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| Personal background |
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| As of 2003, a lad of 53 years residing in Northern Virginia. Eclectic past. In no particluar order: Retired Navy (F-14), MSEE, former Marine grunt ('Nam vet), telephone installer, teacher, private investigator and variations of manual labor in my youth. At some point I'll figure out what I want to be when I grow up, but it's too much fun trying different things. Currently supporting Air Force acquisition programs to pay the rent. Hobbies include computer application programs (pretty good), writing (only fair), painting (awful). |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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1. While it's possible extraterrestrial life exists, the probability is difficult to calculate without a lot of poorly supported assumptions -- making when and how even more speculative. In the 1960's Arthur C. Clarke, in "Profiles of the Future", guessed we might make contact before the 21st Century. That one obviously didn't pan out, but I'm in no position to make a better guess.
2. A focused transmission -- beyond the inadvertent transmissions we're making already -- doesn't seem a promising approach. Before receiving any signal from the other direction, we'd be guessing again about what frequency to send it on and certainly about where to focus it. Ditto for what to send.I know credible people have suggested mathematical terms -- prime numbers for example -- but that also assumes an alien mentality would interpret that as "Eureka, another civilization understands math!" as opposed to "Oh great -- another bunch of idiots who can't count yet."
3. Seems harmless. While I think the likelihood of a payoff is low, the investment is miniscule, so why not? |
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