Microsoft's Paul Allen Funds ET Search

Chris Gondek writes "Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, one of the richest men on Earth, today pledged to donate $US13.5 million ($17.99 million) for research into extra-terrestrial life. With the contribution, Allen will have given $US25 million ($33.32 million) for construction of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a network of 350 radio telescopes being built to find signs of life in space, said Thomas Pierson, director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute."

Comments

Obviously...

[SwansonMarpalum]

Microsoft is looking to hire!

Re:Obviously...

[rlp]

That does it! This is taking outsourcing way too far!

Re:Obviously...

[An Onerous Coward]

Seriously, it would probably work the other way, as the aliens moved their high-polluting, unskilled manufacturing processes here to Earth. They'd buy our labor for a few hundred thousand a year (pennies on the dollar when compared to the cost of labor back on Xaphodbrox). We'd all be rushing out to buy Xaphian language tapes, learning to chat about their politics and sports (an odd cross between polo and mud wrestling), staffing their call centers and reading scripts we only barely understood, and buying up their nifty technology while local industries perished.

Meanwhile, back on the Motherworld, the people would be consoling themselves, saying that humans were great for cheap labor, but thank god they aren't capable of real creativity. Then a hundred years down the road, we'd lob a bunch of nukes at their planet, each lovingly engraved with, "Is THIS creative enough for ya?"

T'will be interesting times, indeed.

They should explore

[capn_buzzcut]

Darl McBride's cranium first. Lots of space there.

Re:They should explore

[Shinglor]

Well that's great except they're searching for intelligent life.

Ah but the real question is ...

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

What software will be used to interpret any readings gathered by these telescopes? I mean using a trojan infected XP box could lead to an intergalactic incident if these telescopes wind up port flooding the aliens' array.

Very Sneaky

[SeaDour]

This is obviously part of a grand scheme to transmit free copies of Microsoft Office to nearby star systems.

ah...

[Raagshinnah]

ah so that's why all those UFOs have been crashing

thank you, i'll be here all night

But when ET phones home

[Anonymous Coward]

will he get the blue busy signal of death?

Shrinking market

[krray]

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, one of the richest men on Earth, today pledged to donate $US13.5 million ($17.99 million) for research into extra-terrestrial life.

Of course -- Microsoft _needs_ to find new customers. We both know that...

Re:Why just listen?

[ross.w]

We are transmitting, and have been for over 70 years.

Ever since the invention of radio transmissions, there has been an expanding bubble of random RF moving away from the Earth at the speed of light.

Any sufficiently advance civilisation within 70 light years or so already knows we're here.

Conversly, our own listening is far more likely to pick up an advertorial for a product to keep your tentacles young and scaly looking than any message intended for us.