
Get an Acme Klein Bottle - YeGoblynQueenne
https://www.kleinbottle.com/
======
CliffStoll
Yikes! So HN is the cause of my Friday evening being so busy...

Smiles all around, -Cliff

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Ohaither
Hi there Cliff, we love you!

~~~
CliffStoll
_blush_

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nick_kline
About 30 years ago I saw you give a talk at the University of Arizona, it was
soon after that pbs documentary you were in about investigating the remote
hacking. It was fun to hear you speak, and I'm glad you are still around doing
fun things.

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enriquto
Oh, man, this nearly brought tears to my eyes...

An ACME Klein bottle was my first purchase of a physical object from the
internet, more than 20 years ago.

I was a teen, then, and my father was going to buy it for my birthday. At the
time, it seemed wickedly crazy that you could just make a few mouse clicks on
a computer and have a physical object delivered to your home. If I recall
correctly, we had to send a credit card number by _fax_! We were really scared
that something bad would happen.

A few weeks later we received the package with the Klein bottle in it, but
unfortunately it was broken. It was just a small crack on one side, but thick
enough that it leaked water when it was "filled". I remember being very
excited and very disappointed at the same time. Then, I sent a mail to Cliff
explaining that my bottle arrived a bit broken, but I could not really prove
it (there were no ubiquitous digital cameras back then), just to inform him to
try to make the packaging safer. He replied immediately something like "Oh,
sorry about that! No big deal, I'm sending you a new one." And indeed he did.
I was in awe!

To this day, both klein bottles are proudly displayed at my home, and I count
them among my most prized possessions, together with a few old editions of
math books. The chipped one is actually more visible since I am less afraid
that it breaks! The good one, is reserved for running water experiments on
special days.

Thank you Cliff, we love your glasswork!

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el_benhameen
I ordered one of these for my dad for Christmas one year, and as we live in
the Bay Area, I opted to just pick it up from Cliff Stoll’s house. Guy was one
of the nicest people I’ve ever met—introduced me to his family and gave me a
tour of his workshop, including the robo-car he uses to retrieve the bottles
from his crawl space. My dad got a kick out of the bottle but has probably
since forgotten about it, so I think I got more out of the gift than he did!

~~~
otakucode
I wish I lived in the area, I would love to meet Mr. Stoll. I only recently
watched The Cuckoo's Egg, which is from the 1980s and which he is the star of.
A tremendously interesting story for anyone unfamiliar with it who uses this
site I am sure, he was basically the first person to really track
international hackers and did so at a time when law enforcement didn't even
know if any laws had been broken despite military computers being compromised
and secrets stolen. What I also found surprisingly and interesting was that in
the film, parts of it were filmed in his home. The exact same home I
recognized from his appearances in Numberphile videos where I first found out
about his klein bottles. He does seem like a genuinely curious person, with a
zest for life that can only come from being terribly interested in everything,
and those are often the greatest people to know.

~~~
techsupporter
It's funny, I've read "The Cuckoo's Egg," Clifford Stoll's book, probably
twenty times now. I had no idea there was a documentary about it (The KGB, The
Computer, and Me -
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308449/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308449/))
until just now so thanks.

~~~
jpalomaki
"CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier"[1] was pretty
interesting related reading, as it covers the same story from from the other
side. (DISCLAIMER: I read the book quite many years ago..)

[https://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-
Fr...](https://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-
Frontier/dp/0684818620)

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weinzierl
For context: Cliff, who designs and sells these bottles, is also the guy who
busted KGB hacker Markus Hess in the 80s.

EDIT: I just found out that he also offer the Imperfecto Rulers from
Theophilus Measure Co[1]. The accompanying video [2] made my day.

[1]
[https://www.kleinbottle.com/imperfecto](https://www.kleinbottle.com/imperfecto)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUZTTLpDtk&](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUZTTLpDtk&)

~~~
CliffStoll
I’m not sure that my students appreciated it so much...

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tptacek
I finally broke down and ordered one, and an hour later I got an email from
Cliff Stoll with a long series of photographs of him packaging my Klein Bottle
– including the packaging and invoicing, with my name on it.

~~~
CliffStoll
Sure — the photos are as much fo me as you. When I make a missteake, I can
look at the pix and see how to prevent the goofup next time.

~~~
tptacek
I was impressed.

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pardavis
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU](https://youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU)

~~~
megaframe
How am I more fascinated by his warehouse robot than the glass bottles.

It's such a great design/implementation.

~~~
StavrosK
It's a great robot! His remote controller seems a bit cobbled together, but
you can easily use a $50 RC controller with a $5 receiver and an Arduino to
control whatever you want with 16 channels, it's amazing!

~~~
saul_goodman
I'm fairly certain his robot was designed and built before Arduino's existed.
The barrier to building robots and electronics has come way down in the past
15 years.

~~~
CliffStoll
Funny you should mention it— I built a line-following system into the
forklift, using an Arduino: I put a row of 16 downward pointing leds on the
bottom of the chassis; the Arduino sequentially scanned all 16 leds. A
photocell detected reflected light from the floor, and fed this into the
Arduino’s analog input. In turn, this let the Arduino decide which side of the
line it was on, and how much to turn to get back on track.

But odometry proved a bit more challenging, and it turned out to be more
reliable (and fun) to simply move it using a RC controller.

~~~
inflatableDodo
>it turned out to be more reliable (and fun) to simply move it using a RC
controller.

Perhaps this is a small scale look into the future of the self driving car
industry.

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dmitrygr
We got one of these for our calculus three teacher in high school. It comes
with an extremely hilarious warranty card. I do not remember the whole thing,
but it does say that they warrant that the Klein bottle does not contain any
magnetic monopoles. If any are found, one can return the bottle for a full
refund, which they will provide after claiming the Nobel prize for physics.

~~~
dlgeek

      We at Acme Klein Bottle strive to create the finest nonorientable surfaces and hope that you will be satisfied with your new Acme manifold. For this reason, we are pleased to offer this UNCONDITIONAL GUARANTEE complete with these conditions:
    
      I unconditionally guarantee your Acme Klein Bottle to be free of any defects in workmanship or workwomanship or workitsmanship or workgenderindeterminiteship for a period of ONE YEAR following purchase. If you aren't satisfied with your Acme Klein Bottle -- for any reason -- just return it for a refund or replacement. You pick up shipping charges.
      I guarantee safe arrival. If your Klein Bottle arrives broken, call or send email and I will immediately send a replacement.
      I slightly guarantee your Klein Bottle for THREE MONTHS against any cracks or breakage, whether due to earthquakes, clumsy undergrads, or greasy fingers. Just mail us a fragment and $10, and we will send a replacement.
      I warrant each Acme Klein Bottle for a period of FIVE YEARS to be absolutely free of any magnetic monopoles. If you discover one, we will refund your purchase price right after you receive the Nobel Prize.
      Furthermore, Acme guarantees for TEN YEARS that any polyhedron spanning your unbroken Acme Klein Bottle will have about as many edges as the sum of its vertices plus faces.
      Acme further warrants for ONE MILLION YEARS that within a Euclidean plane, the square of a right triangle's hypotenuse will equal the sum of the squares of the two remaining legs OR YOUR MONEY BACK!
      In addition, Acme provides this exclusive LIFETIME GUARANTEE: We guarantee that you will live your entire lifetime, or double your money back.
     
      Acme's unconditional guarantee has the condition that we do not warrant any Klein bottle against the actions of cats, ferrets, or axolotls. We will NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE for any incidents relating to these beasts of burden whatsoever in any form or spatial dimension.
    
    
      All other warranties, express and implied, are null and void except during total solar eclipses. Purchaser shall have the option at his, hers, or its sole discretion, to try to collect on this guarantee. Guarantee void if a substantial portion of the Klein bottle leaks into the 4th dimension. The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.

~~~
Stratoscope
Mobile readable version on the site:

[https://www.kleinbottle.com/guarantee.htm](https://www.kleinbottle.com/guarantee.htm)

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jjgreen
Heh, I found this site when I was an undergraduate and passed the link on to a
senior topologist in the department on a whim; he was delighted, purchased a
couple of them, and when I went for a postgrad studentship in the same
department a couple of year later, he was on the interviewing committee. So
thank you Acme :-)

~~~
CliffStoll
Thanks right back to you, JJ! Especially, thanks for helping my kids with
tuition. What goes around...

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teej
I want to show a bit of appreciation for a website that loads in 50ms. Thanks
for keeping it simple, Cliff.

~~~
wonderfool
That’s because the site has been up and unchanged for about (if not over)
twenty years :)

It warms my heart to know it’s still up and that Dr. Stoll is still at it.

~~~
Angostura
> I last updated this page on April 30, 2019 6:16 PM

~~~
CliffStoll
>> I last updated my brain on June 25224, 1950 03:15 AM

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basementcat
One day in grad school, some of us decided we needed to do a road trip to
Cliff Stoll’s house to pick up some non orientable surfaces. Cliff is one of
the most friendly and gracious people I have ever had the good fortune of
meeting. I think we chatted about everything from electromagnetics to
astronomy to computer security in his backyard.

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Jun8
These are great! Similar mathematical toys/models that you can buy:

* Stereographic projection lamp: [https://www.shapeways.com/product/WA5HL9UF3/grid-stereograph...](https://www.shapeways.com/product/WA5HL9UF3/grid-stereographic-projection?li=shortUrl)

* Gomboc: [https://gomboc-shop.com/](https://gomboc-shop.com/)

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idlewords
I've said it in a previous thread, but these are the finest non-orientable
manifolds on the market today, and as many posters in this thread point out,
Cliff Stoll is an extremely nice man to buy them from.

~~~
CliffStoll
Aww, thanks, oh Idol o’ Words. I appreciate the opportunity to be of service
to our community. I’m astonished by how many hacker folk are also into
topology.

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dang
From 2017, with contributions from CliffStoll:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14014218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14014218)

From 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10551590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10551590)

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V-eHGsd_
these are made by Cliff Stoll, of cuckoo's egg fame.

~~~
mbay
Came in here to post this. This guy is unhinged by the way. He came in to give
a talk in a course I was taking at UC Berkeley and as he continued to ramble
on he noticed the students starting to glance at the clock on the wall above
his head. He went off on a half-baked rant about how clocks don't matter and
we should think for ourselves or something, then he stands up ON A CHAIR WITH
WHEELS and pulls the clock off the wall. This guy is not young obviously - I
was standing under him ready to catch him if he fell and the whole class was
horrified.

~~~
jacobolus
“Unhinged” is a pretty uncharitable description, and your “horrified” class
sounds a bit closed-minded.

Another way to describe the same is “excitable, passionate, and non-
conforming”.

But I would instead say “Cliff Stoll is a national treasure”. I’m super
jealous of the middle school kids who got to have him as their science
teacher.

~~~
wyclif
I feel like the world needs more people like Clifford Stoll. He represents one
of the last vestiges of the "old, weird America", from a time when "Think
Differently" meant something real and wasn't a marketing slogan. Sure he's
eccentric, but that's what makes him unique, and I tend to optimize for
uniqueness when it comes to things like art, literature, music, and even
science.

I read his book _The Cuckoo 's Egg_ when I was in high school and I found it
vastly entertaining and enlightening. It's dated now but I think people could
still get something out of reading it.

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taneq
I got my sister one of these a while ago. The series of pictures of the bottle
being packed and shipped, along with (iirc) the handwritten note that it came
with, were absolutely delightful. 11/10 would recommend and buy again. :)

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iaw
I've ordered two bottles on different occasions. Cliff Stoll is a really
awesome guy down to the personalized notes he sneaks into each packages.

I'm glad people like Cliff exist in the world, such a wonderful person.

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thanatos519
Hot tip: Cliff only charges for the prime numbered bottles in each order (or
at least he did, many years ago). I made a group order with friends and
ordered 16.

~~~
enriquto
So, it is better to order them individually, then it's free!

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mistat
Clifford on TedX [https://youtu.be/Gj8IA6xOpSk](https://youtu.be/Gj8IA6xOpSk)

~~~
CliffStoll
Whew - that spoutathon was 10 or 15 years ago. I had put together a 1-hour
talk and just before going on stage, I learn that I’ve got 18 minutes. So, I
did what I learned in grad school: talk fast and don’t give ‘em a standing
target...

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janpot
I ordered one a few years ago. The whole experience was by very far the most
delightful purchase I made ever.

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imjustsaying
Ok, I'll bite. Zero volume, one sided, non-orientable, what is this?

~~~
otakucode
Are you familiar with a mobius strip? A ribbon with a twist in it produces a
one-sided band. A klein bottle is essentially like a levelling-up of that by a
dimension. It is a 4D surface which is, just like the mobius strip, single-
sided. If you were 4th dimensional, you could trade from the 'outside' to the
'inside' and back without crossing any boundary. Of course, the klein bottles
you can buy or see renderings of are 3D embeddings of this, so they have to
include a bit of self-intersection that wouldn't actually occur in the real 4D
version.

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th0ma5
A lot of fun copy on this site!

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bittercynic
I purchased one some time ago, and it was my most fun online shopping
experience by far.

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chadlavi
This is exceedingly delightful

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Overtonwindow
Cliff Stoll!! Wonderful man

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zw123456
I bet Cliff gets an "HN Bump" in sales !

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mjcohen
I gave one of these to a friend who loved it.

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Kenji
_12) My website looks old-fashioned because it loads faster this way and
(mainly) I 'm too lazy to rewrite it. I last updated this page on April 30,
2019 6:16 PM_

Very based attitude. I wish more people were like him. The website is
perfectly functional & readable and doesn't waste any resources.

~~~
CliffStoll
Thank you Kenji! People sometimes ask to rebuild it, but then I’d have to
learn html-5 to support it. I’d rather have fun learning differential geometry
or octernions.

