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I got an email from Arthur C. Clarke

Brainache

Nasty Brutish and Tall
Brainache
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I know it's a form letter, but still I get a bit of a buzz imagining the last survivor of SF's "Big Three" sending an email to little old me.

I guess some people here see the whole SETI business as a pile of woo, but I'm still of the opinion that if ETI is out there, this is how we'll find it.


Dear Andrew,

SETI@home needs your help. The SETI@home team has accomplished much in the
past 6 months. We have successfully deployed the "enhanced" version of
SETI@home. The new seven beam data recorder has been installed at Arecibo (the
world's largest radio telescope) and is recording the data that will be
analyzed in the next phase of SETI@home.

But there is still far more to be done. We would like to be able to sift
through the results returned by your computers in order to identify candidates
more rapidly so we can re-observe them. This rapid response validation system
would also give you the ability to see the results your computers have/has
returned in more detail.

To keep SETI@home operating for the next year, and to provide these new
capabilities, will require approximately $540,000. Currently SETI@home is
entirely funded by donations from people like you.

We hope that you will consider making a donation to SETI@home at this time.
You can make a secure donation by credit card on our website
(http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php). Instructions for donation by
check or money order are there as well. Unless you specify otherwise, your
donation will be noted by a star icon next to your username on the SETI@home
pages and your username will appear on our list of donors. If you do not wish
to have this recognition you may indicate that as well.

You can check on our fundraising progress by visiting our main site at
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu.

Thank you for helping the search for ET, and for considering a donation to
SETI@home.

Sincerely,

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (Author and Futurist)
Dan Werthimer (Chief Scientist, SETI@home)

For more information about how to donate:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php
Click to expand...
 
very cool. Do you know if other useful complex data analysis projects are adopting the @home approach, for example, in analyzing the human genome, other health data analysis, weather analysis and prediction, etc.?
 
Dave1001 said:
very cool. Do you know if other useful complex data analysis projects are adopting the @home approach, for example, in analyzing the human genome, other health data analysis, weather analysis and prediction, etc.?
Click to expand...

Studying protien folding (folding@home) for medical purposes is being done, and we even have a JREF team!

Edit: By the way, Brainiache, that's very cool. My girlfriend was lucky enough to have tea* with him at his house in Sri Lanka once, and says he's a really nice, quite funny, man. I wish I'd had that opportunity!

*Actually, I don't remember the story well enough to know if it was tea, but given that it's Sri Lanka, I just figured.
 
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Spiffy indeed. Sure it wasn't written to you personally, but it's the intent that matters. It reminds me of how my older brother has Carl Sagan and Charles Darwin as 'friends' on his myspace page.
 
That was cool, I know I will remember meeting Randi and the few moments that my wife and I spent with him at TAM for a long time.

As to SETI, I am increasingly pessimistic that anything will ever be detected. This is only a semi-informed opinion and it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the people who are trying but I think the negative results coupled with other information are enough to suggest strongly that technologically advanced life is too rare in the universe for us to expect a civilization near enough to us to detect.
 
davefoc said:
As to SETI, I am increasingly pessimistic that anything will ever be detected. This is only a semi-informed opinion and it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the people who are trying but I think the negative results coupled with other information are enough to suggest strongly that technologically advanced life is too rare in the universe for us to expect a civilization near enough to us to detect.
Click to expand...

Well, that's science for ya. I mean, I could have told you back in the 70s that there weren't any civilizations near enough in space for us to detect. But you woudn't have believed me. Now we've looked.... Unfortunately, sometimes the best we can do is look for something that isn't there....
 
I once had a message on my answering machine from Harlan Ellison. Really. Not a fake or a mass mailing thing. To me personally.
 
Piscivore said:
"Once had"? Didn't you record it?
Click to expand...

I didn't keep it. :(

I forgot about the autorewind on the answering machine I had then, and that was all she wrote. Or he said.

And by the way, under the circumstances, his being snarky would have been appropriate. :)
 
drkitten said:
Well, that's science for ya. I mean, I could have told you back in the 70s that there weren't any civilizations near enough in space for us to detect. But you woudn't have believed me. Now we've looked.... Unfortunately, sometimes the best we can do is look for something that isn't there....
Click to expand...

Yeah I guess the point is that if we don't look, we can't find. We still haven't covered that much territory though so in my opinion the jury is still out.

Also I would add that even if we search everywhere and find nothing, that in itself is a result that teaches us something about the universe(or the likelihood of technological societies or something).

@Dave 1001: I think that Berkely site linked to in the email has info on other projects they are currently running.
 
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