TA Article Update

[ViRGE]

Well, the writers have more or less been chosen, so here's what needs to be done for you lucky ones(JonB, Hellburner, and Joe O). Due to the timeframe we're working in, I'd like to see a final version of your part by Friday night, so that I can ship it off to Anand over the weekend for editing/proofreading, so that it can be put out along with the fall of /. So, if you are up to it, please have all of your articles done by Friday. Thanks guys, and here's to the downfall of /.!

 

[Hellburner]

SETI is the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, it is the extension of man's question echoing from our primordial existence "Is there anybody out there?" The modern SETI era extends back to about 1960 and today "Visionaries" from Sun, Intel, Microsoft and Disney's Imagineering pop up all over SETI's documents. All told, geeks and not government are keeping the search for aliens alive.

SETI@Home is a project involving massively parallel computation on desktop computers scattered around the world. Individuals download a continually improving screensaver or text based program that performs sophisticated analysis of SETI data. SETI@Home piggybacks its receiver under one of the 305-meter diameter Arecibo radio telescope's multiple focal points. The group extracts a limited frequency band of the signal, samples it, and writes it to a digital tape. The data on these tapes are broken up into smaller chunks which are in turn sent out to over two million participants. Since the beginning of the project volunteers have donated almost half a million years of computing time. SETI@Home has uniquely involved the public in a real scientific project in an era when the public's support of science is wavering.

Team AnandTech has been with SETI@Home since its beginning in May 1999. We are currently in 15th place among all club teams throughout the world having donated nearly 400 years worth of CPU time. AnandTech embodies a technological world that was once considered science fiction (global information networks! Virtual worlds and avatars! Computers that can beat human grand masters at chess!), the natural next step is to ponder an even further-flung future -- alien technology, intergalactic transmissions... And the small but captivating possibility that your computer will detect the faint murmur of a civilization beyond Earth once you join Team AnandTech in the SETI@Home challenge.