelligence, or weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq? Perhaps we need WMD@Home. WMD in Iraq has a lot fewer candidate sites, but so far the odds look about the same.

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[Anonymous Coward]

You try to make it sound stupid, but we're dealing with the laws of physics here. You tell me a better way to get thousands and thousands of pounds of payload up to escape velocity in a more efficient manner. I mean, cripes, we've had the technology to make crude rockets for over a thousand years. And in the last fifty we've finally been able to refine them enough to use them in this way. It's not called "Rocket Science" because it is trivially easy, friend.

Geeks watch too much sci-fi, it makes them too out of touch with the realities of modern engineering.

Spoiler

[Isao]

Don't forget the sequel "Hunt them down and kill them", where they send huge ships to destroy our major cities for our infractions (which were "Baywatch" reruns in seven languages, causing all sorts of confusion).

In it they plausibly assert that deciding to run the mothership on Apple Xserve's is a good idea because no major Earth government would defy the monopoly and run anything other than a Windows OS.

Re:50 years isn't too short for frequent space tra

[AvantLegion]

So a mere mortal such as myself will probably not get to go to space, the mega rich will. In the next 20 years we should have atleast one space hotel, or I will be VERY disapointed! So I may not make it, but you can be Cher will!

With any luck, she will be left there.

Goldeneye

[payndz]

Knowing SETI's luck, they'll be just about to start their telescope time when the whole place gets blown up by a British secret agent...

Crap!

[dmccarty]

What's this! I've returned 13,000+ WU's but my name's not on the list? Oh well, at least I can be happy knowing that I've helped science by BEING IN THE 99.555th PERCENTILE! YEAH!

What, this is about science?

Re: Water's not the only liquid in universe

[Black Parrot]

> And what, may I ask are you going to do with an Alien? Screw it/her? Not bloody likely. This is not Startrek, you know, its Real Life!

And besides, only starship captains score with the alien chicks.

Xenobonking, I think they call it at Starfleet Academy.

Re:feedback? Well, not directly

[MickLinux]

But according to experiments I've been doing with the code I downloaded and ran for them, the bit throughput rate does seem to dip when I throw something interesting in there.

For example, when my computer was working on the data in an area near the equator at the body of leo (look at the third yellow square for leo--that's approximately the location), I mixed in some Elvis with the data, and got back a 20-second pause in the bitrate.

I have to say: it's really been great to be able to analyze the dynamics of distributed processing, and I'm really grateful to the SETI-at-home project for letting me be a part of it.

[PS... on a different note, it's interesting that the greatest frequency of data is right along the milky-way's equator. On a not of caution, I think that says something more about the system they're using, than about their data.]

BAAh, Sheep herd mentality..

[Anonymous Coward]

Most "scientists" are too wrapped up in the psychology of "mainstream science" attitude to see any new revolutionairy idea or concept...there are plenty of new ideas and concepts that were rejected by the mainstream science culture, only to be embraced later when these ideas are proved right eventually. Most scientists are constrained by society to be very conservative and do not want to go out on a limb for the sake of a new idea and hence risk their careers/livelyhood on new ideas. This situation is a sad result of the fact that the people who manage our society tend to be left-brained, whereas most creative people are right-brained and are more interested in doing things, and are not so concerned with the bottom line (accounting, management, boring stuff, etc), hence they tend to be viewed by the people in power as flakey idealists (just look at what our culture has tuned the inventor into (flakey mad scientist (ie back-to-the-future type)) verses, say 100 years ago (thomas eddison, henry ford, goodyear, etc) who actually pioneered the modern research enviroment into a more dynamic system.

SETI@home might not be giving accurate readings

[Razor Blades are Not]

After accusations of "cheating" ran rife near the end of Seti@homes run, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't find a thing.

for example

or another one a little closer to home

Re:Last 100 years has been about flight, next.. sp

[DigiShaman]

Got a better idea? Sometimes the best methods the laws of physics will allow are the best ones.

Re:50 years isn't too short for frequent space tra

[deragon]

Yeah, and we will have commercial supersonic flights. After all, they are much cheaper than space flights and there are enough rich people in the world to sustain such commercial endeavor.

What? They are retiring the Concorde? Yeah, but this is only to replace it with a better plane. What? No replacement? Why? The riches can't afford the lousy $6000 ticket?

You get the picture? Going to space is not as cracked up as it sounds, and if I were a billionnaire, I would rather give $20 million to charity than go into space. And I think that many rich people have the same priorities. Thus, there will be very little people civilians going to space in the next century unless some technical revolution comes up.

First Alien transmission decoded....

[Anonymous Coward]

"We are the Zorguls, a sentient species near the following quasars [...].

If anyone can hear us, please respond with plans for technology that yields unlimited waste free energy sources, and the ability to exceed light-speed. If possible, please include the meaning of life.

In return, we will share with you our recipes for BBG-tofu and our vast collection of prime numbers. It'll be like a sleep-over!

Oh yes, one other thing, please hurry because those among us who control the weapons and the resources have an irrational lust for power and total disregard for the survival of our species.

RSVP, thank you."

"There is no spoon" ~Buddhist kid
"SPOON!!" ~the Tick

to 'stat' as verb

[onomatomania]

So 'stat' is now a verb, in the neckbeard-Unix-wizard sense of "to quickly check out [a file] for its essential details"?

I swear if I ever hear somebody say "Yeah lets go to that bar and stat all the hot chix" I am going to laugh... and then start flailing wildly as yet another unixism perverts our spoken language.

Did you ever wonder what alien messages might SAY?

[Progman3K]

We can only hope that the aliens signals AREN'T saying things like -

"Mighty your Penis"
"Viagra available at low cost"
"I am president Mbeke, help me transfer a million dollars"