A high single stick in the frequency domain, a sine-like wave, an icon of the alien culture in time-frequency domain, or anything else?

Nothing definitive. The screen saver is just eye candy. It may find signals, but they first must be confirmed by your wingmen. Then they are eventually picked over by the seti servers, and determined if they are something interesting or not. Then, they may point the radio telescope back at the source, and see if the signals repeat. A determination of whether a signal is good may not occur for a lengthy time after your machine has calculated it. Since the screen saver, is just for us to have something to look at, most of us just turn it off, and let the extra computing power go to solving the equations, instead of producing eye candy.

Steve

---

Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Thanks, Steve. I have decided to run SETI only when the computer is idle and runs a screen saver. I have to enable a screen saver for security reason. (ie. lock the computer when it's not used)
So what does the screen saver visualize? Is it better to use the BOINC screen saver or an alternative one? Will SETI even start computing when an alternative screen saver runs?

Seti@home will run when it is not the default screen saver.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Nothing definitive. The screen saver is just eye candy. It may find signals, but they first must be confirmed by your wingmen. Then they are eventually picked over by the seti servers, and determined if they are something interesting or not. Then, they may point the radio telescope back at the source, and see if the signals repeat. A determination of whether a signal is good may not occur for a lengthy time after your machine has calculated it. Since the screen saver, is just for us to have something to look at, most of us just turn it off, and let the extra computing power go to solving the equations, instead of producing eye candy.

Steve

Actually it is worse than that. The screen saver [post classic] no longer displays the entire workunit's progress. So a signal could be detected but never put on your screen.

---

A high single stick in the frequency domain, a sine-like wave, an icon of the alien culture in time-frequency domain, or anything else?

1. it will not find a message, just a signal...
2. let the software just do it's job...& don't expect much!
;)

---

non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

I know it's unlikely to find an extraterritorial signal. But when I evaluate the complex math equations and upload my result, what makes it stand out if it's intetesting, either because of RFI, floating point arithmetic error, or indeed an extraterritorial signal? If a signal with relatively narrow frequency band or a strong pulse is detected, how to determine if it's a nature phenomenon, or something man-made?

...that is the function of the work that we don't see.
All we are doing is screening out the interesting signals from the rest.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Correlation techniques will make a signal pop up above the noise. Noise does not correlate--it remains as noise. It then becomes a case of demodulating the signal to extract the "message" if there is one. This could be as simple as observing a carrier that is turned on and off to transmit a digital message or frame.

I think that only repeated signals that have strong signals above the noise are said to be saved for further observation. I do not know if any such signals exist or if they have been subjected to this process. This would imply that we are in an "eaves dropping "mode and are trying to catch intra planet communications and not an interstellar communique.

If there are no intelligent civilizations within eaves dropping distance then there is less of a chance that a purposive "we are here" message would repeat. It helps in final processing for intelligence if we could anticipate the form of the modulation and it's format --say--for a video frame.

Such a message might have a preamble of counting out the first 50 numbers of Pi--then a two number transmission that would identify a frame dimension as in a digital television frame. An inter frame marker might also have to be transmitted and decoded. The content itself might be pictures of themselves and their homeland and perhaps a star map to identify their location. That's how I would send such a message using various modulation techniques.

All this is fanciful thinking--if we are not sending out such a signal then we may have no right to expect others , if they exist, to do so either.

Short answer. Nothing special.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

@Bob DeWoody.

With all respect for you.

Why being so naive all the time when it comes to a couple of things?

You have been with this project for almost 6 years, at least when it comes to your account.

Are we supposed to be here for the sake of numbers, or maybe something else?

If this project happens to be a scientific experiment, why not start up with the basics when it comes to given knowledge and next trying to seek answers and find solutions based on what we already happen to know about?

There is always a separation or difference between science and science fiction, but in the world of science, the UFO phenomenon is supposed to be a real one.

Many galaxies, like M87 in Virgo and before checking, also quasars as well are radio sources in the sky.

Also the Crab Nebula, M1, in our own galaxy, which is a supernova remnant.

Their distances could be some 40-70 million light years or more, at least when it comes to M87.

We are able to detect this galaxy as being a radio source because of the strength, or power of the source.

My guess is that this perhaps should not be discussed right here in the open, but I could post a little more about this somewhere else.

But the fact is that officially, neither Seti@home, or Arecibo, is meant to be used for the purpose of trying to communicate with possible extraterrestrials in our neighborhood.

With that, possibly meaning within our own solar system.

One of my most recent finished tasks was having a subnumber of 255 at the end.

Possibly only a coincidence, but either some of these tasks may be having slightly better results when it comes to numbers, or these tasks may rather be some leftovers or hanging tasks at the end of each tape being processed.

So, if such a task ran for some 2 seconds in the Manager and finished with a spike count of 30, but only a blank line in SMV, I next would be looking at the angle range for such a task.

So the fact is that we are still supposed to be only listening. I have never heard about Arecibo being used as a radar sending or receiving device, as opposed to a radio detection device for analog signals.

If Arecibo was being used in order to detect a radar frame of a possible invisible or "cloaked" object situated in space, you next assume that the returned signal being received back would be that of something that possibly could be present in space, but not necessarily anything more.

The fact is that at least when it comes to some people, E.T. could at times pop up and say hello.

Whoever these beings are supposed to be, they most likely do not walk on two legs and are having heads on top of their bodies.

Compare with the ants building hives in nature along trees. If I am not wrong, they always build their hives facing south, in the direction of the sun. But from my own experience, I find this not always to be true either.

Like crocodiles, ants are not supposed to be having any conscience. They are only a part of nature where such a thing is not needed in order for their survival.

Those space travelers aboard the spaceship visiting Jupiter in the movie "2001 - A Space Odyssey" and its follow up, were encountering a "Monolith" in space, which was supposed to imply intelligence.

While the ending of this movie is either speculative, or to most people may be having more questions than answers and at least when it comes to be does not give any definitive answer at all, the subject of both UFO's and at least possible motherships for now most likely are left to only speculation.

Therefore any conclusions that we might be able to get should be based on the way we are supposed to carry out our research and not be related to any findings or knowledge based on neither number or speculative thinking.

Chill Bluestar. I was merely responding to the original poster's question who asked what you will see on the screensaver if by chance you are the lucky person whose computer first detects a potential incoming signal. As far as I know my answer is correct, nothing special. As far as the value of the seti@home project is concerned I, for one, think it is one of the most important things the general public can do to in the search for ET.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

so what will we see on our 'computer's Tasks' if it discovers an alien message?

Nothing. It would be published much later after many scientists have verified it.

---

so what will we see on our 'computer's Tasks' if it discovers an alien message?

AFAIK Seti@home is not looking for messages. There will be no "greetings humans" that pops up on your screen. Seti@home software is just looking for signals that may indicate alien origin. Those signals wont be selected or analyzed on your computer. You will have no way to know if you picked up alien signals since nothing will show on your computer.

Right now we are not even analyzing the data yet so it may be years before we find interesting signals. These signals have a much higher chance of being a natural source than of alien origin. Once Seti@home starts to analyze the data it will have recheck signal sources many times to even confirm an interesting signal. A signal of interest will then have to be analyzed many times to determine where, what, why it originated from.

I joined seti@home in 1999 and 17 years later we have barely even taken our first baby step. We are not even sure we are close to even knowing how to look for signals never mind finding them. This is a long haul operation maybe one of generations to even learn how to look, never mind find. Mankind spent hundred of years attempting to fly with many many failures. Seti@home is no where near even being at the Wright brother stage IMO.

Take pleasure in the journey rather than the destination as we may not live long enough to witness CONTACT

Bob

---

Sometimes I wonder, what happened to all the people I gave directions to?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SETI@home classic workunits 4,321
SETI@home classic CPU time 22,169 hours

We know how to look for intelligence in received signals. Perhaps we are not doing so . Planet hunting might very well prove that there are no likely planets within eaves-dropping distance. Repeated signals suggest eavesdropping on Radar TV etc. If there were any then they should have been analyzed by now.

Rejecting one-time signals for analysis will get us nowhere in my opinion. With todays low cost of high speed computing engines there is no excuse for not thoroughly analyzing each and every signal that is outside of a known clutter map and above the cosmic noise.

Trick question; the government will know before you, and you'll see nothing, know nothing. :)

But in all seriousness, you won't know anything off the bat.[/code]

Trick question; the government will know before you, and you'll see nothing, know nothing. :)

But in all seriousness, you won't know anything off the bat.[/code]

Where's the question?

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Eh, Kyle.

Are you speaking for the politicians, or are are you speaking for the scientists?