Personal background |
I am an electrician, web designer, dad, student, cyclist (not necessarily in that order) living in the BC Lower Mainland.
Am using Linux/Open Source more and Windows less day-by-day so was thrilled to find a Seti@Home version for i686/Linux! Was doubly thrilled to see the report of the Boinc project, particularly with its potential for climate research!! |
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
Since the local school district ran into trouble with proprietary software licences I have been mulling over a longish-range goal of bringing open source software into local highschools.
In one of those little coincidences, I read the words of Philip Morrison in a book titled "SETI Pioneers" today. Morrison said regarding the enormity of the SETI search "What we must do instead is ask many people to each give a small part of their time. Then everybody is doing some service for the general welfare, for this long-range
exploration. Yet nobody suffers from it, because the opportunity lost by not doing something else is only small."
Kind of how open source software works, how SETI@home works, how Boinc will work.
I appreciate the contributions of the large companies in bringing computing to the stage it is at today as a tool for mankind. Still I have to wonder about the sustainability of this market-driven and market-driving model. It seems to me that greater long-term good will come from the little contributions of a great many people, all the
world's people each as they are able, working as a community. The kind of community that the Internet makes
possible and projects like SETI help to foster.
I hope that we will contact extraterrestrial life and that our and their sense of community will be expanded to encompass the vast distances between. |
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 |
|