Profile: David Drake-Feary

Personal background
I am a retired school teacher. I will be 61 years young next birthday. I have taught and lived in Horsham, a small, flat wheat growing centre in western Victoria, Australia soon after gained my Arts Degree and Dip. Ed. in 1974. I became interested in things IT as soon as I bought my first Apple IIE with something like 56K of RAM. After I loaded Appleworks I think I was left with 28K. I have updated to IBM since then of course, but the technology never ceases to amaze me. I love science, although I was an humanities and English teacher, and SETI was a wonderful way to make a small contribution to a worthwhile scientific project. I have run SETI now for nearly a year I think, but this new computer does it so much more quickly than the Pentium 3 that I was running previously - I now run an Athalon 1.2 Gz. with 512 P RAM. My major hobby is transferring all of my 33 LPs onto CDs after cleaning up the noise and clicks - again - amazing technology that I only dreamed of just a few years ago.
I have leads running everywhere and add to that the network leads down to the 14 year old's bedroom so that he can access my computer just adds to the general clutter. One day they will all go under the house and have proper plugs in the wall.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I think that given the mathmatics of how many galaxies are out there and then how many suns there are in those galaxies and how many planets there could be about those suns,the possibilities of some form of life not too unlike our own remains a most striking possibility. The evidence of modern science seems to be confirming the theory that the whole of the universe as we have observed it thus far is that there is a predisposition for the creation of life. If we look at the world that we live in as a microcosm and all the rest of the universe as the macrocosm and apply the same rules of natural existence that we do here then life must exist somewhere else. I am sure that I read somewhere in a scientific journal that wherever there is ONE of something, then it follows logically that there are certainly OTHERS. (I have not seen or heard of this theory ever being refuted.)
I have one reservation about humans sending signals into space and that is: Other intelligent species may not have evolved in the same manner as ourselves and may not enjoy the same human values that we enjoy. Can you imagine a highly evolved race of technically brilliant creatures who have mastered travelling through time and space, but have the 'ethics' of a reptile? A frightening prospect for us. How many of us die before it dawns upon us that these creatures have to be eliminated.
SETI has given me a chance to contribute, in a small way, to a very worthwhile scientific project. I believe there is SOMETHING out there; all we need to do is find ET.
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