Yes, Riffraff -- We did that film (yep, 16mm film) just a few months after I finished writing Cuckoo's Egg. At the time, the world was ignorant of words like "Internet" "Unix" and "e-mail", so I had to define each of these as I went along.
5,859 karma · joined November 25, 2013
Keep 'em all guessing.
It's how I cheat my chiropractor.
I have fun with every Klein bottle order. When someone buys a Klein bottle, I celebrate by walking through our backyard garden, looking for new blossoms. I usually take a few photos and send these to my customer-friend.
This micro business puts me in touch with fascinating people (I've met kids in elementary school, grad students, Nobel laureates, even a delightful nut who made a 4-meter tall wooden Klein bottle for Burning Man). The kind of people you find here on Hacker News.
PS - with reference to your HN identity -- from my ham radio days of long ago, I once experimentally determined that a 1/2 watt, 600 ohm Ohmite resistor would burn up when inserted in a 120V outlet. Hmmm: 24 watts into a half-watt resistor? Yep, filled the room with that acrid smell... Don't try this at home. All of a sudden, I got three or four Klein bottle orders. That's a lot for an hour! One of the orders (thank you Bryan in Johnstown) mentioned Hacker News. And, well, here I am.Since then, I've lowered my periscope: my wife, Pat, and I decided to stay home together and raise two kids. They're now fledged - hooray! During that time, I started this micro-business of making Klein bottles - much fun!
Alas, but this past December, my wife left this vale of toil and tears. During the day, staying busy helps keep the grief under control; other times I'm in deep sadness, trying to find my way without her.
To all my friends & acquaintances on HN: my deep thanks for your kindness & support across decades. It's a joy to be considered a member of the tribe.
But Amazon Canada listing is still held by Amvoom. I'm unable to sell Klein bottles in Canada. sigh
If anyone knows how to fix this, please send email to me!
Many thanks, -Cliff
Just picking up old rags and bottles,
When onward on my way I plod,
I saw a host of axolotls;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A sight to make a man’s blood freeze.
//
Some had handles, some were plain;
They came in blue, red pink, and green.
A few were orange in the main;
The damnedest sight I’ve ever seen.
The females gave a sprightly glance;
The male ones all wore knee-length pants.
//
Now oft, when on the couch I lie,
The doctor asks me what I see.
They flash upon my inward eye
And make me laugh in fiendish glee.
I find my solace then in bottles,
And I forget them axolotls.
//Mad Magazine, issue 43, 1958 //It's anti-intuitive:
Disassemble a pea into a finite number of pieces. Then reassemble those pieces to create the sun.
No surprise that concave cuts in ceramics are a high stress, so Kite and Dart tiles don't work very well (the dart is likely to crack). Same is true for the Turtle, Hat, and Spectre.
Rhombus tiles are everywhere convex, and the P3 Rhombus tiles are easy to cut in a diamond saw (or even a snap-cutter). With a diamond band-saw, it's possible to make Penrose rhombs with curved (parabolic) edges.
But cutting tiles from stock field tiles produces sharp surface edges -- you don't want these as bathroom floor tiles. Also, you waste a lot of the field tile as scrap. To get "friendly" tile shoulders, I'm experimenting with making Penrose tiles directly from high-fired porcelain clay.
Oh - it's an Axidraw, from Evil Mad Scientist Labs - great device, wonderful people.
Cleaning out my attic last month, I just found a stash of punch cards left over from the 1980's. Some paper-tape that has my phd dissertation. And a fortran manual from my high school's IBM-1620. Oh my...
At the moment, retirement mainly means "start taking out required minimum distributions".
All the same, I wonder: How do you retire from a marginally profitable nano-business built upon glass mathematical shapes? How'd I ever reach 74 years old?
I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years.
Last year, it's time to retire, and Citibank won't give me half the money. It seems that some CD's are for "Cliff Stoll" and some for "Clifford Stoll".
Citibank Retirement demanded a "Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, or Court Order" to demonstrate that "Cliff Stoll" is the same person as "Clifford Stoll".
Took more than 8 months, dozens of emails, five visits to Citibank offices, and a letter to the Citibank president, to shake loose money that I'd deposited across three decades.
They physically projected these images onto a large plaster sphere; in turn, they rephotographed the images from different angles, to remove foreshortening and show the lunar surface as seen from directly above a crater.
One result of this is the Rectified Lunar Atlas -- one of the guiding maps of the Apollo missions: https://sic.lpl.arizona.edu/collection/rectified-lunar-atlas
And FM broadcasts have a high-frequency pre-emphasis, which adds something like 10dB of boost to audio high frequencies. This is to reduce high frequency noise that occurs in analog FM systems. Radio receivers have a matching de-emphasis high-frequency cut.
Indeed, both vinyl phonographs and audio tape systems employ similar pre-emphasis and de-emphasis. It's the RIAA curve for phonographs. Not sure what the standard is for mag tape.
The main FM modulation is (Left + Right) audio channels - the baseband. The 38 KHz subcarrier is (Left - Right). Notice that the stereo information is likely to be higher noise, being AM and without a lot of power. So on weak FM broadcast signals, you're often better off setting your tuner to mono.
Some cruddy FM tuners don't properly filter out the 19Khz pilot tone, resulting in ear-ringing in the listener.
Yellow and Purple striped critters inside of HeathKits.
Jim Simons did fundamental research in topology; his work in mathematics, cryptography, and topological quantum field theory.
Beyond this, he pressed for higher quality public education in math and encouraging training and presige for math teachers.
HN has connected me with insightful and over-the-top competent people; I’m happy to be considered one of the gang. To the many who’ve helped me understand things from time crystals to homotopy theory, my deep thanks!
While I’ve tiptoed away from many turbulent scenes, I remain curious (just discovered that a biocide used as a paint additive to kill mildew is an ingredient in my shampoo). Still hacking & coding (handful of rasp pi’s), still sewing (finished an appliqué quilt last week), and still making these odd onesided shapes.
From a across the ether and across the decades, my warm wishes to those who’ve made this forum an inviting and occasionally inspiring place!
-Cliff (on a cloudy Thursday morning in Oakland)