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SETI Finally Finds Something
QuatumCrypto writes "SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the volunteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far nothing noteworthy has comeout of this massive project... that is until today! One of the volunteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server. After getting back the laptop his wife said, 'I always knew that a geek would make a great husband.'"
I was about to post a snappy reply, but then I noticed your nick name. With truth in advertising like that, we can't be too surprised with your posts...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
"Kimberly's writings were safe, and the thieves didn't appear to have broken into her e-mail or other personal folders."
How, exactly, do you break into a personal folder? Is double-clicking it called "breaking" in these days? I thought the conventional term was "opening"...
Well, as Bill Watterson observed, "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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Don't expect magic where you can't even see competence.
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
"So far nothing noteworthy has come out of this massive project"
Dismissed a trend-setting project with just that one line. Of course, it does not matter that SETI@Home showed the power of volunteer computing for the first time, led to new advances in distributed computing, motivated Grid computing and PlanetLab among others and spun off BOINC, an open source project that serves as a base for similar @Home projects.
But, of course, it no find me any ALIEN!!! Bah,
This has precisely what advantage over not letting the thief access any part of your system directly?
Uh...being able to track down your laptop would be the advantage.
Would it also trigger mindless fear for you if the OP used a CGI script on a web server? The potential security problems there would be slightly greater than the no-input login script.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Uhh. The first thing any idiot thief would do would be install Windows over my GNU/Linux system, not run it happily using a login/pass they don't have until I track her down.
That was a truthful headline. Something WAS found using SETI@home. If SETI@home had found evidence of intelligent life, the headline would've said so. As if the truth of the headline wasn't enough, the huge foot icon should've been a big indication that it's humorous. Furthermore, you are the exact kind of person who needs this kind of article. Laugh a little bit. Life's short, may as well enjoy it.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
I'm thinking more along the lines of a simple and stupid daemon that listens for input and writes it onto the disk. Advantage being that the local end is the only one that has anything to do with the file system, so you have less variables in play.
No, someone copied the Wikipedia entry without citing...
But then, that's typical slashdot...
It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
It pains me to see how many mod points were mercilessly wasted on this pointless article. (pre-emptive strike) In Soviet Russia mod points waste you!
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?