|
| Personal background |
|---|
I was born in 1972 and have spent my life to date in various locations throughout Scotland. I currently live in Montrose with my fiancée and a cat called Ziggy. My hobbies and interests are pretty eclectic and include reading horror fiction, PC construction/maintenance, HTML coding, music (esp. 80’s “Goth†genre) and reading about ancient Mesopotamia. I started running SETI@Home on a 333MHz celeron machine but built myself a new computer at the start of 2001 (utilising a 1GHz Athlon) and this has dramatically improved on what was a rather embarrassing “CPU time per resultâ€.
I work for a badly paying employer in an excruciatingly mundane environment that warrants no more than passing comment. My meagre wages are more often than not squandered on gadgets and PC components. I’m studying HNC computing at night school with a view to progressing to HND and perhaps beyond over the next few years in an attempt to improve my rather inadequate curriculum vitae.
|
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
|---|
Reading my father’s copy of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos†as a child gave me a real taste for the possibilities that the universe might contain but if I’m honest I originally got into SETI@Home as a means of comparing the processing power of CPU’s rather than as a tool for finding ET.
It’s a romantic thought, the belief that there might be another civilisation broadcasting their presence across the universe, waiting patiently for a response and just a little fanciful I fear. I doubt very much that the SETI@Home project will be successful but I do believe the project is worthwhile, if for no other reason than so we can say “OK, we’ve done that – where else can we look?â€.
As for extraterrestrial life – given the size of the known universe I believe it’s safe to say that there must be something out there, even in our own solar system distinct possibilities exist. I look forward to possible missions to Europa (“Icepick: the Europa Ocean Explorer project†is one proposal to watch with interest). Mars on the other hand is more likely to provide evidence that life once existed there, rather than samples of living bacteria, algae etcetera. Never-the-less, despite possessing a distinctly pessimistic attitude to all of this, I do believe we must continue to explore and learn, it’s part of the human psyche after all, and in doing that, perhaps we’ll come to understand ourselves a little better.
|
| Your feedback on this profile |
|---|
| Recommend this profile for User of the Day: |
I like this profile |
| Alert administrators to an offensive profile: |
I do not like this profile |
|
| Account data |
View |
| Team |
None |
|
