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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."
The article is taken from an australian site, the adress could have lead you to an easy answer (http://www.smh.com.au)
In Canada, we don't fancy things like socks
Well, actually, this is just simply a triumph of capitalism.
I mean if our businesspersons need some reason to want to make 10 kagillion dollars a week. If it's the search for some sort of adolescent fantasy in space or simply just stamping their face on the moon then so be it.
if you want to fund life search, you have to GO THERE
I was reading a NASA report on the prospects for interstellar travel. Basically, you would have to create a self-contained biosphere that would function for hundreds or even thousands of years; construct an enclosure that would last that long under erosion from particles with relative velocities that are a significant fraction of the speed of light; find a power source that would last that long and provide propulsion to accellerate such an enormous vehicle to a significant fraction of light speed; find a way to accurately navigate interstellar space, when our knowledge of stellar positions is imperfect; and find volunteers who would not only have no chance of returning to Earth, but who would have children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who would never live anywhere except the spacecraft, in total dedication to the mission. Even assuming the technical hurdles could be overcome (which the report said are beyond existing or forseeable technology), the report noted that this last point would require extreme devotion that challenges the most stringent religions on Earth.
To solve the human factor, I think it's inevitable that interstellar astronauts will have to be genetically altered humans, possibly with qualities such as extremely long lifespan, low food requirements, devoted obedience, and hibernation.
Sending a probe to another star system is probably also beyond existing technology, but would probably be possible within the next century or so. The device would have to weigh at most a few pounds (by comparison, the Cassini probe weighs about a ton), again withstand interstellar pounding, and yet have enough energy to communicate its findings back to Earth (not at all trivial -- remember the inverse square law; with existing technology, Voyager's data rates at Pluto's distance are a few hundred bits per second).
So until about the year 2100, listening is about all we got.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Contrary to StarTrek, you will not feed, clothe, and educate every single person in the world.
It's possible with the right investment. Nanotech, for instance. "Star Trek" had no problems with clothes, food or education because of replicators. Drexlerian nanofabricators are not only possible, but probable.
You can always find some ass with an opinion on how you should best spend your money, but that doesn't mean all criticism is therefore null. If a billionaire decides to spend millions digging a hole in the ground and then filling it back up, I'm going to call him a moron, even if he is fully within his rights (and hopes and dreams of hole-digging) to spend money that way.
Of course, Allen's telescope array will have other uses. In fact, its other uses will be its primary uses, since it isn't going to detect jack shit as far as life goes (just a guess, will gladly retract when proven wrong!). So it's not too bad an investment, it's just the motive that's loopy.
There are ways to kill a person, but killing the dreams and hopes are the most cruel.
Dreams in the context you bandy are dreams of personal success. Uh, I don't think Allen will have a problem there.
Killing someone's dream of spending millions on the virtual equivalent of taking a piss is not really that cruel, especially when the dreamer is an idle billionaire.
I had no idea Microsoft owned Paul Allen. I had the idea that Paul Allen holds (or once held) partal ownership in Microsoft.
How about Tech TVs Paul Allen?
That IS a bit more recent and Tech TV has quite an anti-Microsoft bent to boot. Watch the Screen Savers. Leo Laport who's been with Tech TV from the days when it was ZDTV is a Mac Zellot and the Dark Tipper is a Linux supporter.
It seams anyone on Tech TV who is vocal about Microsoft will bash them every chance they get.
Some times Tech TV can be as bad as Slashdot.
And who is behind all this antiMicrosoft bashing? Paul Allen.
In short: Mr Allen dose not have Microsofts best intrests at heart.
And I'm quite happy about that.
I don't actually exist.
Just because he gives a lot to charity he's a good guy? I don't think so.
First of all, what is the percentage of what he gives to charity compared to his income, and how does that in turn compare to the nationwide average? If he doesn't give more proportionally than the average, I don't think he should get credit for it at all. Generosity lies in giving more than your share.
Secondly, microsoft has monopoly pricing on windows and office. Every dollar that is above the pricing level there would be in a free market, is a dollar taken out of the economy. Microsoft hoards the majority of it, and pays Bill Gates a large segment, which he hoards in turn. Money has to move, everyone knows that. If bill gates didn't have that money to give to charity, it would be invested in the economy, and would produce greater gains than giving a percentage of it to charity will ever do.
Ofcourse, when you compare Bill Gates to the Walton family, he comes out like a saint. He hasn't destroyed entire towns to acquire his wealth, and he doesn't hoard it as badly. But that doesn't mean he should be commended for the life he has lead. All he gets from me is respect.
Why do we always just listen and never send? It seems we're afraid of actually making contact. What if the aliens are also being prudent and just listening? We could be listening to each other's silence for millenia.
An alien civilization could be less than 20 light years away. At that distance, you could start a conversation. Sure, it would take decades for every answer, but you wouldn't have to wait for the answer to ask more questions. It would be the most historical event of the millenium, to learn that we aren't alone.
I don't really understand the whole "prudence" argument either. If a civilization doesn't have interstellar travel, they pose no threat. If they DO have interstellar travel and are close enough to receive our signals, it would seem extremely likely they've already visited our solar system, studied its natives, and decided making contact wasn't worth it. Either way, it seems unlikely an alien civilization would show up "independance day"-style to destroy us.
So why aren't we transmitting?
... will be used ? When I was working at Geneva observatory, they used SUN workstations and a Linux cluster. Actually, very much everywhere I have been (CERN, KEK, ...), scientists use UNIX or Linux. I wonder wether there will be an encouragement to use MS soft there, and wether scientist would comply.
This is the same reasoning that I use when I run the Folding@Home distributed project versus SETI.
a big tax write off for allen.. of course, not everyone in the evil empire is necessarily evil....
but still... might be two things, he might be interested in that stuff, and it will give him a nice tax write off.
Though if I were as rich as these guys, I'd be donating money out whenever I could, regardless of tax, like Carnegie did, he donated a lot of money, and when he died.. he had his entire fortune donated and spread around.
I'm very interested in your alleged knowledge of advanced cultures. Have you spoken with any lately? Radio frequencies between 1-100Ghz are used because they are the most affordable while also being more resistant to interference in the interstellar medium. Since we don't have a high frequency gravity wave receiver on the commercial market (ATA is built more or less with commercially available parts), it might be a bit hard for SETI to prove/disprove your hypothesis.
Good work though! You should get started on a SETI project of your own and wow the world with your hard won proof!