I turned my hobby into a career. Now I work on computer systems for the US Navy. When I'm home I'm working on my network or looking at SETI... just to see what's new in the program, or get into random religious/philisophical/ religious arguements with my friends.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
Odds are in the favor of extraterrestrial life elsewhere, so what's a minor program in the background to look.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.