This site is where you can buy a Klein Bottle, a one-sided three-dimensional container with a volume of zero. (It doesn’t specify if the zero is in liters or gallons, though. A disappointing oversight. I don’t want to end up having to perform metric-to-imperial conversions while calculating how much nothing the thing can’t contain.)
They have to cheat a bit to get the thing into three-dimensional space. The nexus where the handle / neck intersects is displeasing, but it’s a necessary compromise because because most glassblowers refuse to work in four dimensions.
(Yes, I can see this site is ages old, almost prehistoric by internet standards. It’s so old it’s new again. Anyway, I’ve never seen it before.)
Trashing the Heap
What does it mean when a program crashes, and why does it happen?
A Star is Born
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
Autoblography
The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
Raytracing
Raytracing is coming. Slowly. Eventually. What is it and what will it mean for game development?
Charging More for a Worse Product
No, game prices don't "need" to go up. That's not how supply and demand works. Instead, the publishers need to be smarter about where they spend their money.
Came across that a while ago. It’d make a great present for me, if anyone I know is watching. My favorite pic is the one with all the m&ms in the bottle.
Dude! That’s Cliff Stoll! That’s totally awesome!
(If you don’t know who Cliff Stoll is, you need to catch up on some reading material.)
hmmm… during my younger, darker and more irresponsible youth i think I invented a “klein bong” using some beakers, pipe filters, a few weird aqarium pieces and an apple.
I wonder if I coould have patented it?
I can highly recommend kleinbottle.com. It’s almost worth it just for the documentation you get with your bottle.
(and I’m re-reading The Cuckoo’s Egg right now, as it happens!)
You saw the warnings, and the unconditional guarantee, right? That’s the best part of the site.
My wife once knit a Klein toque. I cannot describe the feeling I got when wearing it – but for some inexplicable reason, it kept my head warm.
Rustybadger: not really inexplicable– look at the diagram on http://www.kleinbottle.com/klein_bottle_hats.htm. You can see the heat given off by your head would be returned to the part surrounding your head, forming a heated layer. It’s really quite efficient. I’m seriously considering getting one now for just that reason.
Clifford Stoll also wrote “Silicon Snake Oil”, about which I’ll bet he is not particularly proud these days. (A 1996 work arguing that the Internet was a silly passing fad.)
I went on a klein bottle kick in 2001 and ordered three different ones, PLUS the klein bottle mug, PLUS the klein bottle knit hat. I was at top of the geek heap.
[Shamus] I’m with you on the lamentable lack of precision when it comes to the units the damn bottle is calibrated in. You should write to the site owners and tear them off a mobius strip.
Steve.
Cliff Stoll. That’s amazing. Coincidentially, I moved residences last month and found my copy of “The Cuckoo’s Egg” in transit. I re-read it and passed it off to two friends, who both read and enjoyed it, in the last week. Too, too funny. What a small world. I just might have to buy a Klein bottle from him. ;-)
Thanks Shamus!
I want a Klein bottle. (Maybe I should put that on my birthday wishlist.)
And I think I have a copy of The Cuckoo’s Egg around here somewhere….