The real-life quest to find E.T.
From Interesting thing of the day.com
As a card-carrying, Star Trek-watching computer geek, I have naturally known about a project called SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, for as long as I can remember. I’ve run the SETI@home screen saver on all my computers. I bought the video of the 1997 Jodie Foster film Contact, based on the novel of the same name by Carl Sagan, which was, in turn, loosely based on SETI. I’ve noticed countless SETI references in TV shows, books, newspapers, and magazines. It’s old news, one of those things everyone has at least a basic understanding of, however little knowledge they may have of the specifics, right? Well, as my wife pointed out to me today, SETI is the type of thing that simply wouldn’t impinge on the awareness of a great many intelligent, educated people, having been automatically and unconsciously filtered out by the same sort of mechanism that keeps us all from being overwhelmed by the tragedies of the daily news. And yet, whatever opinions you may have (or come to have) about this rather controversial project, I think it’s something fascinating enough—for so many reasons—that it should be part of everyone’s cultural lexicon.
---Have any of you guys ever downloaded their screensaver? Its pretty neat. You should check it out at http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Its a cool program that allows the home user to take part in SETI's search for life out there in the vast universe.---
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