I’m about halfway through my vacation and it’s been pretty pleasant so far. I’m closing in on sixty pages with my little project and I hope to wrap it up soon. I’m also nearly finished with this 900-page monster of a novel that I’ve been reading.
My computer has been running Seti@Home for a few years now. For those of you not in the know, it’s a program that analyzes small chunks of data from the Arecibo telescope for signals that might be originating from extraterrestrial civilizations. The program runs as a screensaver on millions of computers around the world, so in essence we’re all parts of one big supercomputer. Anyway, I just read an article stating that they will be taking a closer look at the top 150 signals. Whether or not they actually find something remains to be seen, but I think this one of the most exciting ways for the average person to participate in real science. People give me funny looks when I explain the project to them, but I like to think intelligence is not limited to this little pale blue dot of ours. And I get tired of people lumping this with X-files crap like cow mutilations and abductions. I liked the show, but I don’t believe aliens have ever (and probably will never) come to our out-of-the-way corner of the galaxy. But that doesn’t mean we’re alone.
Some people believe in God. I believe in the Drake Equation.
