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| Personal background |
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| Greetings from Doraville, Georgia. No longer just a "touch of country in the city," Doraville has become as ethnically diverse as the rest of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Home to more than 3,000 families, Doraville has its own public library building and its own metropolitan rapid rail station. It is also the home of Flashlights Unlimited, an internet retailer of high-technology flashlights, headlamps, accessories, and batteries. We run the SETI@home program on at least two computer systems, twenty-four hours per day. In just over five years, we have processed more than 3800 classic workunits for SETI@home. We are very proud to be a part of the ever-growing family of SETI@home contributors. If you make a purchase from our web site, and include your SETI@home email address and indicate that you are a SETI@home contributor in the comments for your order, we will send a special free gift item along with your order. This offer is not sponsored or endorsed by SETI@home. Flashlights Unlimited believes in the work that SETI@home is doing, and we want to thank our customers who have contributed to this important globally distributed computing project. The gift item may vary from order to order, but will have a retail value of at least $1.95. There is a limit of one free gift per mailing address or email address, and this offer is subject to cancellation or termination at any time and without prior notice. Visit us today at http://flashlightsunlimited.com. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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| Even if practical manned interstellar travel is possible, it certainly cannot be accomplished with our current technologies. Based upon what we know, the energy and resources that would be required for such journeys make them highly unlikely to ever become practical, regardless of future technological development. But the statistical probability that life exists on at least some of the other planetary systems in the universe is so staggering as to be undeniable. If any of those life forms are both sentient, and possessed of certain physical attributes that render them capable of manipulating their environments in meaningful ways, then they may also embark upon the development of technology. And if that happens, there is a reasonable possibility that they may eventually engage in the transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves (although not necessarily along the same path of development as our own). If we want to communicate with these beings, we'll need to listen long and hard to hear them first, so we can determine their locations, and learn their languages. One school of thought has it that as societies advance their technologies, their moral and social underpinnings will advance as well. But I am far from confident that this rather optimistic hypothesis is universally true, nor am I absolutely certain that interstellar travel is impossible. As a result, I am somewhat less than anxious to build a beacon that would beg any sleazoid who cares to listen to come on down and get friendly. I like to get to know about my neighbors at least a little, before I invite them over for dinner and drinks. |
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