| Subject: Life On Other Planets??? |
Author:
WordWeaver
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Date Posted: 08:09:04 10/26/04 Tue
Hello Everyone,
This is my first post on this board.
Allow me to ask everyone a question: Is there intelligent life in Outer Space? Are we really alone here on Earth, or did God create life elsewhere as well?
Well as I am sure you know, that is a question which people have been asking themselves for a very long time. I know it is something which I have likewise pondered for a number of years, since I was a kid actually, many years ago.
Well, since a few years ago, some people decided to find out the answer to that intriguing question. That is what the SETI@home project is all about. Some of you here have probably heard about it.
For those of you who are not familiar with it, SETI stands for "Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence". What the SETI@home project does, is it takes data collected by the radio telescope located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and analyzes it for repetitious radio signals at certain frequencies, which may possibly be indicative of intelligent extraterrestrial life. To date, after a number of years, they have found nothing definitive.
At any rate, the folks at the University of California at Berkeley, (who also brought us the legendary "After Dark" screensavers), invented a new way of analyzing data, whereby, instead of using a super-computer to crunch the data on their campus, (or "crunching the numbers"), they distribute packets of data, called "work units", or WU's for short, to regular people like you and me, who want to help them with the project. In this way, they have in effect created a super-computer which is made up of thousands of personal computers which are scattered all over the world. This form of computing is called "Distributed Computing", or DC for short. Some people also refer to it as "Network Computing". Naturally, this form of computing speeds up the process of analyzing the data significantly.
As of October of 2004, there are over 50,000 active participants in the SETI@home project, and over 5 million people have registered to date. The work load is distributed to all of these people by means of a small free program which each participant installs on his or her computer. This program, which is called the BOINC Client, (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), works as either a regular clickable program, or as a screensaver, and there are versions for both Macintosh and Windows machines, as well as for a few other platforms.
As I said, the BOINC client, as well as the original SETI@home "classic" client are absolutely free. You can download the latest version of the client for your particular platform at the SETI@home website.
As far as rules and obligations are concerned, there are no rules regarding when or how much you have to run the program. It is entirely up to you. If you set it to screensaver mode, it will only crunch data when you are not using your computer, and it is sitting idle, but still on. In other words, whether you run it as a regular program, or as a screensaver, it only uses CPU cycles that you are not using. That means that it will not interfere with any other work that you may be doing on your computer. It only uses the computer power that you are not using. Of course, the faster your computer is, the more data the program will be able to crunch in a shorter amount of time; and, if you happen to own a dual processor machine, that will give you even more of an advantage over others who may have single processor computers.
Some people might find the SETI@home project to be dull, boring science. Well, the people who run SETI@home thought of that possibility; and so, to make it a little more interesting and exciting, they introduced the concept of teams. Teams are where people who have common interests join together in order to collect more credits. Credits are given based upon how many work units you, (or your team), have completed, as well as by how many of those completed units are verified by other SETI@home participants. In other words, a quality control system has been implemented so that results are not validated until at least two or three participants submit the same results for the same work unit. So the idea behind SETI@home teams is basically to create an atmosphere of friendly competition; all of which serves the greater purpose of getting more people to crunch the data. There are school teams, university teams, business teams, and many others. You will find them listed on the teams page at the SETI@home website.
Now, this is where you and I enter the picture. Some people have attempted to form Christian teams in the past, but from the looks of it, it seems like most of them have floundered and fallen apart after a while. So, after pondering the idea for a while, I decided to start a new Christian SETI@home team called "Curious Christians". At the present, the only requirement I have set is that any potential member of our team must be a dedicated Bible-believing Christian. You can be of any denomination you like. All that matters to me is that you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I am a non-denominational Christian myself, and so the idea here, is to bring together as many Christians as possible to form what we might call one "super team" of Christians who want to participate in the SETI@home project.
Some of you might be wondering why I, a Bible-believing Christian, would become involved in a project which would seek to prove whether or not intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. Well, one reason is because, like millions of other people around the globe, I am curious; and I am sure that some of you here are as well. Whether or not God created intelligent life elsewhere is really an open question, if we can be honest with ourselves. Also, there is an element of excitement and fun to the SETI@home project.
Do I personally believe that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, or that we will someday make contact with it? Those are rather profound questions which merit in-depth responses. If you would really like to know what I think, then I encourage you to read some of the articles. I am not allowed to advertise our website here due to this board's rules, so let just say that you can also read my personal profile at the SETI@home website in order to see what some of my current views are.
Of course, it would be dishonest of me to say that curiosity, fun and excitement are my only motivations for joining the SETI@home project. Being an evangelical-minded Christian, it is also my hope that, in obedience to Jesus' commandment to let our light shine before men, (Matthew 5:16), I might be able to share the Good News of Salvation through Jesus Christ with other participants of the SETI@home project. As I noted a moment ago, once you join the project, you get your own profile page where you can put a photo of yourself, (which is entirely optional), as well as tell other SETI members about yourself. In my case, I have used my personal profile as an opportunity to be a Christian witness to others. In similar fashion, as a member of the SETI@home messageboard, I have also created my own signature, which I also use as an open witness of my faith. This signature, which uses an image I created on my computer, also has a link back to our Endtime Prophecy Net website.
So you see, regardless of what your personal theological views are regarding intelligent extraterrestrial life, joining our "Curious Christians" SETI@home team is another way for you to be able to be a witness to others of your Christian faith, if you are willing. If you do decide to join us, you will also be able to use our special "Curious Christians" logo as part of your signature, should you choose to participate in the SETI@home messageboard.
If you would like to join the "Curious Christians" SETI@home team, please go to the URL below. Near the bottom of the page, before the links table, you will find a URL which will take you to a page on the SETI@home website where you can provide a few bits of information in order to set up your "Curious Christians" account. After you have set up your account with our team, you will need to install the BOINC client on your machine. If you encounter any difficulty in doing that, please let me know by email, and either I, (if you are a Mac user), or another member of our team, will help you out:
http://www.endtimeprophecy.net/SETI-At-Home/index.html
Thank-you so much for considering joining our team! I appreciate it!
The WordWeaver
webmaster@endtimeprophecy.net
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