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You may be familiar with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project which is attempting to find radio signal evidence of other intelligent life in the universe. One of the most important aspects of SETI's work is its SETI@home project, which allows personal computer users to donate unused computer time to the project. By installing software on your computer, you enable SETI to send it signal-processing work that is critical to SETI's mission. When your computer finishes processing a set of signals, it transmits the completed work back to the servers at the SETI project's headquarters. SETI is operated and supported by Sir Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and many other books). It is run as a project of the University of California at Berkeley. The project previously got much of its funding from the private sector, mostly from companies who believed in its mission and got a bit of marketing leverage from supporting it. Many of the companies that were SETI's big supporters have, unfortunately, stopped sponsoring the project's work. It's very much in danger of having its plug pulled by UC Berkeley. To prevent that from happening, SETI needs your help and support. To donate to the SETI@home project, visit the UC Berkeley donation site at this address: https://colt.berkeley.edu/urelgift/seti.html You can donate by credit card and the minimum donation is only $25, something most of us can afford. The above address provides a secure method for donating by credit card. Even if you don't believe in the work SETI is doing and you think that searching for life elsewhere in the universe is silly, you might want to consider donating to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (or "BOINC"). This project (which was initiated by the SETI@home effort), in addition to assisting with SETI@home's data processing needs, also supports a variety of other distributed computing projects that are attempting to answer important scientific questions and find cures for various diseases.
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