re: #107 Dr Lizardo

So, I see in the more tabloidish media that SETI has observed a signal in the direction of HD164595 and naturally, the usual suspects - guys with crazy hair, for example - are going gaga. Most likely, it’s nothing.

Personally, I think receiving a genuine, bona fide artificial signal from somewhere else, let’s say, within a 200 light year radius, would be incredible news, to put it mildly. Such a day would completely change our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

This little snippet, the opening of The X-Files episode “Little Green Men”, remains perhaps my favorite, because it is so nicely understated. I remember watching this one years and years ago, and it sent a thrill of excitement down my spine, mostly because by saying so very little, it said so much.

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Video

Now if something like that ever happened……..well, holy shit. There would be endless speculation and fascination; I have little doubt there would also be a good many people filled with the most unspeakable terror.

i ran seti@home on a bunch of computers for a lot of years
distributed cooperative computing - what a concept