SETI Found Something!

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is an organisation set up to search for off-world intelligence. SETI@home is a project where anyone can share their computer's spare time helping to process radio waves from the universe. You install a SETI screen-saver, and your home PC picks up some data from SETI, and analyses it for patterns that may indicate intelligence or communication.

Presumably, if some little green men are doing the same thing 35 light years away, they're watching M*A*S*H for the first time right now.

I love SETI@home because it allows me to mercilessly take the p*ss out of my work colleagues who installed the thing. As far as I'm concerned, there is no E.T. except for those caught on film during the making of Men In Black. So I'll laugh at these guys now. I'm gambling that if they do find some slimy seven-legged exo-brain critter around Alpha-Centauri, SETI fans will be too excited or freaked out to notice I've stopped laughing.

So imagine my surprise when I read that SETI@home has found something! Actually a guy running SETI@home found something even less likely than Borg on Betelgeuse - he found his wife's stolen laptop!

When the hot-fingered new 'owner' turned the laptop on, it contacted SETI giving clues to it's new location. The rightful owner figured it out and gave the cops what they needed to recover the laptop.

"I always knew that a geek would make a great husband," she said. "He always backed up all my data, but this topped it all... He's a genius - my hero."