CliffStoll

9 ms·

31.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Naw, I answer all my emails (and HN postings) by hand, using this trusty Mac. Well, usually trusty. And yep, the dozen or so people who ordered Klein bottles this morning received photos showing that either I'm alive or someone's
32.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Thank you Two-Bee. I'm happy to report that aside from insomnia, I'm doing well. Needless to say, this silly incident has a serious subtext for me.
33.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Thanks, oh unclothed robot. What brought it all home was when I sent a copy of the almost-finished manuscript to my mom. She called long-distance (an absolute luxury for her) and said, "I really like it -- I couldn't put it down&
34.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
I'm grateful to be OK as well. Close call there...
35.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Thank you -- one of the joys of running this zero-volume business is meeting visitors to the Bay Area. Every few days, someone stops by. Much fun! Cheers, -Cliff
36.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
And yep, there was a huge bump in sales today. Almost a dozen orders. I'll have to buckle down and stop reading Hacker News.
37.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Not me, Jeff! Smiles, -Cliff
38.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Not ripped. Torn.
39.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Oh Jeez, Don! That nuttiness still haunts me five years later. I still cannot sell Klein bottles on the Canadian Amazon site -- the Amazon hijacker somehow held onto the listing for my klein bottle listing for Amazon/Canada.
40.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Thank you Andrew - I will pass along your condolences to my family, especially to my wife, Pat, who passed away a year ago.
41.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
You betcha, Brudgers: I'm a member of the tribe.
42.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Legitimate answer: Maybe someone has stolen my account on hacker news. Maybe someone has researched who I am, even looking at sources unavailable online. Perhaps they stopped my my home (while I was alive) and noticed that I like Apricot
43.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Makes me feel even older, Benji. I wrote it when I was 38. Now, at 75, I'm astonished at how much has changed online. When I first started fooling with the Arpanet in the early 1980's, I calculated that I probably knew around 0.
44.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
My bio is empty. Hmmm. I'm giving a talk this Thursday (May 14th at a San Francisco Computer Security group, SFISCA. They asked for a bio. Here's what I wrote: Cliff Stoll graduated from Buffalo Public School #61 with a bl
45.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Open dispute about my death? (pinch myself - yep, it hurts) So how could I convince people that I'm alive and not some AI construct? (do pass along my warm cheers to your nonorientable friend) -Cliff
46.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Who am I? Given that I've been reported as dead, that's a good question...
47.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Hmmm ... maybe I'm impostering you, My HydroFloric. I either died before, after, or simultaneously with you. (of course, special relativity has something to say about "simultaneous')
48.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Smiles & one-sided cheers to you, Serph. Sure hope your Kleinbot is still working properly.
49.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Thanks Egonic Axe - Oh, I'm a long time Hacker News lurker ... often reading, seldom posting. Something has to be pretty curious to tempt me out of my cave.
50.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Funny you should mention it, Nail of the Earth. My friend Guy Consolmagno (oh, the stories I could tell - we were in grad school together, and he became the director of the Vatican Observatory) is taking one of my Klein bottles to Pope Leo
51.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Hat tip accepted, AA! smiles, -Cliff
52.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Oh my, but you know more than you can guess. About a year ago, my wife passed on. While deep in grief, I began receiving letters from financial institutions and banks that began, "Dear Mr/Ms Stoll, we offer our sincere condolenc
53.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Back from the dead, eh? Turns out it wasn't that bad of a passage...
54.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Writing from this side of death seems to be fairly easy, Dave. Smiles, -Cliff (who just started designing a new quilt) PS - I quite remember your visit with your daughter a year or so ago)
55.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
Thanks Nova Hana! I'm tickled that my writing helped with your English ... I sure didn't intend to help anyone figure out the weirdness of this language. As I remember, I was trying to use the language of computer jocks & ha
56.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
I've gone out of my way to not read my wikipedia page. Beyond this, there's a rule (suggestion??) that you not edit your own biographical page. As a result, I have no idea whether things are right, wrong, misguided, or kflooey o
57.
by CliffStoll 5mo ago
You betcha, Aurornis. Simple economics tells us that cheap work drives out quality. (Is that Gresham's law?). Slowly, people will adapt to AI in online forums. But for me, it's one more reason to share coffee with friends, rath
58.
Rumors of my death are slightly exaggerated
1676 points by CliffStoll 5mo ago|257 comments
59.
by CliffStoll 1y ago
Strongly agree: scribbling requirements, process maps, and block diagrams goes a long way to understanding what needs to be done, as well as getting us to think through what'll be the easy parts and pinch-points. Goes back to Fred Broo
60.
by CliffStoll 1y ago
Yes, Riffraff -- We did that film (yep, 16mm film) just a few months after I finished writing Cuckoo's Egg. At the time, the world was ignorant of words like "Internet" "Unix" and "e-mail", so I had to de

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