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I love Cliff Stoll so much... I hope one day to be as passionate about _something_ as he seems to be about everything... If you haven't read The Cuckoo's Egg,

I love Cliff Stoll so much... I hope one day to be as passionate about _something_ as he seems to be about everything... If you haven't read The Cuckoo's Egg, I'd highly recommend it. It details his experience tracking down one of the first "hackers" back in the 80's, when he was a sysadmin for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

sp332 11y ago
There's a one-hour long NOVA episode about that story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac
- saboot 11y ago
  I'm only three minutes in and I'm already loving this. Thanks for sharing
- pp19dd 11y ago
  Thanks for sharing that. I had seen the Klein bottles under his workshop video awhile back, but I had no idea how deep this rabbit hole went.
Ductapemaster 11y ago
It really is a fantastic story. I can't recommend it enough.
teh_klev 11y ago
I read it when it was first published, twice in the same week I bought it. It's was a really good story. Sadly I lost my copy, possibly due to lending it to someone.
smoyer 11y ago
I've got an old copy and have read it through twice ... and it's currently sitting in my bosses office waiting for him to read it. I'd say that it's one of my two favorite non-fiction books (the other being "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman").
smrq 11y ago
That's amazing-- I had both read that book and seen a few of his appearances on Numberphile, but I never connected the two. This same phenomenon happened to me not long ago actually, when I discovered that two of my all-time favorite bands shared a guitarist (Greg Edwards of Failure and Autolux). Is there a term for discovering that two people you know of are actually one and the same? I find it to be a rare pleasure-- you can almost feel the mental connections linking themselves together, and afterwards the world feels like a smaller, more logical place.
jrk_ 11y ago
> I hope one day to be as passionate about _something_ as he seems to be about everything... The last time I've been so passionate about something was when I was around 10 or 12. Since then I've trained myself to be (and act) not so passionate anymore, because it'll make you look like a weirdo to most people. However, it brought me to a point where it's hard for me to get excited about anything at all, not to speak of expressing it properly...

sp332 11y ago

There's a one-hour long NOVA episode about that story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac

saboot 11y ago
I'm only three minutes in and I'm already loving this. Thanks for sharing
pp19dd 11y ago
Thanks for sharing that. I had seen the Klein bottles under his workshop video awhile back, but I had no idea how deep this rabbit hole went.

Ductapemaster 11y ago

It really is a fantastic story. I can't recommend it enough.

teh_klev 11y ago

I read it when it was first published, twice in the same week I bought it. It's was a really good story. Sadly I lost my copy, possibly due to lending it to someone.

smoyer 11y ago

I've got an old copy and have read it through twice ... and it's currently sitting in my bosses office waiting for him to read it. I'd say that it's one of my two favorite non-fiction books (the other being "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman").

smrq 11y ago

That's amazing-- I had both read that book and seen a few of his appearances on Numberphile, but I never connected the two. This same phenomenon happened to me not long ago actually, when I discovered that two of my all-time favorite bands shared a guitarist (Greg Edwards of Failure and Autolux). Is there a term for discovering that two people you know of are actually one and the same? I find it to be a rare pleasure-- you can almost feel the mental connections linking themselves together, and afterwards the world feels like a smaller, more logical place.

jrk_ 11y ago

> I hope one day to be as passionate about _something_ as he seems to be about everything... The last time I've been so passionate about something was when I was around 10 or 12. Since then I've trained myself to be (and act) not so passionate anymore, because it'll make you look like a weirdo to most people. However, it brought me to a point where it's hard for me to get excited about anything at all, not to speak of expressing it properly...