I was discussing SETI on another forum and was pointed to a post on
rec.org.mensa by a certain Penny Smith dated last year that got me to
thinking. I repost it here for your consideration:

<begin quote>

"Why listen only at one of the naturally noisiest frequencies in the
universe?

   Neither the "water hole" nor the 21 centimeter hydrogen resonance
frequency
is a good choice. After all, you are competing--in the latter case--with 99%
of
the baryonic matter in the universe.

Only an idiot--or a man with a secret agenda ( aka military tech) would have
suggested these frequencies. That man was Frank Drake in the early 1960's.

   You see, lots of bright people won't work on military tech. That is why
we have NASA--so that their brilliant rocket designs can co-opted for
missiles.
That is why we have SETI--so that their brilliant methods of filtering noise
out at microwave frequencies
and of automated pattern detection can be used in the next generation of
radar
and military comm/spywork.

  In the early 1960's 21 centimeter tech was relevant."

<end quote>

I usually ignore the SETI-knockers who post here but I must admit, that got
me thinking.

Then again, I'm thinking if there was any covert use of data crunched for
SETI then they would be a lot better funded and we wouldn't keep having
these server outages. Also, like I said to the guy who pointed me to the
thread (probably offending him in the process, he obviously reads the mensa
group), there's a fine line between genius and taking lithium and/or
thorazine twice a day.

Have fun,
--
~misfit~