BOINC@Australia has increased its rank from 184 to 61 in a matter of weeks 48 in just 6.5 weeks and we're still increasing our output. So if your Austalian, join in


Join here BOINC@Australia now! Unless your already a member of another team.

Although, if your thinking of changing, please looks us over.

Mike

Dadgum!!! Did I get you all excited? You just posted your highest daily points and closed the gap by a huge 12,226 points. If you all keep doing that, you're going to completely embarrass the HomeBrewers.

At that particular rate, our lead drops down to just 22.6 days. It'll definitely be hard to beat you to the top 400 now, but we're still going to try.

Good job, though. Congratulations.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

What is "RAC"? Is is something like DC-Vault? I notice that BOINC@Australia is not listed there, but BOINC@Heidelberg and ...@India is. You might want to list your team there, too.

As for SETI, far be it for me to question what anyone else does, but let me ask about that. I understand that we are searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, but are there any ancillary benefits for science and mankind while we do that? I know that there was a lot of spin off technology from NASA that we all benefit from in our daily lives. I'm wondering, with so much disease that needs our attention, why some folks give priority to SETI. Let me be philosophical for a minute. I know that there are folks who are convinced that there must be intelligent life in outer space; I will concede that that is a possibility, but on the other hand there is nothing logical to lead to their conclusion based on all that we know and on commonly accepted theories about the universe (Big Bang and a limited universe -- neither of which I accept anyway). If we accept Big Bag and a limited universe (that it somehow turns around into itself so that one would return to his point of origin even if traveling in a perfectly straight line), then evolution has had a finite time with finite resources (opportunities), and it is just as likely that life might not have ever developed anywhere, including here on earth, as anything else. Therefore, the fact that it did develope here establishes only that it is possible that it developed somewhere else, but it lends nothing whatsoever to probability. Moreover, that life might have developed somewhere else a billion years ago doesn't mean that it still exists, or that it ever evolved into an intelligent being, or that it would ever care to communicate with earth if it could (if any UFOs were/are, indeed, extraterrestrial, then if they are already here why haven't they communicated with mankind and our scientists, instead of allegedly abducting people for experiments, etc.). So, I'm just wondering if the SETI group is just a bunch of StarTrek fans, etc. Of course, I'd rather have them crunching for SETI than not crunching at all, but if it's not likely to improve our lives, then it is still wasted resources that could be spent on something that we know can help mankind in the very near future. So the bottom line is that I personally urge any of your team members who come here to World Community Grid for the mere purpose of improving your numbers somewhere, to please stay here where your computers are needed for important medical research.

My personal beliefs (I can't prove my theory but no one can disprove it, either), which are, to me, only logical, is that space, matter, and energy are infinite, just like time. But even believing that, I have no reason to believe in ET. I believe that life was created by God and just didn't happen by accident; if that is true, then it would be up to God to decide where and when life would exist. He might have decided that ET is out there, or maybe not. On the other hand, if life happened by accident, then there would be some degree of probability to it, and I'd have to believe that with an infinite amount of time and infintie resources (space, matter, and energy), that there would have to be an infinite number of life forms.

I hope I haven't stepped on too many toes. And in closing, I will point out that yesterday your team closed the gap on HomeBrewers by only 6,945 points. At that rate, that increases our lead on your team to 38.75 days.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

Thanks for the explanation, Ady. Aside from the pursuit of knowledge, I also have serious concerns about the wisdom of trying to make contact with possible alien beings. I think it is a HUGE and DANGEROUS assumption that any such beings will be benign. Just looking at nature here on earth, and how one species will frequently try to supplant another, how can we safely believe that inviting aliens to our world would, in any way, be of any advantage to us and not risk our annihilation. How can we conclude or assume that other beings will be humane, or share any of our moral values. Being intelligent doesn't necessarily equate with being friendly, fair, kind, compassionate, merciful, selfless, or even with being interested in anything here on earth except for its land and resources. Makes me think of the story about friendly aliens who visit earth and are taking people back to their planet, and they have a book titled "How to Serve Man", and it turns out that it's a cookbook. When I read about the spacecraft we launched (can't remember its name), with information about our planet and mankind, with clues as to how to locate us, I thought ... seriously ... that those idiots might have doomed us. I don't think there is anyone who could seriously dispute that possibility.

Cheers.

Bill Velek