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| Personal background |
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I've had an engineering mind set since I was small. I'm into
astronomy, science and science fiction. Most recently, I read
Dr. Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. (It is on my recommended list.)
After engineering school, I decided to work with computers full
time. I bought one while in high school (1975), and always
liked the instant gratification that comes from building
things. Sure, it's addictive, but it can also pay the bills.
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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Extraterrestrial life exists. It's a huge Universe. It's
likely everywhere it can be.
Intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. Astronomical
distances are vast, and so detection and communications are
difficult and slow. At detection we'll confirm that we are not
unique. At the moment, we think we are, and uniqueness hasn't
led us to be more careful. When the news comes, it will be
business as usual. In the very long term, we could learn
something of great value.
Sending a beacon is a good idea. The distances are so large
that such an act is unlikely to cause us physical harm. We
should send beacons that we can detect easily. The beacons
should just say "Hello from Earth" and "This is how we listen".
I've had long running low priority background programs at home
forever. I started running Linux on a 386 in about 1992. A
highly stable preemptive multitasking OS makes long running
programs easy.
At this point, ETI detection seems unlikely in the near term.
This makes government funding problematic. But if no one tries,
no one will learn how to do it. SETI@Home is a very clever
approach to gather enormous resources at low cost. My brothers
and I were born near Wright Patterson AFB, where the Air Force
ran Project Blue Book. So it was natural to start a SETI@Home
club with this name. Our goal was to have fun. We've
succeeded.
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