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Comment by CliffStoll | Hacker News Reader

Yes, oh wizard of gauntlets, I pretty much have an open door policy (well the lock doesn’t work very well). Visitors stop by and I’m delighted to learn about everything from homotopy theory (thanks Aaron) to lizards need for ultraviolet light (thanx Arlene).

It’s an honor to be a member of this tribe.

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You and met at Kepler's way, way back when you were talking about your "Silicon Snake Oil". You signed my book and wrote in it "I hear you, John!". I have no idea what we talked about or what you agreed with me about.

Alas, but I too have forgotten ( though I do remember Kepler’s; I purchased the Oxford world atlas there, and all their employees signed it. )

I keep meaning to buy one of your bottles but my wife says we don't have any room for it. I keep telling her it has zero volume.

[edit] I went ahead and ordered one :-)

Hey Cliff, it’s crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide!

Thanks for being a truly great guy. Your passion and curiosity over the decades has been nothing short of infectious... in a good way. ;^)

Take care!

Hmmm: I know that phrase all too well! But where was I associated with it? Whoever you are, I suspect we met at one of these places:

A whiteboard at Newfield Wireless around 2015 (amongst LTE geolocation wizards)?

Space Telescope Science Institute during the pre-launch doldrums (I scribbled it on one of the VAX-780's)?

While an exchange scholar in Nanjing in 1980, I tried to translate this into Mandarin, to the confusion of my astronomical colleagues at Purple Mountain Observatory.

Either way, thank you for your smile this morning! - Cliff on a windy Monday morning in Oakland, California.

Thank you, Cliff - Coming by is one of my treasured memories, and as I've already attested, you're a major inspiration.

You’re awesome! I’ll order a bottle as soon as I’m less acutely broke ;)

Cliff - would you be interested in a swap?

I have a signed copy of the South Carolina Hall of Fame bulletin when Charles H. Townes (of maser, laser, and Nobel prize fame) was inducted, and would be happy to mail it to you in trade for whatever size bottle you'd care to send my way [0].

I was in high school at the time (1980) and I think he was a little amused by someone my age asking for an autograph.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1964/townes/biogra...

[0] He lived in Berkeley in his later years so you may have known him. And not need or want an autograph. Ehh, the offer stands.

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