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| Personal background |
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| I'm getting older and feeling it. I turn the car radio down when I come up to a busy junction. I groan involuntary when I sit down, and the other day I caught myself sighing with satisfaction when I had sat down. Life's speeding up and I want to slow down. My eldest daughter has just turned 17, but my youngest is only 9. That means I have only 7 years left to work out how I'm going to spend my life once it's mine again. Probably sitting down a lot and sighing. I have done a lot of things, but until my DNA links me to those events I'm going to stick with my denial stories. R2-D2, Scotty from Star Trek and the Fonz all convinced my young impressionable mind that I would like to fix things when I got older. Three years of engineering and 15 years as a motorcycle mechanic I emerged a bitter, poor and dirty individual. I started a second hand bookshop with the misses, and watched it slowly starve to death as my savings ran dry.Then I got a job in a school as 'Print Room Guy'. I'm allowed to wear a cape and stand on the roof occasionally looking heroic as I contemplate printing matters of the highest importance. The children leave me alone, the teachers still get my name wrong, and I get 12 weeks holiday a year. For all those '9 to 5'ers', or people that own their own business's and know holidays as periods of time they get further in debt, that's TWELVE WEEKS A YEAR HOLIDAY. I have two dogs, Pippin and Hera, both Lurchers. Their ability to fart would rival Bealzibubs own anal venom, but they give me great solace. I have an old cat, who has remained looking about two for the last 15 years, leading me to think she is not all she appears to be. Maybe cat spit is the elixir of life, and no one has yet thought to test it, or she is one of a long line of identical cats sent to spy on me. I was born in Bushey in Hertforshire, even though at the time the family home was in Harrow in Middlesex. To my acute embarrassment, I have, after traveling the world a little bit and living elsewhere in Britain, inexplicably returned and found myself settled back here. Explorers of the world would snub me for this, and my childhood adventuring spirit has found itself trussed up and gagged. Surely by now I should be the head of a small undiscovered nation, living in an incredible series of tree-houses in the jungle finishing off my cure to cancer. But no, I am here in rural suburbia flicking through TV channels, contemplating what music I would like at my funeral. I have a few friends I will keep for my whole life, but only see maybe once a year or two. I have one friend I see weekly who is hiding a terrible life secret, and I owe it to him to regularly see him to stop him from confessing to his wife. I bide my life with my wife, Sharlyn, my kids, Pinky and Perky, and my dogs. I won't mention my cat, as I'm not sure she is the same one I started off with, and she may be listening. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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Do I think extraterrestrial life exists? Yes I do. A bold statement seeing as I have no proof, but the alternative is that all the diversity of life on our planet is an immensely super rare freak of nature�s chemical husbandry. Look up into a night sky; it's an awfully big place. Are we really so special?
When and how will humans discover it? Curiosity is at the heart of human nature. Our limited searching of the skies may stumble over an alien signal. That should be enough to turn Mans resources to set up a communication. Failing that I think we will wait for the rest of the Universes life to come to us.
What are the possible benefits and dangers of such a discovery? The word �alien� shouldn�t be underestimated. We may mutually meet another intelligence and never be able to communicate. Hopefully the common base instincts most intelligent life on Earth share would be a galactic norm. We could work together. Our bofins would talk to their bofins and they�d do lunch. Best result would be a sharing of knowledge for mutual benefit. Earths problems having a fresh eye cast on them. The mating of two intelligences may provide insight into everything we thought we already new, and things we never imagined. Then again they may eat us.
Should humans transmit a beacon for others to find? If so, what information should we send? A bit dodgy. It is a risk to shout out your planets address to all and sundry. But prime numbers, binary sums and the like broadcast �intelligence�. It would be a call for the curious to respond. A good start. Rather a phone call first than a stranger turning up on your doorstop. I don�t trust humankind let alone an alien one. I�m optimistic but a little caution is called for.
Why do you run SETI@home? A good excuse to have a computer. Doing my bit for a good cause. To be the one to find the signal, and upon first contact probabley the first to be eaten.
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