Check out the following categories:

• Information Please
• Special Experts Needed
• Stuff I'd Like to Get My Hands On

Here's where I'll call for a bit of help now and then! A few questions and requests that I'll toss out from time to time... things I may need, or riddles to solve.

Sometimes the answer finds its way into a novel. I've even been known to name a character after someone who helped out!

Send flashes to my email address.

Here are my current burning questions. Nothing urgent or major at the moment. Just a minor curiosity or two, like...

• Who is 'davidbrin' on AOL instant messenger?

• Does anyone know of any cyber-presences that might be feigning to be the science fiction author David Brin?

• Does anyone know of any electronic versions of my copyrighted works currently available online? My online or electronically downloadable versions should only be available here.

Care to post a question here for others to ponder? I may put it up if I find it interesting. People who wish to set up a resulting discussion group should follow their question with the appropriate group sign-on info.

I just filed a patent for a vastly better approach to online realtime text communications, a realm most adults deride as "chat" because of a clunky teletype-based interface, almost unchanged from 1971! The chief reform so far has been silly "avatars." Fed up, I devised a new approach -- and a tiny startup to implement it. I'm interested in leads to any 'prior art' or systems that tried to implement real-time onscreen dialogue in ways that were markedly different than typical "chat."

Any teachers out there who have experimented with using science fiction to liven up their curricula and interest students in dry subjects? See the Webs of Wonder Contest site, and consider applying for the $1,000 prize!

Anyone into "tax simplification"? Some software development people I know have a prototype system for optimizing complex system models. As a test, they're interested modeling ways to simplify the IRS code without stirring the usual hornet's nest.

Alas, most efforts in this direction have been political, based on the notion of reducing the net tax burden on a particular favored group. If that is your idea, please don't write to me with outraged denunciations of the IRS, 'pinko levellers' or 'billionaire rip-off artists.'

This is a politically neutral experiment to see if the tax code can be simplified without changing anybody's net tax burden. The aim is to demonstrate the utility of a new kind of modeling software. If you know of a group pursuing neutral tax simplification, an exchange of expertise might interest them.

Many thanks to those who have written in suggestions how to get a Quatermass LP and those Easton Press editions. Actually, I put those requests up in order to ask for something. Actually, I'm a pretty satiable guy and don't have a lot of material yearnings. But I'll put up more requests here now and then just to keep my hand in. Again, thanks.

Still, I'd be willing to pay for... rumored editions of my books that have appeared in Chinese or Arabic or Korean.