Bag of Beans

The Möbius Strip: Dr. August Möbius’s Marvelous Band in Mathematics, Games, Literature, Art, Technology, and Cosmology
by Clifford Pickover.
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006

As the title implies, The Möbius Strip explores the strange characteristics of Möbius strips and other related one-sided or single-surface constructs, like Klein bottles and real projective planes. It delves into a wide range of topics like topology and higher-dimensional mathematics, as well as introducing places where they might naturally be found in chemistry and cosmology. While there are a small number of places where formulas are presented, they are not completely essential to enjoying the book. This is a worthwhile read on a truly mind-bending topic.

Rating: 7/10

Links:

• Amazon.ca
• LibraryThing

Jonathan Coulton, the writer of “Still Alive”, the memorable end song for Portal, gives us the story behind the song. You may already be familiar with Jonathan’s previous songs, like Code Monkey. Portal is one of the most brilliant games ever made, and also one of the funniest. This final song makes a perfect ending to the game, and has received a huge amount of attention.

The character is this hilarious passive aggressive personality, which is obviously a perfect subject for me. I write about that sort of thing all the time. I got an advance copy of the game when it was nearly finished, played through it, talked with the writers, and tried to get inside this character’s head as best I could. I bought my first ukulele specifically to record this song, it just seemed right for it. (Or maybe I wrote the song that way so I could buy a ukulele, hard to say.)

• Link
• Portal - “Still Alive” Credits Song on YouTube

Related:

• Code Monkey

Particletree has an informative article on Fitt’s Law, an important guideline in user-interface design.

Published in 1954, Fitts’s Law is an effective method of modeling the relationship of a very specific, yet common situation in interface design. That situation involves a human-powered appendage at rest (whether it’s physical like your finger or virtual like a mouse cursor) and a target area that’s located somewhere else.

• Link (via UNEASYsilence)

Popular Science has a great article and gallery of some of the tools used in molecular gastronomy.

A kitchen equipped for “molecular gastronomy”—gourmet cuisine as cooked by Mr. Wizard, basically—is all about the tech. Devices that wouldn’t be out of place in a chemistry lab fill the kitchens of some of the world’s most adventurous chefs, enabling far-out dishes like whipped-cream pancakes, lobster sorbet (shells and all) and meat-flavored mushrooms. Wiley Dufresne, head chef at one of molecular gastronomy’s Meccas, WD-50 in New York City, is so protective of his machines that he wouldn’t allow them out of his kitchen to be photographed for this piece, insisting that we get our own. And so we did.

• Link (via Boing Boing Gadgets)
• Article
• Gallery

Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker has written an interesting and amusing article on why swears carry such an impact.

But perhaps the greatest mystery is why politicians, editors, and much of the public care so much. Clearly, the fear and loathing are not triggered by the concepts themselves, because the organs and activities they name have hundreds of polite synonyms. Nor are they triggered by the words’ sounds, since many of them have respectable homonyms in names for animals, actions, and even people. Many people feel that profanity is self-evidently corrupting, especially to the young. This claim is made despite the fact that everyone is familiar with the words, including most children, and that no one has ever spelled out how the mere hearing of a word could corrupt one’s morals.

• Link (via reddit)