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Weblog:   Knock Down, Then Kick
Subject:   Charles Smith and SETI
Date:   2004-10-10 15:24:17
From:   adamsj
Response to: Charles Smith and SETI

When I noticed Smith's age, that occurred to me, too. His union may have questions about that.


Here's a different theory, which also makes sense to me. The AP story led off mentioning DJ&L employees fired recently for a variety of reasons, including:



  • Illegally collecting unemployment

  • Downloading contraband images at work

  • Having sex in their cubicles


Given that this department had a rash of such incidents come to public attention recently, the mocking tone of Hayes' remarks might indicate a pre-emptive strike against being mocked himself by the press. I mean, if you've had news stories written about your employees having sex in their cubicles (after downloading contraband images, one assumes), you might try to beat them to the punch.


That's playing with fire--specifically, with backfire. I'm curious to see how it plays out.
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  • Charles Smith and SETI
    2004-10-10 23:44:05  jwenting [Reply | View]

    quite possibly there is indeed more at work. Just having some software installed (especially something as innocious as SETI@Home) is rarely enough ground for firing someone (though this person was of course in a position of trust in what should be a secure environment which makes his offense worse).
    Most likely we're not seeing the entire story and there's a history of disgressions on the part of Smith and/or disagreements between him and his managers and this was a good way to get rid of him.
    • John Adams photo Charles Smith and SETI
      2004-10-11 05:04:14  John Adams [Reply | View]

      I'm sure we don't know the whole story, and your speculation about this being the end of a long history of disagreement is another plausible explanation, both for the firing and for the rudeness of the manager's public statements about Smith.
      Again, that's half of what really gets me about this.
      We don't know whether the firing was deserved or not, but publicly mocking someone who you've just fired is a bad thing to do--both wrong and unintelligent.
      I also still wonder whether the fact this was SETI@Home, rather than one of the biochemical or mathematical distributed computing projects, had something to do with it. Whether people understand math or not, they believe in the existence of numbers; one of the biochem projects is working on anthrax vaccines, and that's less a matter of belief than of patriotism and the public good.
      But intelligent extraterrestrial life? The headlines were full of humor about that.
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