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Worker Fired For Running SETI On State-Owned PCs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the it's-not-called-seti-at-work dept.

Formica writes "A programmer working for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services was fired for running SETI software on a state server. As quoted in this article, department head Tom Hayes says, 'I think that people can be comfortable that security has beamed this man out of our building.' More articles from Google."

2 of 622 comments (clear)

  1. THE HORROR! by tunabomber · · Score: 1, Troll

    I think next they should fire anyone who installs Windows XP on a government owned computer because it would waste publicly-funded CPU cycles displaying all that hideous eye candy.

    Seriously- does SETI@home have such a huge impact on computer performance that it causes losses in productivity?
    Probably not- it just uses CPU cycles that are going to be wasted anyways. And as for bandwidth consumption, I think uploading/downloading a work unit isn't going to be significantly more of a load than doing a little surfing during the lunch hour.

    --

    pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
  2. Re:Would you want to work for this guy? by rudy_wayne · · Score: 0, Troll
    After all, it's been very publicly broadcast to millions of people that he's short of intelligence.
    Running SETI software is a pretty good way to broadcast that you're short on intelligence.