http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18516-seti-opens-up-its-data-to-ci...
You are officially invited to join the search for extraterrestrial life. And no, that doesn't mean you should head to Kansas and lie in a cornfield awaiting the mothership to scoop you up. All you have to do is log on to SETIQuest.org, which went live on Wednesday. The site's launch was announced at the TED 2010 conference currently underway in Long Beach, California.
SETIQuest is the product of astronomer Jill Tarter's TED Prize wish. After being awarded the TED Prize last year, Tarter was given the opportunity to make a single wish before an auditorium full of the top names in technology and design. Tarter wished that they would "empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company".
With SETIQuest, Tarter and TED are making that happen. The website will make vast amounts of SETI data available to the public for the first time. It will also publish the SETI Institute's signal-detection algorithm as open source code, inviting brilliant coders and amateur techies to make it even better.
"With available cloud storage and processing resources, we can provide digital signal processing experts and students with a lot of raw data … and invite them to develop new algorithms that can find other types of signals that we are now missing," the website explains.
Even if you're not a coder, you can still take the opportunity to search for ET using nothing more than the naked eye. "Citizen scientists" can visually search the data for anything that looks suspiciously like something other than white noise. Should you spot something anomalous, alert the global community. If enough citizen scientists agree that something looks fishy, their collective concern will direct SETI's telescopes to zoom in on the questionable patch of sky.
Who knows – you just might play a part in a discovery that changes history.
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Seems like back in early 90's this was going on too. We used to work with Digital Equipment Corp (DEC, who's is now HP/Compaq) and the apps engineer had a TSR (remember those??) that would crunch numbers on your computer when it is sitting idle (it would download a bunch of data from their website when you log on, and while you're doing nothing, it would do all the math) Question is, if we're pretty confident that there IS life out there, then why are we setting up something like this? To look for life? Sounds like they're putting the cart before the horse, aren't they? Or, it's something to keep a bunch of people busy, looking for the 'needle in the haystack'. Just trying to find out who's making money on this deal. :)
Would really be nice if our gov't will go ahead, spill the beans, full disclosure, and hopefully we'll be back on the right path, but unfortunately, don't believe that the general population is ready for something that big just yet. Can you imagine what could happen? Rioting? People just flipping out.. staring like zombies. The walking dead. Maybe that's what the Bible was referring to. Who knows.
Pretty big problem actually. And it all happened because someone lied a long time ago and wanted control, and now, they're having to come clean . Truth always comes out eventually.
Peace,
Jeff
