Complex Solutions to Simple Problems

…they sure do. I just got an email reminding me that is has been 516 days since I last returned a work unit. SETI@Home wants me back and therefore they send me an email gently prompting me to return to SETI@Home.
I just might. But before I do that, I have some considerations to share too:

1. I signed up for SETI@Home because I really liked the idea of participating in the search for LGM (little green men).
2. I stopped using the SETI@Home screensaver due to lack of eyecandy. The Matrix Screensaver is so much cooler…
3. I also stopped using SETI@Home due to lack of blog-candy: blog widgets, support buttons, etc

Now I get this email:

Dear PÃ¥l:

We’d like to invite you to reconnect with SETI@home. Our records show that you’ve been with SETI@home since 22 November 2002, but it’s been 516 days since you last returned a work unit. We want you back, and here’s why:

These are exciting times for SETI@home. Last year we implemented a new SETI@home data recorder at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. This recorder is attached to a state-of-the-art multibeam receiver, so we can now measure signals from 7 positions on the sky at once, with greater sensitivity to weak signals compared to the data from the flat feed antenna we’ve used since 1999. We’ve greatly increased the sensitivity of our data analysis, and the likelihood that we’ll find the first signs of extraterrestrial life. We’re also close to releasing a second application, Astropulse, which will look for extremely short pulses of astronomical (and possibly intelligent) origin.

With these new developments comes an increase in required computing power, for which we depend on people like you. We hope you will consider signing back on with SETI@home, and help in this wonderful scientific venture.

If you experienced problems running SETI@home, please try any of the resources listed at: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_help.php including the new BOINC Online Help System which lets you talk live, over the Internet, with a help volunteer: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/help.php

We thank you for your involvement in SETI@home, and hope that you rejoin us in our search for signals from other worlds.

– The SETI@home team

To not get any more email from SETI@home, please click here.

SETI@home – http://setiathome.berkeley.edu
Space Sciences Laboratory / 7 Gauss Way
University of California, Berkeley, CA 92740-7450

…and I wonder:

1. Where did you want me to go? Really. Please submit a URL!
2. What is my username? After all, It is 516 days since our last happy hour.
3. Where did you want me to go again?
4. It’s been 516 days and there is still no eyecandy, no blog support, no nothing – no wait – there’s a Facebook application -  *nice*…