I ran the United program for several years on my work server, with permission from my manager. My six-person IT team also ran the program on their workstations. We accumulated lots of points, but I don't know that we ever found a cure for cancer.
I saw an interesting review of SETI on Discovery last week. One of the astronomers interviewed, who was part of the team that started the whole program, explained the enormous leaps forward recently in radio telescopes. The amount of data that can be collected is increasing exponentially, with the ability now to monitor simultaneously sever million discrete wavebands; and in a few years, billions. They are also going to be able to sweep strips of the sky, instead of concentrating on single points, using a new massive array. The upshot of these advances is that they reckon they will 'almost certainly' discover a signal within the next 20 years. I hope so - I plan to live at least long enough to hear the first alien version of News At 10.
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wasted cycles
Date: 2005-11-30 07:56 pm (UTC)I saw an interesting review of SETI on Discovery last week. One of the astronomers interviewed, who was part of the team that started the whole program, explained the enormous leaps forward recently in radio telescopes. The amount of data that can be collected is increasing exponentially, with the ability now to monitor simultaneously sever million discrete wavebands; and in a few years, billions. They are also going to be able to sweep strips of the sky, instead of concentrating on single points, using a new massive array. The upshot of these advances is that they reckon they will 'almost certainly' discover a signal within the next 20 years. I hope so - I plan to live at least long enough to hear the first alien version of News At 10.