Yeah, I stopped reading the article at that point. I immediately recognized that it was walking a linked list. I was expecting that his explanation would be something along the lines of, "Although this code *seems* to be walking a linked list, it actually does something *completely* unexpected... ". Nope... apparently it took him "a good deal of research" to figure that out. Which left me thinking, "Program much?"

Allow me to posit an alternative interpretation. DARPA is not interested in mapping our society. They're interested in learning what the most effective strategies are for quickly locating things that they *know* exist and are "out there", but don't know their exact locations. Perhaps the application of such a strategy could be useful for one of DoD's other pet projects. You know, the one where they're trying to find Osama bin Waldo and his Al Quaedian friends.

Nah, clearly that would just be too far-fetched a theory. Clearly, what we need is an explanation with a much higher dose of paranoia, hidden agendas, conspiracies, Big Brother, and a helluva lot of tin foil hats.

No, but they might try to use what they learn to figure out the best strategy for finding something else... or someone else... they'd like to find. *Cough* Osama bin Laden, et. al. *Cough*

Bingo.

So this talk of police investigations and possible criminal charges is ridiculous. If his activities caused as large an increase in electricity costs as the superintendent implies they had, then you'd think that at some point during the 10 years he was running SETI@Home that someone from the district's accounting department would have started wondering why their electric bills suddenly increased for seemingly no reason. I call bullshit.

At best, they could fire him (if he hadn't already resigned) for his making poor "business" decisions (in their view). But they certainly can't claim this software was "unauthorized", and therefore a criminal violation, when he is the guy who *they* appointed to make those decisions on behalf of the district.

You could just as easily argue that letting the CPUs, that they *paid good money for*, sit idle 75% of the time is a waste of resources that could otherwise be put to good use. No doubt, most people who run SETI@Home probably have used this, in part, as rationalization for their participation in the program. So, from a different point of view, his decision to maximize the utilization of the district's computing facilities was a good one.

The whole reaction to it reeks of some kind of grudge against the guy.

Public distribution is something else entirely.

Yes, that would be copyright infringement.

Cygwin is the #1 best thing that Windows has going for itself.

So, if git causes a few more people to learn about Cygwin (and the HUGE benefits it provides Windows users), then that is a plus in my book.

My first serious job was as a sysadmin for a small software company in the mid-nineties. At the time I was attending university pursuing a BS CS degree. I had no prior sysadmin experience, but worked my way up into the position doing technical support.

Fast forward to today, some 10 years later: I never finished my degree (only completed maybe 50-75%) and am earning ~$105k as a software engineer at a pretty prestigious institution that hires lots of PhDs and other advanced degree holders.

The bottom line is this: If you can prove yourself, there is hope for a decent IT career without a degree.