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My warm greetings and smiles to my Hacker News friends — I’m honored by both your kindness and attention. Like many of you, I began computing as a teenager (in
by CliffStoll 3y ago
My warm greetings and smiles to my Hacker News friends — I’m honored by both your kindness and attention. Like many of you, I began computing as a teenager (in 1965: assembler on an IBM 1620); like many HN contributors, I’ve had fun with science, math, technology, and crafts.
HN has connected me with insightful and over-the-top competent people; I’m happy to be considered one of the gang. To the many who’ve helped me understand things from time crystals to homotopy theory, my deep thanks!
While I’ve tiptoed away from many turbulent scenes, I remain curious (just discovered that a biocide used as a paint additive to kill mildew is an ingredient in my shampoo). Still hacking & coding (handful of rasp pi’s), still sewing (finished an appliqué quilt last week), and still making these odd onesided shapes.
From a across the ether and across the decades, my warm wishes to those who’ve made this forum an inviting and occasionally inspiring place!
-Cliff (on a cloudy Thursday morning in Oakland)
- srndsnd 3y agoThank you for your incredible book Cliff. I found a copy when I was in high school about ten years ago and it changed my trajectory. It got me into hacking and tinkering with computers and led me to a career I love today. I always make a point of loaning my copy to anyone I see who was my age then with an interest in computers.
- theshackleford 3y agoSame. I don’t know where I’d be without it honestly. But certainly not where I am. It was the first and only thing that ever really clicked for me. Only I found it back in the early 2000s. Quite how I found it, I’ll never remember, but I found it at a dark time in my life and it had a profound impact then, through now.
- CliffStoll 3y agoThanks, oh Shackleford. Dark times (in life, at night, or during an eclipse) can lead to remarkable observations and insights. I'm honored that m'book played a part in your own story.
- CliffStoll 3y agoAnd thank you for your kind note -- the technology in the book feels antique today, but I suspect that many infosec people recognize both the story and my attitudes. Best wishes to you in your computing career!
- hackeraccount 3y agoThanks for all the writing. I read Cukoo's Egg when it came out and enjoyed but it took at least 10 years before I really followed it. As I remember I got started getting more involved in IT and Unix shortly after I read it and there would be conscious or even sub conscious moments were I'd be running some command or learning some networking concept and what I was learning at the moment would be a bit clearer for having read the book. Or maybe the book would be a bit clearer because I'd seen the reality on my screen.
- ethomson 3y agoThanks for everything, Cliff. I discovered _The Cuckoo’s Egg_ as a child, and was taken in. I wrote a book report on it... and then I wrote a book report on it the next year... and the next year... At some point, I stopped trying to drag my pre-teen schoolmates along with me, but I still have my original hardback and re-read it regularly. Your book taught me many things - perhaps most importantly, that one can educate about complex topics in engaging and understandable ways. And now I’ve landed in a job that focused on security. One of the things that I’ve been doing in this job is, well, trying to educate about complex topics in engaging and understandable ways. I’ve thought about your book in every blog post I’ve written lately. Thanks, again.
- tobiasbischoff 3y agoThanks Cliff, i am reading your comment and writing this reply from Hannover, Germany. Yes, that of all places.