| Personal background |
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Name: Ricardo Francisco Rodrigues
Age: 29, D.O.B.: 16/02/1973
Occupation: 1-Student, Computer Science at ISEP (College)
2-A job as technical support provider on local computer hardware company.
Hobbies: Computer gamming, reading, music (playing guitar and listening almost all sorts of music), drawing (artistic), going to the movies, soccer, motor sports (Formula 1 and World Rally Championship, mostely)
I live in Portugal, to be precise in V. N. Gaia, a town right South of Oporto, the 2nd major city in the country, to the North.
Things I fear/hate the most: Like Isaac Asimov said, the tendency of Mankind to transform any innocent scientific discovery into a deadly weapon, the possibility of self-destruction of Mankind, stupidity (this one includes war)and incompetence.
Things I like/admire the most: Chocolate, express coffe, computers, good looking women (my girl-friend's gonna kill me!!), to watch the stars on a clear and dark night, the new breakthroughs in nanotechnology, in the use of alternative sources of energy (not exactly on this order)
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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1 - Given the amazing (to say the least) ammount of stars that exist within our range of detection, it's rather absurd to assume that we are the only planet capable of supporting life. Also, for the previous reason, it would be of extreme arrogance to think that we are the only intelligent life form in the Universe. When and how will we find out about life outside Earth... I guess it can be tomorrow, or within hundreds of years, it depends of many factors. Like in "Contact", or maybe we find out about life in Europa, maybe within hundreds of years, when (and if) we dominate the technology of interstelar traveling we bump into some planet capable of supporting life, maybe they bump into us, maybe we find it in fossilized form, in a meteor from outer space, or maybe some SETI@Home screen-saver detects it... Who knows?
The discovery of life outside our planet can give Mankind an extra motivation to thrive. It can also make us more united, in the face of something we don´t know. On the other hand, it will bring a heavy blow to those who believe (mainly for religious motives) and defend that Man is the one and only inhabitant of the Universe, since it's God ultimate creation.
2 - We do it all the time, since the discovery of radio and television. We also send the Voyagers. A beacon with basic information would not be expensive to maintain, the information could be something like the first prime numbers. It is information that reveals that we are intelligent, and that we have developed our technology to a certain point. There is an issue I haven't discussed yet: should other intelligent life forms find out about us, what are their intentions toward us? That is why such a beacon must be kept simple.
3 - It disgusts me to know that governments are willing to invest resources in ways of killing their fellow man, rather than supporting these (and other programs). And the screen-saver looks nice. |
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