worthy marsh
For those of you who have never heard of Cliff Stoll, he is a US astronomer and educator who became moderately famous in the 80s when he helped authorities track down a hacker who was a KGB recruit. Today, Cliff is a delightfully eccentric septuagenarian who seems almost like a comically archetypical mad scientist. He has been featured many times on the YouTube channel Numberphile, mostly discussing the topic of topology with the help of hand blown glass manifolds such as Klein bottles.
Cliff runs a side business selling Klein bottles out of his home, under which he has built a Klein bottle warehouse complete with his own custom-built, remote controlled, miniature forklift robot. He has a quaint website where he sells these bottles, developed by him and his son, which looks like it was made in the early 90's - because it was. Aside from an authentic, minimalist aesthetic, visitors are greeted with the kind of math humor anyone who would purposely seek to buy a real-life Klein bottle would appreciate.
I mention Cliff because today we received a confirmation email from Acme Klein Bottles, written personally by Cliff, to let us know the Klein bottle we ordered for my son, who loves watching Cliff's Numberphile episodes, was ready to ship. He followed up with a subsequent email with at least a dozen photos of the bottle, complete with a personal message written on it with sharpie. There was also a picture of the box, on which Cliff also wrote a personal message.
That he took a little extra time to add those extra touches to make this an extra special holiday present our little guy won't soon forget is simply incredible. We're so grateful to this weird, wonderful guy showing us that life doesn't have to stop being fun because you get older, and there's still wonders to be found everywhere.
Thanks, Cliff
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