Profile: latimer

Personal background
Hello,

Well, I'm Jonathan; I own and operate a little computer-consultantcy in Maui, Hawaii. I'm an amateur astronomer, a light-hearted skeptic, Star Wats and Trek fan, a wargaming fan (particualrly of the Navies of the Napoleonic era), total computer nerd, and am of the opinion that the methods of science are the best tools we have to understand the Universe around us.

I've been married to my wife, Tracy, for close to eight years. She's a library assistant, and has one of the largest privately owned meteorite collections on the island, if not the State. We have no kids; a cat we have, named Snowball's Chance, convinced us not to. She's quite persuasive.

Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I'm irrationally sure that extraterrestrial life exists. The Universe is so vast and populated stellar-wise; to think we're the *only* planet that came up lucky on our 'Life-forms-evolve' roll of the dice is just silly. The only proof I can point to on this hypothesis is the discovery of extra-solar planets; now we just need a way of investigating smaller ones via more powerful telescopes. So, the jury is out, as it is in so much of science. Uncertainty is the norm.

Has extra-terrestiral life visited? I think not.

If the SETI program did find a signal; I don't think life would change all that much. Carl Sagan's 'Contact' was a good approximation of what might happen; but I think it would be even less dramtic. Now, if extra-terrestrials showed UP here....

I started running the Seti program way back when; and just never bothered stopping. It's cool to be even a small part in such a venture; and one way or another we are learning things from spare computer cycles; of which I have many. Hopefully more distributed computing programs will enjoy Seti@Home's success; it is a vast, untapped resource benefitting all of us.
Your feedback on this profile
Recommend this profile for User of the Day: I like this profile
Alert administrators to an offensive profile: I do not like this profile
Account data View
Team None



 
©2024 University of California
 
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.