Hacker News
SETI@Home was the coolest thing
23 points by b112
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7 comments
I still remember it decades ago, sitting at home, staring at graphics on my screen, staring at graphs of it processing data.
I felt like I was contributing to something. And for the time and the era that it was in, the graphics were cool. The graphs were cool.
The guy who thought that up should get an award. What a way to take a non-profit program, and turn it into something of beauty. What are way to engage the public!
It was groundbreaking, new and unique And in me, it just produces fond memories.
This seems to be missing from the modern web. I think it's almost like a small town feel, that flare of uniqueness that you get when you know everybody in the town. The web is just gone, past that point, never to return.
fiftyacorn
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I miss the old days. I remember there being an experimental one to break i think 40k encryption to get everyone to up their level
spl757
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SETI@Home used unused CPU in the form of a screensaver to comb through data sets that came from the famous, but now destroyed, Aricebo radio telescope. Such a shame what happened to it.
pseingatl
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I remember that some signal captures were deemed worthy of further investigation. What happened?
hash0
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Isn't there something similar available today, but with protein folding?