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| Personal background |
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Born in North Carolina, shortly before the family moved to California in search of better circumstances. Settled in the hot central valley where Dad got a job building Liberty ships. Grew up in the valley going to airport races & drooling over custom rods by Barris & others, spent my evenings at the Modesto drive-in immortalized in “American Graffitiâ€. For a relatively poor kid I felt like I had a pretty satisfying childhood! Discovered the library & read every science fiction book I could get my hands on.
Sometimes I would carry my .22 rifle to school on the bus so I could walk home & hunt rabbits on the way. Ten years later my brother did the same and we never raised an eyebrow. Ten years after that we’re struggling with people who think they have the right to choose which of the Bill of Rights should be valid! Who want to change us from citizens to subjects, as in “subject to the new world orderâ€. I find I am spending way too much time defending my constitutional rights from outrageous attacks by the “we know what’s good for you, don’t confuse us with the facts†bunch, the Clinton’s, the Feinstein’s et al. But I digress: I joined the Navy as soon as I could, at 17, and got a free cruise to the Far East on the USS Kearsarge, CVA 33. Now there’s a story for someone to write about: how to stretch your defense $’s, she was commissioned in 1945 & decommissioned sometime in the ‘90’s!
I met & married a girl from Washington, thereby escaping California. Got my degree in Chem E from the UW & am now semi-retired, computer consulting for friends & family. Which allows me to indulge my 2 great passions, SETI & defending the constitution from internal enemies. Firmly believe political correctness is a fad, while the golden rule is forever. I think the concept of zero tolerance as a social tool is asinine, a substitute for thinking. I’m an NRA Life, Endowment & Madison Brigade member, a life member of KABA, GOA, a charter member of the 2nd Amendment Sisters & a Front Sight 1st Family member.
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I used to camp out at a friend’s house & stare up at the vast sweep of the Milky Way (yes in those days sky glow & pollution were insignificant & the milky way was magnificent). He didn’t believe that “cloud†was actually millions of stars, had to get confirmation from his parents! I would stare at the sky & think how incredibly arrogant it would be to believe we were the only sentient beings in the galaxy, let alone the universe. Any species reaching out to physically contact us would be so far ahead of us technologically that the potential benefits would be almost unimaginable! Well worth the potential dangers! I see no danger from an advanced civilization wanting to “serve manâ€, lightly fried on the half skull. We have more to fear from our own species than ET. Half the world wants to eradicate the only country capable of making significant progress in reaching the stars. I think the primary danger could be from Homo sapiens developing an inferiority complex once contact is made.
We are transmitting beacons continuously, which begs the question, why would other civilizations send signals to us? Wouldn’t they want to reach out to a more advanced species also? Not sure of the answer to that, but I am sure that we need to ask the question “Are we worth preserving as a species?†and if the answer is yes, we need to get our tails in gear. How can we spread among the stars is the only question of importance. Right now we’ve got all our eggs on 1 small mud ball of a planet and too many fanatics are tossing rocks around to feel like it’s a comfortable place to be! I like SETI because if we can hitch a ride with something that’s selling trinkets around the galaxy, so much the better! That’s why I load every computer I can get my hands on with SETI@home, to help speed up the process!
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