[meteorite-list] catch a comet

[Martin Horejsi]

Hi All,

I have been using the beta version of Stardust at home, and it is a blast.

Basically it virtual microscope that focuses through a section of
aerogel. The task is to find the particle track and click on it. The
program runs in a regular web browsers with nothing to download.

Unlike SETI and Protein Folding, Stardust at home requires your own
brainpower to identify the track, not the computer's. You can focus
the microscope up and down looking for the distinctive shape of the
track. Actually, it is rather addicting.

Anyway, when the project goes public, I imagine it will make a big
dent in our overall work productivity as we all spend our days
searching for particle tracks rather than doing our jobs.

On a funny note, there was a presentation about Stardust at home in
Houston where the presenter put up a PowerPoint slide of a set of a
dozen or so pictures. Mountains, a tree, car wheels, a fire hydrant,
flowers, among other assorted objects and landscapes. The point was
that creating an artificial intelligence that can identify certain
shapes is extremely difficult. That is why Stardust at home need human
eyes rather than high-powered computers. Oh yea, the pictures in the
PowerPoint...they were what an AI computer identified as pornographic.

Cheers,

Martin