Re: OT: Aliens in the heavans (was Re: seti@home)

[Chris Jenks <rattis@dhol.org>]

At 03:41 AM 3/6/02, Alex Malinovich wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-03-06 at 02:24, Chris Jenks wrote:
> > At 11:06 PM 3/5/02, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > >On Tue, 2002-03-05 at 17:19, Gary Hennigan wrote:
> > >Yes, yes, all those TV, radio stations, satelite uplink stations
> > >(the vast majority all of which are in the Northern Hemisphere)
> > >are radiating outwards.
> >
> > Forgetting all of the rest of your email, if you were an alien,
> > would you want to contact this planet, just based off your first
> > paragraph?
> >
> > Chris
> > ps I'm not looking for a flame war, just pointing out that the
> > signals that we are sending out there are not worth replying
> > to.
>
> Lets turn that around a little bit. If you just happened to point a
> local antenna skyward and all of a sudden got a VERY poorly rated alien
> sitcom, would you want to reply? I sure as hell would! :) (It's still
> semi-intelligent life after all. :)
>
> -Alex

Actually it would make me search harder. I wouldn't be the first in line to
call them. But I guess an alien sitcom would be better then an alien reality
show.

My point was, if we want to be contacted, I think that we should be sending
more signals out in binary. I think the biggest problem in the search for
extra-terrestrial life, isn't the strength of the signals that we are 
sending out
but much more, the content. For all any one really knows, we've been getting
alien signals, and they ours, but either on levels that neither can detect, or
it just looks like so much noise, because we don't understand their style of
communication.

Chris