Patriot games
by Tom Clancy · first published 1975
9mentions
1recommended by
9HN commenters
2010–2026first – last mentioned
11% recommend89% neutral
Patriot Games is a thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and published in July 1987. Without Remorse, released six years later, is an indirect prequel, and it is chronologically the first book featuring Jack Ryan, the main character in most of Clancy's novels. The novel focuses on Ryan being the target of Irish terrorist group Ulster Liberation Army for thwarting their kidnapping attempt on the Prince and Princess of Wales in London.
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Really sad to see him pass. Some of his books were absolutely superb: Rid Storm Rising, Hunt for the Red October, Patriot Games, Without remorse. RIP :(
on “Tom Clancy has died” ↗Tom Clancy in the book "Patriot games" (1987), p86 at https://archive.org/details/patriotgamesclan00clan/page/86/m... : > ... first draft of the report, I came up with an idea to make each one unique." > "They've been doing that for years,"…
on “Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks” ↗…lack of interior house construction penetration of #4 buck. Note, per the above, that the pattern at 12 feet was 3.5 inches, which matches pretty well the 1 inch spread/yard metric I first read about in Patriot Games. And #4 buckshot is not a good perpetrator; if you're a Facklerite you want 16 inches (in case you have to shoot thought an arm to reach the vitals). Birdshot is obviously much more iffy. As for intimidation,…
on “Ask HN: How do you do home security?” ↗…This is basically what the statistics professor used to catch the cheaters in his class. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap P.S. Yes I know that this technique played an important role in "Patriot Games" by Tom Clancy.
on “Cheating at School Is Easier Than Ever–and It’s Rampant” ↗Many people claim to do it. It's a plot point in a Patriot Games, a 1987 Tom Clancy novel that introduced the term "canary trap" for this trick. He says he invented the term, but not the technique, which was already in use. In a spat over the plot of Star Trek III…
on “Store files inside of YouTube videos” ↗In Patriot Games by Tom Clancy, there is a scene early in the book where Jack Ryan is talking about the laptop he is using to write his book. I don't remember the exact specs but am 100% sure he mentions that it has…
on “Bubble Memory” ↗This type of thing shows up in a lot of fiction books (always as an original idea). Check "Patriot Games" for an example.
on “Trap Rooms: Deliberate errors to catch copyright infringement” ↗…sell. edit: I'd add that we didn't like to stock books with low prices like that. There's no margin in the <$5+s&h books you see on Amazon. Instead, we had a big pulper and we'd pulp our 10m copies of "Patriot Games" and sell them to recyclers. My understanding is that my former employers have moved to start making recycled paper themselves and selling that these days.
on “Money for Nothing” ↗It's a potential goldmine. Spy satellites are on orbits and follow a very regular predictable path. I recall reading Patriot Games back in the day and terrorists had satellite timetables scrawled on a board so they knew when to cover their gear up with camouflage.
on “Yinpiao Zhou Charged with Drone Flying over Vandenberg” ↗