I'm a partner in a computer consulting and training company (http://www.innovationsw.com.)
I'm an average computer geek: I love toys, hacking software and science and science fiction.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I believe ET life exists. The universe is too large for there not to be.
I expect that humans will eventually discover ET but I have no idea when.
The possible benefits range from learning to cook a better omlette to huge medical or technological advances.
The possible dangers of discovering ET range from learning to cook a better omlette to extinction.
Aren't we already transmitting beacons all the time? my pager went off a little while ago didn't it...
I'm not sure what information we should send in a beacon (email saying 'hi' maybe?) but we definitely should not transmit:
- AM radio music - we may cause ETs' heads to burst!
- USENET - they'll be overwhelmed with get-rich-quick scams
- telephone network traffic - they may be turned off by all of the cold-callers
hmm, would a beacon be considered SPAM to an ET?
I run SETI@home because I feel searching for ET life is a worthwhile cause and I'm doing my part to help.
I've always felt that the common computer is terribly under-utilized CPU-wise and SETI@home is a great use for otherwise un-used cycles.
I've been interested in distributed computing for years and the SETI@home project allows me to take part in a good use of a distributed computer (other than MP3 encoding.)
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.
