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CrowdSETI

Submitted by: johnandPeter
Created: Mar 22, 2007, 9:38 am

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The Idea

Tap into the vast wisdom of the crowd to identify the most likely place to find signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Where are our interstellar neighbours? Where in the sky should we focus our "listening" efforts? Over 5 million computer users in 200 countries have contributed their computing power to the SETI at home project. I would ask everyone to suggest a point in the sky. The average point will be the best guess possible. And maybe, just maybe we can help find those neighbours.
As Jodi Foster says in Contact, we should "take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history."

The Logo

I thought of this idea when I was...

Comments Posted

Brenden Posted: March 22, 2007, 4:56 pm

sorry I want someone who knows what they are doing to do that

generic_idea_machine Posted: March 23, 2007, 5:28 pm

I dont think the average SETI/BOINC user is that conversant in astronomy

johnandPeter Posted: March 24, 2007, 11:49 am

idea_machine,

they probably aren't. but the average person can point to the sky, they can find their favourite star or constellation, can't they? this project would therefore need some tools to allow people to translate their guesses into coordinates. online sky maps, celestial coordinate finders, etc... i don't have the technical details worked out, but i think this idea could inspire a lot of people...

E115 Posted: April 16, 2007, 4:55 am

Been done and quite I while back, I remember running this back when I was in uni 5-6 years ago. Check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home

Making cash off of finding extra terrestrials might be difficult too!

The idea of using all the idle computers via a screen saver has some merit though� If you can come up with a process intensive task that could be farmed out. Pay people a few cents per module processed, its just pennies but it peenies they can earn for when their computer is idle!

techguy Posted: April 17, 2007, 8:35 pm

I'm not a complete expert on wisdom of crowds, but doesn't it assume that people have some expertise in that subject? I don't think most people have that.

Rizal Posted: May 5, 2007, 8:12 am

dont like this at all

AdvocatusDiaboli Posted: May 5, 2007, 8:24 am

Soooooooooo old.... Seti@Home

johnandPeter Posted: May 26, 2007, 6:23 am

Many of you seem to be missing the point. The idea is to use Crowd Wisdom, raw brain power not computing, to find a good place in the sky to look. This isn't about crunching data...

Hello!

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