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| Personal background |
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The university of Dortmund, Germany accepted me as a Student of Computer Science October 2000. It was a late turn in my life which has even long before I went to university been influenced by computers. I love programming and using computers though I always remember that a computer is a tool for my work and should NEVER dominate the way we humans live and work.
My greatest dream is to work in that line of science I am studying, which includes medicine. We should try to use the power we give computers to help and treat people in the least instrusive way possible. Giving deaf people hearing, blind people sight and letting those people, who we may have already given up, walk again is there at our finger tips. We just don't share enough of our knowledge to get it done, because we think more of money than of patients.
At home I have brought several computers "back to life", that would normally spend their days as something thrilling like a door-stop. They now all run FreeBSD (with one exception which runs Linux due to a piece of unsupported hardware). They each have a job to do (mailserver, newsserver etc.) and I am fitting them with SETI@HOME too, as they have "horrific" :-) idle-times. They are all Pentium 133 or above (most of them even run FPM memory), which does not make them racers (by today's standards), but they still work fine for me (and SETI).
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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There is no reason to believe that we are alone in the universe. It is only our arrogance that lets us think we are the best nature can do. So yes, I believe there is life out there. I think searching for it is fascinating although I have my doubts if we really will find anything directed to us. If someone really wanted to send us a message, doing it at the speed of light isn't really the way of choice if you want to hear the answer yourself. So if we find something it will probably be something we "overheard".
No matter how fascinated we are about life out there, I think we should not try to get attention - yet. The beacons we could send would take thousands of years to reach their destination(s) and judging by our history it is unlikely that anyone will even remember it was sent when the answer gets here. Even if aliens got here within the next 50 or so years, who would they contact? The United States? Some European Country? They would find a planet whose people are starving in some areas while the people of other areas live very wasteful. They would see the planet's people quallelling and even making war over such pathetic issues as religion, the right way to eat and which economic system is best. The "fist contact" could be quite embarrassing for us, putting Earth on the "intergalactic try-to-avoid list".
Just the same, listening and learning ist always a good idea. And if we someday know of life out there, Earth may well change its ways for the better. |
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