Ok let me explain...Seti uses a screensaver we know that right.
Well I understand what's going on but does everyone..?.
To the average person who hasn't a clue about electronics or radiowaves its double dutch..nothing more than a pretty rotating colour display..I would encourage seti to make it simpler in appearance ..like for example remove background radiation..a single line going across the screen..( a bit like a heart monitor in a hospital.)..and then when when a high amplitude signal appears it shows as blip..etc and any intelligent type signal would raise an alarm to the user...surely this cannot be that hard to do not to mention the fact it would be faster by not using so much cpu resources..
You have a good point about simplifying the screen and there is some validity to it. I also happen to know there are plenty of geeky users out there that would really like to see all the other data, my self included. But do we really need it to be flying and rotating through a star field??? I think not.
There are a couple of reasons that I can think of off the top of my head. Part of the problem with giving users an alarm when a signal is detected.
When users are sent packets of data there are at least two other users that get the same data. Each result from each user is then compared the other user's results to make sure they get the same data back. The reason for this is to prevent tampering and to verify the result for any possible processing errors.
If a signal is found, it's not like alarms would go off at Arecibo like you see in the movies. In actuality there are lots of potential candidates that need to be sorted through and rescanned, weed out ones that are probably just interference and such.
I honestly don't even use the screen saver. All text-based here. I don't see the point in wasting any CPU cycles on pretty graphics. I do my part and check the SETI@HOME site regularly for scientific updates. I would like to see a map of potential candidates like they used to do in the SETI@HOME Classic days.