Cliff Stoll is a real character. I remember attending an author event for him at Computer Literacy in Sunnyvale, for his subsequent book “Silicon Snake Oil”. This would have been 1995 or so. The place was packed. He talked about the book a little bit, but he basically told stories nonstop for about two hours.

I forget most of the stories, but one was about a grandfather clock (a tall pendulum clock) that was being thrown out because somebody thought it was useless —- it ran fast by four minutes a day. But the clock had been set that way deliberately. Why? Clue: the clock was found near the astronomy department.

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It was an incredibly fun and extremely nerdy event.