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| Personal background |
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General
I'm 31 years old and live in London, England. Currently I'm employed as a Python developer for a small firm that writes software and does consulting. It's a pretty varied job which has the advantage of sending me out to customer sites from time to time - leaving my desktop box to plough through a few more workunits.
Hobbies
I'm a big science fiction fan. I used to go to a lot of conventions (Star Trek mainly, and a couple of mutimedia ones). Nowadays I don't seem to have the time free any more. I am still a voracious reader. Currently, I love the work of Iain (M) Banks. Spider Robinson is pretty cool too :o)
Quote of the week
Don't do things half-assed. If a thing is worth doing at all, it's worth doing as well as you can possibly do it. Pick out something you think is worthwhile and do it or work at it with passion. Do it with all your might.
-Hugh Young |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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How and when did I become interested in SETI@home?
I signed up for it as soon as I heard about it (all those years ago). Then my home machine died, and I never got round to re-installing the software. Six months ago, it was mentioned in one of the daily papers, so I re-installed it on my work computer, and it has been crunching units ever since.What are your views about the SETI@home project?
I think it is the most awesome use of distributed computing I have ever heard of. The chances of success are slim - but they are non-zero. We should be doing this search. We have already found so many extra-solar planets that the news releases come in batches nowadays. Is it too much to believe that some of them at least have life? And that one or more of them have intelligent life? To not be searching would be like turning out backs on the universe.What are your thoughts about extraterrestrial intelligence?
I think that to say that there is not and cannot be intelligent life out there is the most monsterous arrogance.As I occasionally say to friends 'I do believe in both UFOs and in extra-terrestrial life - but I'm not convinced that there's any connection between the two'. The UFO thing deserves study, but can probably be approached more as anthropology and sociology rather than definite contact with non-human life. As for Extra Terrestrial intelligence - we'll that's why I'm part of SETI@Home. There is a miniscule but existant chance that future generations may talk about 'the Precedo signal'. (I can dream, can't I? And it could happen :o) )
Are they out there?
I don't know. I'd be surprised if there isn't some form of life out here in the universe. After all, the universe is a big place. Are they intelligent, technological and using means of communication that we can understand? Maybe. But they may go straight to 'Q-Waves': the obvious intra-galactic communication method we won't discover for 200 years... |
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