My laptop’s searching for aliens….

Yep.

Here’s the way it works. There’s this group called SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – that uses big radio telescopes to listen for the sorts of electronic communications that tech-savvy civilizations broadcast.

If somebody was listening to us, for example, they’d be picking up “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire.”

Ever wonder why they haven’t made contact?

Anyway, SETI winds up getting far more data than they can deal with. The computing power to sift though it all looking for something meaningful is enormous. So they farm the labor out to the rest of us.

Let’s say I’m sitting in class taking notes. My computer’s no mainframe, but it’s got plenty of brain power it’s not using at the moment. So I’ve downloaded a program from SETI, http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/, that runs in the background crunching numbers while I’m still doing my normal work.

And let’s say I don’t use my computer for a few minutes and it goes over to screensaver. I’ve got the SETI program set up as my screensaver with pretty colors, little stars flying at me, and at least somebody getting a little use out of the thing while I’m not needing it….

Best case scenario, you can help resolve one of the greatest wonders of time – are we alone.

Worst case scenario, you get a pretty screensaver.

Guitars made from Armadillos....

http://www.solutions-site.org/
exhibits/bolivia/gallery7.htm

I swear I don't make this stuff up....

Anna Nicole Smith....

... and her passing have raised so many legal issues, I'm calling for a symposium at the law school....

Contract law class....

So towards the end of last week my Contracts professor revealed that she'd written a poem about a hypothetical legal situation in one of her law review articles.

The class then asked if she'd read it to us.

Then we asked if we could read it out in class.

Then someone asked if they could sing it.

Then this happened....

http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c23/
jderrick/?action=view&current=Video5.flv

:)

"Drunk Aussie Attacks Shark"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player
/nol/newsid_6360000/newsid_6367700?redirect=
6367785.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1

Yep, saw this one on news.bbc.so.uk, the BBC website. Haven't listened to it yet, but I figure that when you mix too much Foster's, the country that gave us Russell Crowe, and a shark... somebody's getting bit.

And it may be the shark.

"Drunk Aussie Attacks Shark"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player
/nol/newsid_6360000/newsid_6367700?redirect=
6367785.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1

Yep, saw this one on news.bbc.so.uk, the BBC website. Haven't listened to it yet, but I figure that when you mix too much Foster's, the country that gave us Russell Crowe, and a shark... somebody's getting bit.

And it may be the shark.

Buffalo-sies!

Over on the north side of 74 headed out from Rutherford County through Polk County a while back....

What not to do in church?

So I'm in church, filing towards the presiding bishop of the US Episcopal Church to receive communion this week....

It was a special service, both because it was in honor of Pauli Murray, civil rights activist and one of the first women and the first black woman ordained in the Episcopal Church and also because the service was led by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori -- the first lady presiding bishop in our denomination.

And the service was at the same altar as the first communion celebrated by Rev. Murray -- the same altar at which her grandmother had been baptized as a slave.

Anyway, as I'm filing forward to receive Christ's body from the leader of my church in this nation, one of my friends, Meredith, falls in line besides me.

"Hey, babe, you come here often?"

She busts out laughing.

I'm glad we're a group that's accepting of women like Dr. Murray and Bishop Schori and of nutcases like me....

Road Trip!

My constitutional law professor is arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court in late March....

Road trip!

"Punxsutawney Phil Predicts Early Spring"

http://www.wral.com/news/strange/story/1190614/

Darn global warming....