There was a time when searching for ET was the exclusive playground of higher order academics or military personnel working from secret bases somewhere in the desert.  No longer is this true as the hunt for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence is now open to anyone with a PC, an Internet connection and the willingness to devote some unused CPU cycles to the effort.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI project is now on the net and the project coordinators are soliciting the assistance of net citizens in the effort to process all of the enormous chunks of radio astronomy data that are being collected on a regular basis.

The concept is that most of the time, especially when the screen saver has kicked in because you went to the fridge for a Jell-O pudding pop, your PC is more or less in idle mode.  The SETI folks have designed their software to make good use of those unused CPU cycles by putting your computer to work analyzing radio telescope data.

What do you get you ask?  Well, besides the fact that you can now spout off to that girl at the bar that you are working on the project to search for ET, you also get a fairly cool screen saver that I have found effective in inspiring many questions around the office.  When the screen saver kicks in you get a graphical representation of the data being analyzed that looks confusing enough to be cool but not cool enough to get you fired like that Pamela Anderson Lee screen shot almost did last year.

Actually there is a bit more.  You do get to be involved in a global hunt for life on other planets which may seem a bit kooky to most folks who actually have lives,

but even they must admit it’s pretty cool.  Who knows, if you actually find a message home from ET in all that radio noise you might get to be on Letterman and if that doesn’t pan out for you, you could always go on Springer and say you’re leaving your lover for someone from another planet.

If you want a more detailed scientific analysis about the project, or if you just want to download the software and enjoy the pretty colors point your browser to http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu for more info.