SETI finds missing laptop and bad rap music
This story from Newsvine has it all. A wife madly in love with her geek husband. A piece of clever detective work. And really horrid rap music.
The story starts with SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. SETI is a group of projects all over the world that try to detect intelligent aliens. Data received by the huge radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, is sent to institutes and universities to be processed by computers.
To help with the number-crunching, the University of California, Berkeley, created the SETI@home program. Volunteers from all over the world join SETI@home to donate computer time: when their computers are idle and enter screen saver mode, they start to process the Arecibo data from Berkeley.
Hey, if you’re not using your computer, you might as well let it crunch numbers for science.
James Melin got his laptop stolen from his Minneapolis home on January 1. The laptop contained the drafts of his wife’s novels and screenplays. Melin wanted the laptop back. He monitored the SETI@home database and waited. Sure enough, the laptop automatically checked in with SETI@home. When the laptop “talked” to the Berkeley server, the IP address of the laptop became plain for anybody to see. Melin sent the IP information to the Minneapolis Police Department. Melin got his laptop back.
“I always knew a geek would make a great husband,” said Melin’s wife. “He always backed up all my data, but this topped it all. It became like ‘Mission: Impossible’ for him, looking for hard evidence for the cops to use. … He’s a genius – my hero.”
Maybe they’re messages from aliens, but it’s highly unlikely… It doesn’t look like the thieves broke into the email or personal folders of Melin’s wife, but they did leave behind something interesting. The laptop had “20 tracks of rap music with unintelligible lyrics.”
“It’s really, really horrid rap,” Melin said. “It makes Ludacris look like Pavarotti.”
Update (actually, it’s a shameless plug): Try FOLDING@HOME. This Stanford University project looks at how protein molecules fold – and it’s discovered lots of useful stuff in medicine and biology. Help out humanity; sign up now.
You can check out how Team QJ.NET is doing at the Folding@Home stats page. Team QJ.NET ranks 4198 out of 47630 – not bad at all!
And here’s a shout out to the QJ.NET forum members behind this awesome volunteer effort, especially Jammie (who really should demand an award for this), modcase, Josey Wales, gracz54, marv101 (who studies folding proteins for fun), and cyanide. (Anybody we forgot?) And Mr_Stanley_Dudek of the ATi group; let us know how you’re doing when you can.
This story from Newsvine has it all. A wife madly in love with her geek husband. A piece of clever detective work. And really horrid rap music.
The story starts with SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. SETI is a group of projects all over the world that try to detect intelligent aliens. Data received by the huge radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, is sent to institutes and universities to be processed by computers.
To help with the number-crunching, the University of California, Berkeley, created the SETI@home program. Volunteers from all over the world join SETI@home to donate computer time: when their computers are idle and enter screen saver mode, they start to process the Arecibo data from Berkeley.
Hey, if you’re not using your computer, you might as well let it crunch numbers for science.
James Melin got his laptop stolen from his Minneapolis home on January 1. The laptop contained the drafts of his wife’s novels and screenplays. Melin wanted the laptop back. He monitored the SETI@home database and waited. Sure enough, the laptop automatically checked in with SETI@home. When the laptop “talked” to the Berkeley server, the IP address of the laptop became plain for anybody to see. Melin sent the IP information to the Minneapolis Police Department. Melin got his laptop back.
“I always knew a geek would make a great husband,” said Melin’s wife. “He always backed up all my data, but this topped it all. It became like ‘Mission: Impossible’ for him, looking for hard evidence for the cops to use. … He’s a genius – my hero.”
Maybe they’re messages from aliens, but it’s highly unlikely… It doesn’t look like the thieves broke into the email or personal folders of Melin’s wife, but they did leave behind something interesting. The laptop had “20 tracks of rap music with unintelligible lyrics.”
“It’s really, really horrid rap,” Melin said. “It makes Ludacris look like Pavarotti.”
Update (actually, it’s a shameless plug): Try FOLDING@HOME. This Stanford University project looks at how protein molecules fold – and it’s discovered lots of useful stuff in medicine and biology. Help out humanity; sign up now.
You can check out how Team QJ.NET is doing at the Folding@Home stats page. Team QJ.NET ranks 4198 out of 47630 – not bad at all!
And here’s a shout out to the QJ.NET forum members behind this awesome volunteer effort, especially Jammie (who really should demand an award for this), modcase, Josey Wales, gracz54, marv101 (who studies folding proteins for fun), and cyanide. (Anybody we forgot?) And Mr_Stanley_Dudek of the ATi group; let us know how you’re doing when you can.
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