I'm 51 years old and live in Isleworth, England. I am a consultant specialising in providing expert services to all companies who administer testing and assessment programmes to their employees. I have 4 children by two marriages. 2 grown up girls (one of whom has a son) and 2 young boys who love science (hence our joining the SETI@home programme). Since joining SETI@{home I've acquired a couple more computers so have increased my contribution (marginally). I've also joined a team (Phoenix Rising) and have surprised myself how competitive I still am (it adds an extra frisson of enjoyment when you are moving up the tables!)
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I am convinced that extraterrestrial life exists but I'm not sure we will discover it in my life time (but I live in hope). I think the ability to compare intelligence with beings who have evolved in an entirely different environment would be enriching and fascinating. I do not believe that there should be any inherent dangers as the strong likelihood is that the contact will be made across a massive amount of both time and space and therefore the learning process is likely to be one way.
Yes, we should transmit a beacon for others to find us. What have we got to lose. SAnyone receiving the beacon would be highly unlikely to be close enough in time or space to do anything other than receive it.
SETI@home is great fun as well as giving ordinary people the opportunity to contribute to a worthwhile scientific project - a rare thing in this age of high specialisation and little room for the amateur scientist.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.