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| Personal background |
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Born in Cedar Rapids, IA in 1976, I was inspired at a young age by Carl Sagan's
"Cosmos," and have been interested in science ever since. With the purchase by
my father of a Timex Sinclair personal computer with 2k of ram and microwave
push-buttons for keys, I discovered in myself a talent for computers. I moved
to Saint Paul, MN to attend Macalester College, graduated in Computer Science in
1998, and am still living and working in the Twin Cities.
I enjoy buying random foods I've never heard of, looking up recipes for them on
the internet and making them right then and there; most recently "sprats,"
listening to public radio, watching Sci-Fi and Carton Network. I perform poetry
and music somewhat regularly at "Balls," a midnight cabaret found Saturday at
Minneapolis's Southern Theatre. I engage in all sorts of weird projects with
my wacked-out friends including the Mad Monkey Construction Agency, and Nature
of the Beast film. For example, last weekend I spent much of Saturday
afternoon dressed up as a ninja and being first punched into walls, then kicked
into walls by Angus Reid.
And now my knee hurts.
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I became interested in Seti@home when my parents sent me a newspaper article
about it, and I thought "Wow, not only is this exactly the sort of thing I want
to be a part of, but it might actually WORK."
Also, I really needed an excuse to leave my computer on all the time other than,
"It takes 5 minutes to start up and I want to be able to use it at a moment's
notice."
I'm a bit annoyed that more hasn't come out of the project yet. It seems like
there is a great deal of data left to analyse, even after all our computers
have been crunching it, and I think perhaps some of that work could be farmed
out in a similar manner.
As for EI, the important thing for me is that we are looking. Because if they
are out there WE NEED TO KNOW. Otherwise we run the risk of, in our ignorance,
waking a sleeping tiger, or inadvertantly stepping on a beautiful flower.
As for transmitting signals, until we have a specific location in mind (say a
likely candidate that Seti@home comes up with) it is probably better to just
send the signals we're sending anyway. e.g. television, radio, etcetera, than to
try to beam a direct transmission to places where, as far as we know, no one's
home. Even if we start sending now, our TV signals will get there first anyway. |
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