h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

 Just installed Seti@home. It makes lots of nice graphs on your screen that you won't understand, but I suppose if it didn't have a display you'd think it wasn't doing anything at all.
The signal is processed using fourier analysis. A maths process that once you hear of, turns up behind the scenes all over the place. As I understand it is a distant cousin of logarithms. Logs and exponential processes are both mathematically very simple, yet seem to baffle (if not frighten) a large proportion of the people who get confronted with them.
The process of Seti@home reminds me of those adverts for electric pads that will exercise your body and give you a toned abdomen whilst you watch a video and eat pizza. In this case the gain for no pain is the discovery of extraterestrial life, slightly more plausible than me achieving a flat stomach.
Now its unlikely to turn up the goods, but every guide minded researcher should join in with their own PC, we may just find a ready market for copies of our publication.
 

SETI is a crock of garbage, and I should know, I'm an astrophysist.

SETI takes up valuable telescope time in an attempt to find patterns in a particularly noisy band of light.

Sorry, I'm still a little bitter that they have funding and a job

You're probably right. But it is something for my computer to do. Keeps them off the streets and all that. If you know of a better use I can put my computer to while its got nothing to do, I'd be interested.
Anyone else want to join in, 101 uses for an idle computer.

I agree with you that it makes nice patterns and everything but it also makes nice wallpaper on my pc as it jams the system up occasionly