My alma mater has a bit of inferiority complex. Living in the shadow of Caltech can really grate on you. Sure, you can take it out on them in petty ways: change the Caltech sign on the freeway to read, “Pasadena City College” underneath, steal their 3,000 lb bronze cannon, and so on. But the problem remains. Sure, we have scads of entrepreneurs, Ph.Ds, and highly competent engineering managers all over the nation. But honestly, the only “famous” Mudd alum I’ve ever heard of is astronaut George “Pinky” Nelson. Astronauts are cool and all, but there are, like, hundreds of them fer crying out loud. We can do better, can’t we?

When I was at Mudd in the mid-90s, I heard that the guy who wrote Solitaire for Windows was an alum, and he didn’t get paid a penny for it. I had always taken that rumor with a big grain of salt. But now, thanks to GMSV, I now know that not only did young programmer Wes Cherry not get paid for writing Solitaire, but that he was indeed a Mudder.

What incredible news! Think about it: How many billions of hours have been wasted on Windows Solitare over the last decade? In fact, Cherry might have singlehandedly obviated all of the productivity gains that were supposed to arrive with the advent of the personal computer… at least, before the Internet came along.

I mean, wow. Beat that, Caltech.