I'm a software developer in Southern California and have joined the SETI@home project in June 1999. I've been running the SETI command line client during this time on an average of 4 Intel-based systems ranging from a Pentium 133 MHz at the slow end to a Pentium 4 1.8 GHz.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I don't know if any life exists out there, but it seems likely considering the vast number of suns and planetary systems in the universe. Whether any of this life is actually "ïntelligent" or not is the much more interresting question.
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.