My name is Mark Flint and I'm from England. I'm 38, married, a Sales Manager for a large software company although my background is technical -- I was a developer in a previous life.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I run SETI@Home because you never know what is out there - I believe that we are not alone in this vast universe and SETI might just find proof.
I also run SETI@Home because it makes use of the trillions of unused computer cycles made in between typed keystrokes or whilst I step away from the keyboard. I'm glad to donate these cycles to SETI@Home.
I've recently switched to the BOINC version which was incredibly painful. I presume a large majority of users of SETI Classic (i.e. a million or more) are simple home or office users running a Windows environment. The QA of the BOINC version leaves a lot to be desired with respect to this group of users. They are a valuable resource and the lack of a smooth automated migration will mean a lot of the resource is lost, possibly forever. So my suggestion is to spend some effort in getting the migration automated and idiot proof for the standard Windows platform user.
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.
