What is this cool sounding name in the title of this post? Well, let me first introduce you to the concept of a Klein Bottle (no sound is necessary to understand how awesome this is):

“In mathematics, the Klein bottle is a certain non-orientable surface, i.e., a surface (a two-dimensional manifold) with no distinct “inner” and “outer” sides. Other related non-orientable objects include the Möbius strip and the real projective plane. Whereas a Möbius strip is a two dimensional surface with boundary, a Klein bottle has no boundary. (For comparison, a sphere is an orientable surface with no boundary.)” (Wikipedia; yeah, I know, it’s not the best source, but I’m too lazy to find a better one).

Anyways, the bottle is essentially two Mobius strips patched together. Now, here’s the awesome – THE KLEIN STEIN!

I really want one of these. Klein bottles are just awesome in general.

An online friend of mine has a screen name that means “I want to die”. As morbid as that sounds, she recently made a screen name that means “I want to live”. This kind of gave me an idea: what if we all had screennames that represented our state of being and would use that particular screenname when we were in that emotional state?

For example, maybe I’ll have some screennames such as “TodaySucks”, or “HappyHappyJoyJoy”. If something went bad during the day, I would message my best buddy with “TodaySucks”, or if things went well, I would message with “HappyHappyJoyJoy”.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know how people were feeling right at the bat? You don’t have to ask them how they’re doing, because they’re most likely going to lie to you anyways depending on your relationship level with them (“How’s it going” “It’s good (when it’s really not”)).

Want to test your ability to discriminate hues? Try this test! 0 is the best result. My result was:

Based on your information, below is how your score compares to those of others with similar demographic information.

* Your score: 4
* Gender: Male
* Age range: 20-29
* Best score for your gender and age range: -4
* Highest score for your gender and age range: 1520

(I have no idea how 1520 is made from the worst result of 99)

Inspired by Inspirimint. For more info, see the entry for celebral achromatopsia.

I’ve seen this video a long time ago, but stumbled upon it again on Newgrounds. It’s one of my favorite videos because it shows what I (and anyone else) would never want to become in life. However, I think many will find themselves in that situation, either by choice or unfortunate circumstances.

There’s a sequel to this video, which is from the perspective of the female he sees frequently, Jackie.

For some strange reason, I had to post this. I’m unable to embed the video, or any of the Sesame Street videos for that matter from YouTube, but while watching this video on the Mystery Box, I couldn’t help but stare directly into Cookie Monster’s eyes for an extended period of time. I noticed his left eye has a lot of shaky bias compared to his right, and ended watching the entire segment, mesmerized by crazy eye.

“You know, life, life not all guessing games, Frog. Sometimes, we have to care about friends, especially friends who love cookies; friends who love cookies so much, they play silly guessing games, because maybe, maybe just maybe a frog -  a very handsome frog -  who has cookie, will give best best friend – who no can live without cookies – give that best friend a cookie; but if friendship means nothing…” – Cookie Monster

I can’t believe I transcribed that.

I came across this website, The Sound Advice Project, where you can record a message, and the waveform is converted to a 3D model in bracelet form that you can wear for $18. The idea is so cool, I’m strongly considering getting one for someone I know.

Things I learned:
1. Mouse still does not work in a Remote Desktop session. You’ll have to use VNC, and if you’re using Windows, the port is 5901 not 5801 like the VNC server in SuSE tells you.
2. Contrary to what the other blogs are saying, you do NOT need to run ./setup.pl x2v or do any kind of patching/compiling. All you need to do is insert the integrated components disc (Download from Microsoft Connect for free), and run ./setup.pl drivers
3. When you install SuSE, you’re better off not installing any kind of network adapter. Install the normal network adapter after installing the IC drivers.
4. There is no heartbeat monitoring in the IC drivers.
5. When you configure your time settings, use local time, not UTC time, or your system clock will screw up like mentioned above.
6. The system is significantly faster with the IC installed.
7. Be sure to use version SP2. This is what I used. My first mistake was to use the version prior to SP1.
8. DO NOT UPDATE THE KERNEL if you already installed the drivers. Or if you want to, always take a snapshot of the system first so you can roll back, reboot then reinstall the drivers. It needs to be recompiled for every new kernel version.
9. THE DVD DRIVE IS NO LONGER RECOGNIZED after driver installation :/

For some reason, I started watching playthroughs on the NES game Gremlins 2, and somehow ended up looking at the SNES game Top Gear (not the TV show), which had some really interesting music that I felt didn’t really match the environment of the game. Regardless, I was really into this particular song, and noticed there were several remixes on it. People were crazy about the sound track of this game! There was also a sequel to the game, called Top Gear 3000, where the music wasn’t as great. I decided to look into the history of Top Gear, and found this little gem:

“Bliss”, a song by British band Muse, is extremely reminiscent of Top Gear’s title track. Although Top Gear did come first, Bliss was inspired by the title track.[4]”

I’ve never heard of the song, so I decided to check it out, and it really was like the intro to Top Gear:

Top Gear Intro:

Bliss by Muse:

An excerpt from the Muse wiki on the song:

Matt Bellamy has stated that Bliss is his favorite song “because it’s got all these 80s arpeggios and keyboards on it which remind me of some music I heard on some children’s music programme when I was five. I think I ripped it off that. And that reminds me of when I was a bit simpler, a bit more of a pleasant state.”^[1] The “children’s music programme” is actually the first Top Gear game for the SNES.

I thought that was pretty cool

I know you’re probably thinking given the title, that this is a post about some attractive female’s legs. In a way, it is, but not in the context you’re probably thinking of. Aimee Mullins lost her legs long ago, and describes her experiences with fake ones (because I cannot spell prosthetics, I decided to say ‘fake ones’). It’s a very wonderful story about her outlook on herself as a woman and as a disabled person, and the creativity that the world of design can bring to legs.

“Pamela Anderson has more prosthetics than I do, and nobody calls her disabled.” – Aimee Mullins

Let’s assume that a heaven does exist, and it is THE place you want to be for your afterlife. Let’s also assume a hell does not, but rather, not getting into heaven means that you are reincarnated.

Now, the criteria to get into heaven is not based on a God’s judgment, but a people’s judgment. The people that attend your funeral when you pass away, the people that will remember you as a good or a bad person. How they think of you by the end of that funeral affects your passage.

If the arrangement for heaven worked out like this, and those who were to expire in maybe a year or two were notified ahead of time, but could not tell anyone else (as it would mean automatic reincarnation), how would they adjust their lives in relations to others? It’s one thing to know that you’ll be dead on a certain date, but it’s another to know that your future depends on your relationships with those you knew.

And how many would try so hard and realize it’s too late?

I do not believe in a heaven, hell, or the common ideal of reincarnation, but I live my life pretending if this was the case.