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Cliff Stoll, the mad scientist who invented the art of hunting hackers
- sohkamyung 7y agoFor those who want to know more about the Klein Bottle and mathematical side of Cliff Stoll, check out the videos featuring him on this Numberphile playlist [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5AfwLFPxWJeBhzCJ_JXdaIXi_YJl7Bh https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5AfwLFPxWJeBhzCJ_JX...
- eindiran 7y agoThis one is particularly good: every time you think he can't have more glass props, he pulls out another one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Rxep2Mkp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Rxep2Mkp8
- brk 7y agoI first read this story somewhere, back in the early 90's. It is a great piece of hacker lore, and a lesson (IMO), to not ignore little "rounding errors", as they can often be indicative of bigger problems lurking beneath. That is not to say these issues always need to be fully addressed and resolved, just properly understood.
- CliffStoll 7y agoToo often, we're driven by getting the right answer. I care more about understanding -- figuring out what the answer means. As well as the difference between precision and accuracy.
- at_a_remove 7y agoThe book is completely fascinating from multiple perspectives and I suggest anyone who wants to get a feel for the era read it. It's quite enjoyable, as well. The Internet, today, feels very metropolitan in some ways, but then this was something of a wild frontier. Reading The Cuckoo's Egg gave me a frisson of recognition, as I was similarly torn between the abstract world of physics and the (comparatively) more concrete world of computing, as well as running into people mucking about where they had no business being during a time period when law enforcement had yet to develop a solid framework for responding to those sorts of issues. I have considered contacting him purely for some hourglass work, or at least tips as to what to look for.
- lscotte 7y agoBack when I watched the original NOVA episode, I noticed they showed his UUCP email address. Since I had recorded it on VHS, I paused it so I could write it down. I emailed Cliff, apologetically, but thanking him for the story. I was quite surprised when he replied. Super nice guy, great story well told. It was probably a decade later that I read the book but somehow his narration in the NOVA episode is very personable and real, it just nails the story; and the interview with the actual hacker is great.
- CliffStoll 7y agoUUCP email? Ouch! Sends me back several decades...
- lscotte 7y agoAt least anyone who watches the episode today can't use that as a hint to bug you like I did nearly 30 years ago. :-)
- C1sc0cat 7y agoMe to I think I recall seeing Bang email addresses when various mailing list's where sneakily using the X.400 ADMD's as cost saving measure. Made reading the 409 dump when trouble shooting a bit tricky
- dayofthedaleks 7y agoHourglass work? Can you say more about what you mean by this phrase?
- at_a_remove 7y agoHe does blown glass work, makes these amusing "Klein bottles." In my case, I am looking for a particular style of hourglass.
- dayofthedaleks 7y ago
- HiroshiSan 7y agoWhat a fantastic picture! I recognize Ramanujan, Euler, and Turing but I'm not sure who the others are.
- saagarjha 7y agoI think I spy Emmy Noether and Joseph Fourier.
- CliffStoll 7y agoOn the wall are some of my friends -- people who have taught me good things. From the left - Felix Hausdorff (Who did so much for topology, and who took his life before being deported to a concentration camp) Gosta Mittag-Leffler (complex analysis) Alvin Turing (Computability) /below, hidden somewhat/ Tesla on a blue Serbian banknote, Newton, Stefan (of Stefan-Boltzman fame), Feynman/ Sofia Kovalevskaya (PDE's) Cahit Arf (on the Turkish 10 lyre bill - topologist) Emmy Noether (Rings & Fields) HSM Coxeter (Canadian geometer ... I met him when I was in High School!) Euler (on the Swiss 10 Franc banknote) Srinivasa Ramanujan Felix Klein Fourier and I'm resting on a Friden STW calculator that I've rebuilt.
- CliffStoll 7y agoOh - up top is Bernhard Riemann and August Mobius
- saagarjha 7y agoThanks!
- schoen 7y agoCoxeter did amazing stuff in higher-dimensional geometry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Scott_MacDonald_Coxeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Scott_MacDonald_Coxeter I have one of his books about polytopes and find it hard to wrap my head around the details, despite a childhood interest in higher dimensions. The diagrams are terrific!
- eddieroger 7y agoSometime in high school (middle maybe?), I had to pick a non-fiction book to read for school, and picked Cuckoo's Egg by Stoll. I was already in to computers, but had no idea what was possible or where that interest in computers would or could go, and this booked changed my view for the better. I distinctly remember my teacher questioning it was non-fiction when reading the jacket, but sure enough, it was. It's an great memory and amazing book, well worth reading still.
- nerfhammer 7y agoCheck out more recent interviews with him. Interesting guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
- hindsightbias 7y agoWow. I dont really want to spoil it for anyone, but you REALLY need to watch this video. Flips work table, opens secret door and...
- tectonic 7y agoHe's my neighbor. I went over to his house and received this exact experience. It's very practiced and pretty amazing.
- whalesalad 7y agoI recently purchased a used copy to re-read. I also read it for the first time in freshman or sophomore year of high school. I haven’t started yet because I’m worried it won’t live up to the first time. It’s in my top five for most exciting page turner.
- CliffStoll 7y agoNext time, buy a new copy, oh Salad of the Whale. My kids need help with their tuition.
- 7y ago
- JshWright 7y agoSomeday I want to be as excited about something as Cliff Stoll is about everything...
- kleer001 7y agoIMHO the key is removing empty media calories and replace them with load bearing subjects.
- Andhurati 7y agoHow do I do this?
- bitwize 7y agoStep one might be "stop reading Hackernews so damn much".
- averros 7y agoTake your TV to trash. Ditch Facebook and other "social" network accounts. Never visit any mainstream media websites. Gain +100 to your mental well-being.
- boring_twenties 7y agoI recommend Cal Newport's books, "Digital Minimalism" and "Deep Work"
- plibither8 7y agoMight be naive of me not to understand what you meant, but could you elaborate on this?
- dang 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll
- musingsole 7y agoI bought one of his Klein bottles and on top of being a great piece of work, he sent along with it fantastic pictures of him putting it in the box for shipping. Probably my favorite experience buying anything ever.
- CliffStoll 7y agoYou bet, MusingSole ... customer service is easy when you run a zero volume business.
- vichu 7y agoYou’re an inspiration, Cliff :)
- watertom 7y agoMy wife just purchased a Klein mug for our mathematician son for Christmas without mentioning it to me. I opened our email on Monday to see Cliff’s name and a truncated subject line. I then spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out if a) I was looking at the wrong email account. B) wondering if it was some sort of phishing attempt c) had Cliff started or was working for a security company and he was trying to drum up business. I finally clicked on the email and was surprised to find pictures of Cliff, a Kleinmug, a box with drawings on it, and his wife’s garden, the flowers were lovely. I finally went back and read the text of the email to find out that my wife had ordered a Kleinmug. Frankly it was the most excitement that I’ve had in a long time, getting an email from Cliff Stoll, very cool. I then needed to explain to my family what happened to me, and explain who Cliff was, and why it was important. I was an network admin during the Morris worm attack, and was on some email chains, and on some network news threads with Cliff, after the fact. The box arrived, but we haven’t opened it yet to check and see if it’s OK, we are waiting for our son to go out. My wife and our daughters are really excited to see the Kleinmug now that they know the backstory, also I think the girls might want a Kleinbottle as well. Thanks Cliff!!!
- numlocked 7y agoJust caught the “zero volume” joke, upon second reading.
- jki275 7y agoI was loaned Cuckoo's Egg by my first CS professor back in 1989. Great book.
- chrisallick 7y agoIf you haven't read the book, get on it! it's a really easy read and really inspiring. Although it's sad how his obsessions cost him.
- mirimir 7y agoYet another site that doesn't load anything for me. Just a bunch of scripts and photo captions. So what are these people doing to make their stuff so elusive?
- slater 7y agoThey're using Javascript, first released in 1994.
- mirimir 7y agoGood one, there. But seriously, I have no problem with over 90% of the sites I visit using this Firefox instance. But then there's wired.com and imgur.com, for example, which display just blank pages. I have no clue what it is. I've made too many changes. But I'm reasonably confident that it's something evil that they're doing, rather than something silly that I've done.
- soulofmischief 7y agoSPAs and client-side rendering, exacerbated by not using placeholders.
- reificator 7y agoWhen I visit Google Play Music in Firefox the interface loads about 80% but all clicks result in an error message. I'm fairly sure it comes down to the automatic tracking protection Firefox touts, but I can't seem to find how to turn it off for one specific site. Or better yet the specific requests that cause breakage on the specific site.
- pmoriarty 7y agoI can read it fine on emacs, using emacs-w3m, which does not understand javascript. So javascript is not required to read this article.
- benibela 7y ago
- progre 7y agoIf you're into podcasts there is a biographical interview with Cliff Stoll here https://www.numberphile.com/podcast/cliff-stoll https://www.numberphile.com/podcast/cliff-stoll
- nxpnsv 7y agoPossibly the best single podcast episode ever. I cried.
- pseudolus 7y agoHis follow-up book "Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway" was also a great read [0]. It's a shame that collectively we couldn't heed some of his warnings about the hype we were being sold about the Internet. In many ways the future he hinted at turned out to be substantially worse than he predicted. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385419945/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385419945/ref=dbs_a_def_r...
- fmajid 7y ago+1 for a silicon Snake Oil. There are many hucksters out to make money from overstretched school budgets by pandering to parents’ tech anxiety, and no money in sage warnings, and in our marketing-driven attention economy, that means the latter is ignored to the detriment of the common interest.
- hprotagonist 7y agoI am perpetually happy that Cliff Stoll figured out how to be his normal weird self in the world. That unselfconsious joy about stuff is exceptionally wholesome.
- CliffStoll 7y agoZooks! My normal-weird self. I gotta parse that...
- hprotagonist 7y agoIt is seductively easy to become jaded and "too cool" to show how into something one might be. Kids are allowed to, but starting at about age 14, I've found that society tends to do its best to tamp this exuberance down. The other trap is to figure that even if you're really into something you somehow have to be "serious" about it in a way that means you can't admit that you're having any fun -- or that you have to work on "serious problems". You avoided the traps! You are an inspiration, as a direct result. The very best people I know all have this trait -- a very early mentor in my life, my graduate advisors... So, thanks. :)
- CliffStoll 7y agoAnd thank you for your kind note, Protagonist of H. Funny you should mention it ... round 14 years old, I stopped watching TV. I was too busy building a ham radio set; I'd come home and dive into electronics. And, well, I've not watched television since then. I've missed an enormous amount of popular culture & goodness knows what else. On the other hand, it's a bit like being given a few hours every day to build stuff or figure out how things work. I guess this tends to make my 'normal' into 'weird'.
- hprotagonist 7y agoMy advisor was a HAM, too. He briefly made the news as a teenager after (more or less accidentally) contacting eastern europe on a particularly good night after installing a massive antenna on the roof of his parent's house. I wasn't brought up with a TV, and don't own one now. I haven't done cool things with klein bottles, but i know a bunch about how bicycles work!
- odyssey7 7y agoI remember finding Cliff Stoll's Klein bottle website a number of years ago when I was younger, but of course I didn't remember the name of the person behind it. The concept prompted a lot of interesting geometry-related thoughts. It was surprising to see this come back up while reading about cybersecurity and what sounds like a neat book!
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoI remember seeing the 60 Minutes interview with Stoll and his girlfriend when his book came out. Pretty crazy duo. I liked it.
- jlgaddis 7y ago> ... with Stoll and his girlfriend ... Don't tell his wife!
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoShe was still his girlfriend, back then. They were pretty “bohemian.” I think she is now his ex-wife.
- 29athrowaway 7y agoWatch the Nova episode, "The KGB, The Computer, and Me".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mathattack 7y agoNothing beats the Cool Awesome Nerd factor of buying a Klein bottle from him. https://www.kleinbottle.com/ https://www.kleinbottle.com/
- zimpenfish 7y agoI have a Mobius scarf and Klein Bottle hat from him. Figured the shipping of a glass one to the UK would be a) expensive and b) likely to end up as glass dust given how godawful our local carriers are.
- power 7y agoI got one shipped to Ireland and it arrived in one beautiful piece. Cliff also sent on a email documenting the process and I replied with an unboxing photo. It was worth ordering just for the lovely interaction.
- numlocked 7y agoAt work, we give Cliff’s Klein bottles as the quarterly award for engineering excellence. When I ordered the first batch, I called the number on the Acme Klein bottles website to ask whether they could be engraved (the site states the CLIFF won’t engrave the bottles but I wanted clarification if ANYONE would engrave them). It rang and went to voicemail. I started leaving a message with my question when suddenly there was a lot of noise as the phone was picked up (apparently it was a real answering machine) by someone shouting “don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!”. It was Cliff. I was briefly star-struck, told him what an influence The Cuckoo’s Egg had on me when I was younger, and then received a 15-minute oral history of engraving methods and why none of them would work on his Klein bottles. An absolute highlight of my year, and I think they’ve been well received as engineering awards...even if we have to use a label-maker to add the recipient’s name :)
- driverdan 7y agoDid he say why laser engraving wouldn't work? I can see the curves causing some distortion but you should be able to compensate for that. Edit: He answers the question in his FAQ > The borosilicate glass laughs at laser beams ..which makes sense. Seems like sand blasting would be the best way.
- CliffStoll 7y agoIn short - engraving borosilicate is difficult, because it does not expand very much when heated. So when hit by an infrared laser beam, the glass doesn't locally expand and spall off a tiny speck of glass .... instead, the glass locally melts. When the beam moves on to the next pixel, the first site either solidifies or sometimes dribbles away. Laser engraving of borosilicate just doesn't work well. And, because of the compound curves of the Klein bottle, you need a big depth of field as well as a rotary bottle holder. All laser engravers that I've played with have a very short (10mm or so) depth of field. Diamond engraving doesn't work well because of the curves. Sandblasting with a rubber mask works, but making the mask is a pain. So, after lots of attempts, I've given up on engraving these guys. Also: mistakes are expensive -- this is hand-blown glass.
- bdamm 7y agoA friend gave this book to me during my high school years - in 1995. Cliff's book fundamentally changed my perspective on computers, and at just the right time, is partially responsible for my career to this very day. It's been an interesting career for sure, so, thanks Cliff!
- wglb 7y agoAs part of the security awareness training I gave to each of the software engineers during onboarding. I challenged them to see how things have changed in the years since that happened. The answer is not very much. Except it is worse.
- heipei 7y agoI had the immense pleasure of seeing my childhood idol Cliff Stoll on stage at a conference organised by my company. They had invited Cliff as the keynote speaker. He brought honest-to-god slides and a projector, his talk ran over due to popular demand and he was a stark contrast to the otherwise "corporate" atmosphere. What impressed me most about Cliff though was the level of interest he displayed in everything. In what our company did when talking to the execs before the talk and in everyone who came up to him after the talk. He stayed in the conference room to take photos with each of the dozens of fans lined up one by one. Eventually we were kicked out since the next event was about to start. 15-year-old me would never have dreamed of meeting my childhood idol, but when I finally met him it was like he just had finished writing the book and walked onto the stage. Thanks Cliff!
- scottlocklin 7y agoI can one up: I actually worked with the guy on a contract. The people we did the work for were kind of jerks, but Cliff was amazing. Old school mad scientist. Except he radiates a saint-like benevolence and good-heartedness which is all too rare these days. Like a cross between the professor on "back to the future," Yoda, and a Catholic saint. LBNL should have given him a lab, a quarter million bucks for equipment he might find interesting and permanent access to the machine shops and library. The fact that they didn't is ... one of the reasons I no longer work there and why modern science and its culture is a trash fire.
- abhgh 7y agoI have given away a couple of Klein bottles to collaborators I have really enjoyed working with, as a token of appreciation. He sends emails that show him packaging, and a bunch of eccentric paperwork accompanies the bottle, which are a delight. Visiting him at his lab is on my todo list (his website mentions "You're welcome to stop by for coffee & chat - please call ahead if you plan to visit."), I don't stay very far from his place! Maybe I will get a copy of his book signed too.
- kazinator 7y agoAmazing TIL: the famous Berkeley hacker hunter and the Klein bottle guy are just flipsides of the same Möbius strip.
- Fnoord 7y agohttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/
- janpot 7y agoBought one of his bottles a few years ago. I have it right in front of me as a desk toy, next to a Theo Jansen strandbeest model. Every time I look at it I'm reminded of how delightful the whole experience was of obtaining it. I can only recommend everybody buying one of these.
- dcminter 7y agoI too bought one as a gift for a friend and mentioned in the comment form how much I'd enjoyed The Cuckoo's Egg. The reply was effusive, and the overall "purchase experience" still leaves me with a warm glow.
- philpem 7y agoI find Cliff's closing points extremely relatable. > “I remember when the internet was innocent, when it crossed political boundaries without a care, when it was a sandbox for intellectually happy people,” Stoll had told me in our first phone call. “Boy, did that bubble burst.” > He never imagined, 30 years ago, that the internet would become a medium for dark forces: disinformation, espionage, and war. “I look for the best in people. I want to live in a world where computing and technology are used for the good of humanity,” Stoll says. “And it breaks my heart.” Idealism and 'the greater good' are locked in a perpetual battle with human factors, and human factors always seem to win. :(
- boneitis 7y agoRecently stumbled upon this RMS speech transcription[0] for the first time. I find it quite relevant to your quoted passages and, I suppose, corroborative of your commentary. Bit of a long read. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html
- jgrahamc 7y agoI met Cliff Stoll at Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park, CA years ago when his book High-Tech Heretic came out (about computers in the classroom). We had a great discussion about something and he signed my book "I hear you John!". And I have no idea what we discussed...
- gdy 7y agoWith all due respect to Cliff Stoll, I'm perplexed by the "Don’t go screwing with information that belongs to innocent people!" bit. Seriously, the article is talking about German hackers intruding military targets: "the hacker’s intrusions to the Department of Defense’s MILNET systems, an Alabama army base, the White Sands Missile Range, Navy shipyards, Air Force bases, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, defense contractors, and the CIA" "Stoll’s hacker-tracking work at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs inspired its sister institution, Lawrence Livermore National Labs" This is where nukes are designed. And after that "Don’t go screwing with information that belongs to innocent people!", "You have a responsibility to your colleagues like me to behave ethically", "low-burning outrage", "[the Internet] was a sandbox for intellectually happy people". Innocent, ethical, intellectually happy people creating means to murder hundreds of million people and pesky hackers who have no right to be snooping around.
- marksweston 7y ago> pesky hackers ...working on behalf of the KGB, seeking military advantage for the totalitarian police state they served. Yes, let's be on their side instead.
- gdy 7y ago"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
- C1sc0cat 7y agoI think Cliff was referring to "his" systems here, as a recovering system we get protective of our babies. I remember joking that you had better hope that you got caught in order by: the local police; The Met; The service (MI5); internal security rather than me :-)
- ajmarsh 7y agoThe systems Cliff Stoll was responsible for at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs were part of the Human Genome Project, not a weapons program.
- tom_mellior 7y agoThe Cuckoo’s Egg is a great read. For another great hacking story from the same era, see "An Evening with Berferd: In Which a Cracker is Lured, Endured, and Studied": http://www.cheswick.com/ches/papers/berferd.pdf http://www.cheswick.com/ches/papers/berferd.pdf From the abstract: "On 7 January 1991 a cracker, believing he had discovered the famous sendmail DEBUG hole in our Internet gatewaymachine, attempted to obtain a copy of our passwordfile. I sent him one. For several months we led this cracker on a merry chase in order to trace his location and learn his techniques."
- lunchables 7y agoIt's absolutely one of my favorite reads ever. In fact, I think it's about time to read it again.
- pvaldes 7y agoI'm finding the "mad scientist" cliche more and more offensive each day.
- hyperman1 7y agoI once heard the 'mad scientist' cliche is mostly derived from the behaviour of Tesla while demonstrating to prospective funders. He did it because he needed the money so he had to produce a spectacular show.
- taborj 7y agoMeh, I'd rather own it than waste time being offended by it. To me, this isn't a label worth getting offended about.
- Merrill 7y ago>He never imagined, 30 years ago, that the internet would become a medium for dark forces: disinformation, espionage, and war. “I look for the best in people. I want to live in a world where computing and technology are used for the good of humanity,” Stoll says. “And it breaks my heart.” 30 years ago the US phone network was losing about $6 billion / year to toll fraud, operator fraud, and cellphone fraud. Captain Crunch had been arrested in '72. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper
- trasz 7y agoThere’s a German movie, titled “23”, which tells the story from the point of view of the opposite side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_(film)
- qu4ku 7y agoJust have watched 'The KGB, The Computer, and Me' a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTx9h3Sm29I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTx9h3Sm29I
- chriscyber 7y agoCame to the thread to post this. It's a hacker classic. There is also this German movie, telling the same story from the side of the hacker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYD_lmK-KE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYD_lmK-KE
- hyperman1 7y agoI find this remarkable: This is the other ingredient to Stoll’s hacker-hunting obsession [...] a kind of low-burning moral outrage. because I notice the same in a lot of other people worth listening to. In general you won't notice it until you spend some time with them. There is some internal moral compass influencing all decisions subtly, even in the knowledge most of the world doesn't care. Its different from SJWs etc in that its mostly silent, internal, invisible, doing instead of saying. For an other example, here's what Neil Gaiman says about Terry Pratchett: There is a fury to Terry Pratchett’s writing: it’s the fury that was the engine that powered Discworld https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchet...
- tclancy 7y ago>Its different from SJWs etc in that its mostly silent, internal, invisible, doing instead of saying. You lost me right there. At some point enough tinder on the lowest burn turns into fire. The end of the interview suggests much the same on the part of the subject.
- floatingatoll 7y agoYour comment is unreadable on mobile. Please do not use code formatting for plain text quotes.
- JDiculous 7y agoI remember watching his TED talk 11 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj8IA6xOpSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj8IA6xOpSk and buying a couple Klein bottles afterwards. This brings back memories!
- noonespecial 7y agoDon't miss Cliffs "robotic crawl space warehouse". Take that Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw54zsON4MI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw54zsON4MI
- b3lvedere 7y agoAwesome read. I love the Klein bottles!
- gdubs 7y agoThe Cuckoo's Egg and Silicon Snake Oil were life changing for me. I was in middle school, snowed-in in upstate New York, on my computer most of the time. And the writing tips at the end of Silicon Snake Oil have stuck with me to this day. Cuckoo's Egg is a great thriller. Silicon Snake Oil was ahead of its time. The thing I liked about both is that they showed me what a rich life could be like beyond computers. And what was this magical place called Berkeley? Cuckoo's Egg is also something of an anecdote to 'imposter syndrome'. It showed how someone who was coming in to the field from the outside could trust their instincts and do something important. As others have said, a lot of us have come into this field from a wide variety of backgrounds. Stoll's books showed me how that can actually be an asset.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jrd259 7y agoWhy call Cliff a "mad" scientist? He's a polymath possessing diverse skills, some of them esoteric (glassblowing), but there's no evidence that he's even eccentric, much less "mad". Sure he built a robot, but it doesn't even have weapons. Seriously, would you have called Feynmann, Heinlein or Minsky mad? There's this trope that if you are smart and do anything unusual you must also be "mad". Smarts, curiosity, and hard work are not an illness.
- yathern 7y agoI think the "mad" in "mad scientist" makes it form a compound word - that doesn't suggest the person is clinically insane. To me, I hear "mad scientist" and I think: - Very knowledgeable across a range of studies - Likes to build homebrew projects - Impressive work ethic and devotion to projects - Does it not for money or fame, but just because it's what they do
- TremendousJudge 7y ago- Has crazy hair like Cliff Stoll or Albert Einstein in that one picture
- qidydl 7y agoI knew Cliff first as my dad's old college buddy, so it's always a little wild when articles about him show up. He's an actual human being and a good person, so I hope the scrutiny and craziness of public attention doesn't give him too much trouble.