Klein Bottles and The Cuckoo’s Egg

Ever since I learned about Klein Bottles way back in college, I wanted one. “What is a Klein bottle?” you ask. It is a non-orientable, boundary-free object with but a single surface. It only took me a few decades, but now I finally have a three dimensional representation of a four dimensional object, which I purchased from Acme Klein Bottle. This site also has a comprehensive description of a Klein Bottle.

See this YouTube video for an excellent visual construction of a Klein Bottle.

Cliff Stoll, chief cook and Klein Bottle washer at Acme, is also the author of The Cuckoo’s Egg, a quirky tale of computer hacking and espionage. When the grant money ran out, Stoll, an astronomer at the Keck Observatory at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBL) suddenly had a choice—collect unemployment or develop programs in LBL’s basement for the astronomers who still had grants. He chose to program. One task Stoll was assigned had nothing to do with astronomy, but rather to keep track of computer usage. In other words, he had to work on the accounting software. He soon stumbled upon a 75¢ accounting error assigned to a user who didn’t have a valid accounting address. His investigation of this error drew him into an Alice in Wonderland like rabbit hole that soon involved many three-letter agencies, Tymnet, and the German post office. It nearly ate up a year of his life. The hackers were finally caught and thanks to Stoll’s diligence and superb record keeping, the hackers were could be prosecuted.

Because the computers at Berkeley were not isolated, but networked to other scientific and military computers, the hacker could potentially threaten our national security. Stoll skillfully draws us into his world of trying to find the hacker, get the proper authorities involved, with varying degrees of success, and prevent the hacker from getting sensitive information. Through the story, I was able to feel Stoll’s frustrations in dealing with the bureaucracies, the thrill of trapping the hackers, and the tedium of setting up traps.

Despite that this was first published in 1989, the damage a hacker can do to any networked computer and the need for secure passwords described in “The Cuckoo’s Egg” is as valid today as it was then. Most of us don’t have military secrets on our personal computers (at least I hope we don’t), but we all do have some private information that we wouldn’t want compromised. Even though I’m a reasonably experienced computer user, this book reinforced what I knew about the need for my own security as well as informed me on certain issues that I had not given any thought, and it did so in an interesting and humorous manner. Even though there were no high-speed chases, no explosions or fires (well one, sort of, but I’ll leave that for the reader to discover), this was a thrilling page-turner. Recommended.

Blog Interview at Big Al's Books and Pals

Books and Pals has started a new feature where he interviews authors whose books he's reviewed on the weekend. I'm tickled to share his interview with me on his blog here. You'll also get to see a full length photo of me in a copy of a mid-15th-century dress.

You can also see his review of my books: This Time and Loyalty Binds Me.

Review: Tales of a Texas Boy: Large Print by Marva Dasef

Tales of a Texas Boy: Large Print by Marva Dasef is a delightful collection of vignettes about a boy growing up on a farm in Texas during the great depression. While each chapter can be read separately as its own short story, they come together to give the reader a picture of family and community on a small farm in West Texas. Despite the hard times, the stories are all uplifting, some poignant and some laugh-out-loud funny.

The affection and warmth the author has for her characters illuminates every story. Even though the tales are fiction, I think the book’s dedication says it all: “Dedicated to my father, the real Little Eddie.” I heartily recommend this book.

Note: I read the Kindle edition.

When a word won't do

One of my favorite passages from This Time, my first book about Richard III in the 21st-century, came about because I couldn't use the word sympathy. Early in the novel, Richard observed what we would call a sympathetic expression from Katarina, a linguist who was part of the team helping Richard adjust to this century. Being a man of the late 15th-century, he spoke what is now called Early Modern English. According to The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Word Histories, sympathy did not come into use until the late 16th-century, and the adjective, sympathetic, until the mid 17th-century. The following short paragraph is the result.

Katarina’s pupils grew large and her lips parted slightly. While Richard would not describe her expression as one of pity, the word that came to mind was in his Latin vocabulary—misericors—caring heart.

Free ebook--Loyalty Binds Me

I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone who decided to download, read, and review Loyalty Binds Me, my second book about Richard III in the 21st-century. I am also very pleased to report that the reviews I've received as a result of this experiment have been quite favorable. Even though there's no guarantee that everyone who picks up Loyalty Binds Me will have a similar reaction, I'm quite excited by this great start.

Although no longer free, the ebook is available at the regular price ($2.99) at Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, iTunes, and Smashwords. For those who prefer to hold a real book, the paperback is available at booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, and Better World Books.

Recommended by Midwest Book Reviews.

Rant: Soliciting for Donations

For the past few years, I have been making all of my donations online through the various organizations’ websites where possible. My idea for doing this was to reduce the amount of paper mail that I had to recycle. I also thought it would make the money the organizations would have spent on these mailings available to support the reason for their existence.

Now, in addition to nearly daily emails, which I don’t mind deleting, I still get paper mail—some as often as bi-monthly. I could understand a yearly mailing thanking me for my support, but this barrage of mail is acting more to deter than encourage me to continue giving. I’m slowly being buried under a mountain of return address labels, cheap pens, note cards, newsletters, and calendars meant to get me to give through the mail. I expect that these so-called goodies are a significant expense that could otherwise be used to greater benefit.

Why can’t these organizations ask those who donate online if they wish to receive solicitations or any of these items in the mail when the donation is made? That for me is what I’d call a win-win.

Please indulge me in some boasting.

I hope you don't mind a bit of bragging—I recently got news that my short story, Becoming Ishmael finished second in Writer's Digest SciFi short story competition--Woohoo!! Additionally. I will be listed in the May/June 2012 issue of Writer's Digest magazine.

Although most of you know me from my novels about Richard III in the 21st-century, I have always loved the short story and science fiction. About three months ago I came upon a Writer’s Digest competition for science fiction and I immediately thought of my story about a computer scientist who was trying to create the first sentient robot. A dozen or so edits later, I was submitted it and then forced myself to stop thinking about it. Thus, it was a lovely surprise when I got an email and a voice mail to let me know that my story came in second.

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”—Mark Twain