SETI@Home

Yesterday, for some reason, I received an email from SETI@Home. It's a project I used to participate in, the last time I had a computer that was left on for significant amounts of idle time (which was when I last lived in Brighton), but I've not contributed for a while. I don't know why they happened to email me yesterday (it looked automated, but there must have been some reason why it picked that moment to send), but it was well timed, because once again I have always-on internet access, so once again I am leaving my computer on for significant periods of time when I'm not directly using it.

Anyway, I've installed the program, because I like the idea of contributing all that idle processor time to something useful, but I wonder if the SETI programme is the best recipient of those clock cycles. I am very interested in the SETI programme's aims, but the specific work they are using SETI@Home for is such a longshot that it's likely to run forever without finding anything really useful. There used to be an artificial life distributed computing project - Golem@home - along similar lines, which had the advantage of not only being especially cool, but also testing a controversial hypothesis (so even a failure is a useful result), but also clearly enough in my own field that I might even one day use its data or be directed by its findings in my own work, but that experiment is finished. Still, there must be other people using this sort of distributed computing to attack other problems - any suggestions?

posted @ 9:53 AM -

Wi-Fi, at last

I am writing this from my parents' rather lovely garden. This simple fact makes the immense amount of time I've wasted getting Wi-Fi to work over the past week worth it....

posted @ 11:16 AM -

Lost in the post, again

I was complaining recently about the sending of passports in the post, but it turns out that worse things happen. At least I've never had to send a heart in the post.

posted @ 10:26 AM -

Pen Hadow, who had been stranded on drifting ice near the North Pole for a week, has just been rescued.

Update at 6:21: if you are interested you can in fact inform yourself on his website.

posted @ 11:14 AM -

Alf Poier is a genius

I know I'm a few days behind, but I have only just seen the video and his website.

Of course if I wasn't such a respectable, law-abiding citizen I could probably get hold of some his other songs via a file-sharing service, but I'll just have to wait until the Eurovision-generated fuss dies down and he can make the music on his website available again.

posted @ 8:02 PM -

Lost in the post

I have always had serious concerns about sending passports in the post. Occasionally it is just unavoidable, but wherever possible I try to deliver mine in person. I had always thought this was simply paranoia, and I've even been getting less uptight about this lately. It seems I'm not so crazy after all, though, because now I see that in the UK 3,000 passports were lost in the post last year. It's bad enough that this represents 3,000 people being inconcenvienced by an excessively lax system, but it's also 3,000 easy opportunities for fraud handed to malfeasants on a plate at a time when the government is using concerns about security to justify giving unprecedented powers to the police.

posted @ 7:47 PM -

I wonder how Teens Against Tobacco Use feel about the high profile of certain Russian schoolgirl lesbians.

posted @ 10:14 AM -

Great cities

London, Brighton & Bristol are all among the top 5 in a list of Britain's most creative cities, so clearly my endorsement counts for a lot. I also like the fact that while Manchester is the most creative, Brighton and Hove is officially the gayest.

I'm very dubious about how these statistics have been compiled though. It seems that they have mostly measured things which their theory claims ought to increase creativity, because creativity is so hard to measure directly. Of course, when one makes such theory-laden measurements, they invariably come out in support of one's theory, and here we see this survey being used to support the claim that British cities 'need hip and gay areas to prosper'.

It's a problem familiar from my time as a psychology student - it's very easy to find whatever you're looking for, just because you're looking for it.

posted @ 10:14 PM -

Assymetrical warfare

According to the token American on BBC News 24's Dateline London programme (I can't remember his name), the USA spends more money on defence than all the other countries in the world combined. In the interests of fairness I ought to point out that some of that is in effect a subsidy for the NATO members (most of them as far as I know) who underspend on defence because they know that they can rely on American protection if their territory is ever really under threat, but it's still a more extreme imbalance than I expected.

posted @ 10:05 PM -

Baseless exaggeration of the day

The EU, as proposed in the new constitution, will be no more than a revamped USSR.

Found in the discussion to a Samizdata article about something completely different (Channel 4's Zimbabwe coverage). I didn't set out to hijack the comments, but in the end I just couldn't let something like that lie.

posted @ 7:54 PM -

Radio on demand

Now that I have my computer connected to both a high bandwidth network and a reasonable amp & speakers, I can listen to radio online. For current programming that can be picked up in London this has no advantage over just using a radio (and using a radio has the advantage of not taking up a share of my finite bandwidth, plus using my has the advantage that it's a beautiful old piece of kit with a dial that glows reassuringly). However, the ability to listen to programmes from the past week of BBC scheduling allows me to listen to John Peel when I am in the mood for John Peel (which seems never to coincide with when he's actually on), and to fast forward (yes I do share his love of the Undertones, but they're far too lightweight a pop band to justify playing the same song twice), and to check the track listing of the programme when he says things like: this is a track by - frankly I've forgotten who it is, but it's going to be good.

posted @ 6:19 AM -