Exposure

So I'm in the process of reading a book titled Exposure. It's a fiction book by R. J. Pineiro. Now why in the world am I reading a book? Well, I'm in the unenviable position of having to write a book report. The book must be a fiction book, and has to have a technology woven into the plot, theme, etc... In all honesty, I'm not thrilled with being forced to read a book in less than 2 weeks, and having to write a report about it. Surprisingly, I have found this book to be a real page turner. I thought it was going to be a boring book, that I would lose my interest quickly, since I don't really have the patience to sit and read a long novel. However, when the first line of the review on file at the public library reads..."forget erasing a computer hard drive; the computer bug this guy creates caused a nuclear meltdown that killed more than 15,000 people" you know it has to be somewhat interesting.

I started reading the book last night, and amazingly read through the first 80 pages. In the prologue, Pineiro writes of a nuclear meltdown at the power plant in Palo Verde, Arizona. From there, the story moves to the Nuclear Engineering Department at LSU. A senior professor of nuclear engineering and an associate professor are performing their own investigation into the Palo Verde disaster. The two professors develop an algorithm for a automated control system, and test it on computer systems with different processors. When they test the algorithm on a Perseus processor from computer giant Microtel, they discover serious bugs. This discovery leads them to believe there may be a connection between the flaws in the perseus system and the nuclear disaster at Palo Verde. This is where the plot begins to thicken. Shortly after the senior professor confronts the CEO of Microtel about the flaws, the professor mysteriously dies in the middle of an exclusive restaurant on the LSU campus. It turns out the Microtel CEO had him killed. And the associate professor is next to be dealt with. Microtel is essentially covering up the mistakes, and preventing the flaws from being made public knowledge. By the way, the CEO is running for President of the USA; damn good reason to want to keep the connection between Palo Verde and Microtel a secret.

Anyway, that's all I have on that. More later.