SETI@Home

What does SETI stand for?
S.E.T.I. stands for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Whats the @Home part all about?
SETI@Home means that the searching for SETI is also done by people like you and me, where owning a computer and allowing a little time for data to be searched via your computer helps a great deal.

What is Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence?
Is simple terms, beings that have evolved like us in regards to communications and advanced self-awareness and the ability to reach beyond their own environment to seek out additional sources of undiscovered life.

Why does SETI need our help?
They need our help basically because we have one big ass sky, and the information and data retrieved from that sky would take years to search through for a handful of scientists etc. so they asked for our help to lower the loads and to possibly find a source of life faster than would have been possible before.

How do we search the data?
We do it by running a little piece of software which downloads a data "unit" from the internet gained from radio telescopes directly from SETI, each unit is a tiny piece of our big ass sky, this is then searched through, and then the information found is then send back when the unit is completed, then the process starts again with a different unit.

This must be a CPU resource hog, will it effect my system?
I've been running SETI@Home from nearly day one, even back when my system was nothing more than a 200MHz computer, it still made little or no difference to my system stability or performance. It works at full load of the CPU yes, but if other programs are called it reduces loads to allow those other pieces of software to function as normal, hell I run SETI@Home while playing games etc.

I might not want SETI@Home to run while I'm working on the computer, can it run at other times?
Yes, it does install as default to run as your screen saver, to ensure its not running in the background while you are wanting to use it, these options can be changed within the SETI@Home client.

What options is there in regards to users for SETI@Home?
You have a few options, firstly you have to create an account for the client, you are only asked for a valid email address, this is so they can send your password for accounts etc. This allows you to log in and check statistics about your account etc. as well as maintaining it. More than one person can use your account, this will increase your statistics in regards to data units completed etc. You can join groups of other SETI@Home users as well, including mine if you wish, details are following later.

What happens of they find life and get a responce?
They will turn round to the disbelievers and shout, "NAH NAH NI NAH NAH, I TOLD YOU SO!"