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| Personal background |
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I am currently living in Goffstown, NH in the US of A
I'm in my early fifties
I work in the development of ASIC's and FPGA's (micro-chips)
My interest are quite varied including astronomy (of course;) astro- and nuclear physics; biology and health; technology; cooking; building PC's; and traveling [I've been to Vietnam and Okinawa as a US Marine in the 60's; on business or pleasure I've been to Germany (3x), France (2x), Greece 1x), Japan (3x) and Hong Kong (2x) with some vacation time to enjoy the places as well. I have a friend in Germany and brought home my 3rd wife from Japan. I has also been to Cancun (and surrounds) among several trips to Mexico on vacation. I've traveled around the US on business as well as pleasure. New Orleans is great, Niagara Falls also ranks pretty high (on the Canadian side.) Montreal needs more exploration but I liked what I saw and I really need to get back to the charm of Quebec city.]
(I used to like hiking, camping and backpacking as well as biking; but I've grown way too large for those activities now ;)
In the future I'd like to go to somewhere north of the Arctic circle for both summer and winter solstice; visit Australia; and live in the tropics (semi-tropics would do.)
(There are also a couple of books I'd like to write.)
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I became a SETI@home enthusiast because I have little doubt that ETI exists somewhere 'out there.'
Since being a member I have come to doubt whether we are going to find ETI in this way, after all there has been .6 million years of CPU time looking so far without results. I continue to run the program on my machine, however, in the hopes of getting on the 10000 WU list.
I think that more thought has to be given to just how we're going to find ETI, I find it difficult to see how we will find them this way. For example, if I were to go to Alpha Centauri and set-up a large-array radio telescope pointed right at Sol, I think that the radio emissions from Sol itself would overwhelm the puny radio and TV signals we've been broadcasting. I think an extremely large optical telescope in space (or on the moon) might be more effective.
Sending signals is a different matter. First see the above, I don't think sending them from Earth would be effective; perhaps a transmitter on Pluto would get a coherent signal out.
If indeed there is no way that travel that will ever be FTL then no harm can come from transmitting a signal (in our lifetime anyway); but if there is a technology that allows for that, then I see the potential for great danger.
A war-like race is only one danger and yes, I think that all intelligences evolved enough for space travel have the potential for war, survival of the fittest is most likely how they would have gotten to that point after all.
A perhaps greater danger is in coming into contact with a race that is significantly advanced from us. The danger here isn't just from being conquered, exposed to disease, or exterminated (think Native Americans) but with simply being lost in the alien culture. That is to say, loosing our identity, our culture (such as it is), our very humanity. Who will we be then? Will WE even BE then?
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