| Personal background |
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I'm 22, I'm from Leicestershire in the UK, am a recent Software Engineering graduate and am currently between jobs, hoping to go into either games programming or air traffic control (two total different choices I know - the decision mainly comes down to which grabs me first!). When I started uni I wanted to write games but as the four years wore on I was thinking more and more I wanted to do something that would help people, but that I'd still find compelling. What a challenge. Air traffic control is what I came up with.
In my free time I love to play videogames, watch movies, read books, magazines and internet content. My real talent appears to be in portrait sketches. I started on a whim in 1996 and surprised myself greatly. I carried on from there and have improved with each new portrait I've done. I've done over twenty portraits since then. I probably would do more if there was more quality source material available. I mainly draw celebrities. I'm proud to say my work was juried into the World Artist Directory - only 1/4 of applicants qualify for inclusion according to the site. I recently submitted one of my pieces for critique on said site, and at one point the word 'genius' was used. I was shocked.
I'm a Christian. I don't think it contradicts science, or that the two should freeze each other out. I'm a new Christian. I've been one since the age of about 7 or 8 but still haven't matured and had a real spiritual experience. I can't explain to anyone why I have faith that God loves every one of us and is with us every day.. That makes it faith, I guess. I have no problem reconciling the bible with scientific fact. Nothing happens in contradiction to nature - only in contradiction to our understanding of it. I believe God sets the wheels of the universe in motion. I'm sure I'd make more sense if I had more than 2048 characters. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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Of course extraterrestrial life exits. Even just our galaxy is so vast the odds are hugely in life's favour. Imagine the possibilities for the rest of the universe, with several hundred billion other galaxies. See the drake equation. We are proof that it's possible. Unfortunately, should we come into contact with another, (very unlikely alas) there's a great chance we'd never be able to understand each other.. unless of course the message was specifically intended for us based on observation. Also extremely unlikely.
I run SETI@home to 'do my bit'. For every person that runs it, the sooner we'll find out if we're hearing something. My suggestion is to have the program have more control over dialup - e.g. don't try to connect or disconnect if already connected, disconnect automatically when finished up/downloading...
Personally I'm not sure we should attempt to contact other lifeforms. I don't think we really have anything of value to say to them. I think that receiving a message from another species says something about the originator of that message. The main thing it says is that that species is advanced, to be able to send that message across whatever distance. We are not an advanced species, As a whole we are consumed by greed, concerned only for our own well-being. Fair enough for ourselves, but our species will die if it does not grow up. We do not have any wisdom to impart to any lifeforms that we may contact so we're wasting our time trying. We may be able to learn something from widespread contact with another species so it's right that we listen. But we currently are not mature enough to do the communicating. The best we could do is what we have done - send recordings of our culture which if we're lucky, could get intercepted after our civilisation has destroyed itself.
All that said, there's the childlike desire for discovery and wonder that captures me and drives me to participate. This could be a civilisation-altering event. |
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