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Allen Telescope Array In Action
DIY News writes "36 of an eventual herd of 350 dishes are now operational in a remote area 250 miles northeast of San Francisco. These antennas, 20 feet in diameter and the height of a football goal post, are the first installment of the Allen Telescope Array, and they are ideal for short SETI projects while the array is being built." From the articel: "The young ATA's first foray into SETI will be known by the straightforward (if not overly galvanic) name of Inner Galactic Plane Survey. The word 'survey' may surprise many who are familiar with this telescope's design. After all, it's being finely tuned to speedily examine large numbers of star systems in a so-called "targeted search". The completed array will be exceptionally nimble at such individual scrutiny, and will leave previous targeted searches in the data dust."
Image a ......... ah fuck!
Table-ized A.I.
Got my hopes up, i thought i had read "Alien Telescope Array In Action." Drunk and bored, *sigh*
In the patchwork of dry, cow-fouled ranch lands 250 miles northeast of San Francisco, an unusual crop [antennae] is poking above the dusty shrubbery.
Unusual crops and alien life (SETI responders) would not stand out near SF.
Table-ized A.I.
Waste of time, money and effort like the whole rest of the SETI project. There may well be someone out there, but they are nowhere we can ever communicate with, never mind go to. It saddens me, but the universe is not like Star Trek.
"From the articel:" ?
Is it too much to expect the editors of slashdot to spell-check? For many of us, non-native english speakers, who have had to *study* the language, things like this sorely stand out.
Please *editors*, Spell-check
That SETI, rather than looking in the wrong places... is looking in the wrong ways? ETs aren't going to let us see them until we know how to look at ourselves.
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
Show us exactly where the aliens are. Then we can figure out if they're close enough communicate with. Although even if they were at Alpha Centauri, it would still be too far to go.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Anon coward runs and ducks....
It just wouldn't do to say how many feet tall the telescopes are, since nobody knows how big a foot is. No, we have to specify height in relation to a goalpost, since obviously everyone reading Slashdot is intimately familiar with football goalposts (is that american football, or soccer?) and how to convert them into other common measurements.
While I'm all for SETI, it seems we have so many other things to learn first. Personally, I'm a big fan of the work done at the coolest of all "Arrays", the Very Large Array located in New Mexico. It's a sight to behold, and the information they gather through radio information has been extremely valuable over the years.
I'm sure it's that more impressive as it is in the middle of nowhere...there is a visitor center there (unstaffed) and the last time I went through there they sold postcards, pictures, etc., and had a box where you were kindly asked to deposit your payment. That tells me they were interested in the science first, the glitz and glamour of space.com is probably very low on their list.
--- There is a man in a smiling bag.
For God's sake Zonk, use spellcheck.
I wasn't aware the idea of SETI was to establish communications with other sentient life. I thought the whole point was simply to FIND them if they are there. We can work on what comes after that, AFTER THAT.
The young ATA's first foray into SETI will be known by the straightforward (if not overly galvanic) name of Inner Galactic Plane Survey.
Are you kidding? I can't wait 'til we start finding all those galactic planes!
Why does a lower-case L look so much like an lower case I in my font? I was getting REALLY excited for a second...
I misread that as "Alien Telescope In Action"... Am I alone?
I mean 1 goal post is just 3 Sasquatches. 1 sasquatch is 3 grey aliens...but only 2 reptilians.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Until recently I've tried to be a bit discriminating with Adblock, only blocking ads that move about or flash in an annoying way. Lately though, I've started blocking http://.//* from any company that does adverts, because they are all just so obtrusive.
What's the point of spending all this money on such a useless and rather silly project? Seriously.
350 anntennas array?
Imagine a beowulf cluster of this!
This Allen Telescope Array has been getting advertised for at least 15 years now and all they've gotten is 10% of it erected and not a single bit of data yet. They must be spending $1 a year on it.
Wouldn't it be farther along if they didn't build it on the most expensive real estate in the world? Maybe instead of spending 15 years building 10% of it outside Sacramento they could compromise and build it 1 mile east of Calif* for a trillion dollars less.
Are they ever going to finish it or is it just supposed to be neverending publicity for Paul Allen?
I can't imagine what more resources and technology we will put in SETI or anything similar in the next 26 years, but call me an optimist, I beilieve something amzaning will come out of it sooner or later. And once that happend, even if it was short signals of a few seconds or milli second, our lives and the lives of the children will change in away that has never before. Imagine the social, religious imapct this will have...I really cant put some sort of clever summy here at 3AM but, but if that day ever comes it will justify all costs put in to it, justify the work of all the women and men that where part of the effor and I will sleep under a different mind set and so will all of humanity that night....
Blog from where blogging counts
250 miles northeast of San Francisco.
ACK.
Us, li'le green creatures not goin der.
Am I the only one who read that at first as "alien telescope array"?
Speaking is NOT communication
While the dishes may be useful for radio astronomy, the concept of radio SETI is so absurd at this point in evolution that its support is entirely unjustified.
The entire concept is over 40 years old and is based on a lack of understanding as to how complex species evolve. If we are to understand SETI there has to be an update of the concepts which integrate them with both modern molecular biology as well as modern computer science. The "traditional" radio astronomy researchers have generally failed to do that.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I hope they're not contracting out to any Australian or European shops to build the rest of them. There's be untold opportunity for a goal post unit mix-up.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
How to do you propose that they "prove it" then? Why don't you "prove" that it's worthwhile reading your posts and then we'll decide whether to read them.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
There is lots of space in Mojave, but who wants to live there? The personnel would much rather live at Hat Creek. I expect that getting good personnel is a more difficult problem than finding empty land in California.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Surely, any alien civilisation would be sending out 1 out of each pair of entangled photons. They would keep one and keeping changing its spin. This would allow for instantaneous communication. Obviously we would need to technology to capture one or more of these photons. How far off is this technology and is it possible theoretically? (i.e. doesn't break any laws)
These tiny arrays of dishes aren't going to show us much. We need arrays spread out across the entire solar system if we really want to see some interesting stuff. Like SWINE and OLGA
Right after I read the article I noticed a popup notice in Firefox and then got this message from VirusScan "Exploit-MhtRedir.gen".
Might want to be careful.
SETI: "Silly Effort To Investigate" coined by Stan Friedman. Total waste of time to be looking for radio signals from "aliens". Who says they have or will ever use radio signals?? Besides, they're already here, all you have to do is get your head out of your ass and go read some good books on the subject... If you laugh, you're ignorant. SETI indeed...