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If you want to know more about Harry Eng, the creator of these, there is a fascinating post here http://www.everything2.com/title/Harry+Eng http://www.everythin

If you want to know more about Harry Eng, the creator of these, there is a fascinating post here http://www.everything2.com/title/Harry+Eng http://www.everything2.com/title/Harry+Eng Incredible man.

raldi 12y ago
So, HN readers, how would you get a lightbulb in a bottle?
- amalcon 12y ago
  Most obvious options: - Use a large bottle - Use a small lightbulb - Construct the bottle around the lightbulb - Construct the lightbulb inside the bottle - Cut off and replace part of the bottle; this can be done almost seamlessly - There's no technical reason that a lightbulb needs to be made of glass, so we can make a collapsing one, and unfold it inside like a ship-in-a-bottle
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  Please don't give interviewers any ideas.
- hfsktr 12y ago
  Depending on the wording I would assume that the small lights in a fridge or a small flashlight or maybe even Christmas lights count. I think those should fit through many bottles pretty easy.
  - gabriel34 12y ago
    or a big, wide opened bottle
    - tritium 12y ago
      At what point does a bottle become a jar?
      - lwhalen 12y ago
        about the same time a flask becomes a beaker. As Bill Nye has taught a couple generations of kids, you know the flasK has a necK. :-)
- wavefunction 12y ago
  Just grind it into a fine powder and pour into the bottle. Done.
  - Swizec 12y ago
    You. I like you. You're like an evolutionary algorithm satisfying a fitness function. Spirit of the problem completely ignored, but problem bloody well solved.
    - Mchl 12y ago
      (S)He's really more of a wave function
- Someone 12y ago
  I couldn't find a picture (link?), but I would just blow he bulb inside the bottle. Alternatively, use the bottle as the bulb, add filament, pump out the air, and put on the cork, but I'm not sure whether that qualifies as a lightbulb in a bottle.
- praptak 12y ago
  With a pencil and a couple of rubber bands.
frik 12y ago
I see more and more everything2.com [1] in comments on HN - is it popular again? I remember E2 as (unofficial) predecessor of Wikipedia more than ten years ago [2]. Back in the days Wikipedia also had a triva section - nowadays its forbidden [3], what a pitty. (good we still have IMDb and its trivia pages) It's sad that Harry Eng's Wikipedia article redirects [4] to "Impossible bottle" article and Bulwersator removed the paragraph about Harry Eng two years ago [5]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything2 [2] /. posts that made Wikipedia popular, "Everything2 Hits One Million Nodes": http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/29/2035230/everything2-hits-one-million-nodes http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/29/2035230/everything2-hits-... , http://news.slashdot.org/story/01/03/02/1422244/nupedia-and-project-gutenberg-directors-answer http://news.slashdot.org/story/01/03/02/1422244/nupedia-and-... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Trivia_sections http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Trivia_sections [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Eng#Harry_Eng http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Eng#Harry_Eng [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Impossible_bottle&diff=495885230&oldid=495881057 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Impossible_bottle&...
- ogig 12y ago
  I didn't knew E2 before, but reading that article was almost impossible with all those nonsense internal links. I simply don't get whats going on, it's supposed to be some SEO? Awful
  - tesseract 12y ago
    Those are traditional at E2 - a quirk of that particular community. I don't think they're SEO. If done right, sometimes they make you think. Sometimes they don't even go anywhere and are still successful in that regard. Sometimes not.
  - lcrs 12y ago
    e2 is fairly deranged. It's not your place to head for an informative read, and "encyclopedia" would definitely not be the right word, but it's great for ideas, stimulation, not-quite-sure-if-satire, unfinished short fiction, and link chains like "geometrical" > cannon defense patterns > transhumanism > The Broken God > a cloned kitten named "cc". I think of it like /b/ for bored grad students who are into Barthelme and Jeff Noon. One of the treasures of the internet, in my book :)
not_kurt_godel 12y ago
Not to detract from the subject itself, but that is some shockingly bad layout and design for a site whose sole content is long-form articles. Small font on a too-dark background in an unreadably wide column - what an absolutely embarrassing UX failure.

If you want to know more about Harry Eng, the creator of these, there is a fascinating post here http://www.everything2.com/title/Harry+Eng http://www.everything2.com/title/Harry+Eng Incredible man.

raldi 12y ago

So, HN readers, how would you get a lightbulb in a bottle?

amalcon 12y ago
Most obvious options: - Use a large bottle - Use a small lightbulb - Construct the bottle around the lightbulb - Construct the lightbulb inside the bottle - Cut off and replace part of the bottle; this can be done almost seamlessly - There's no technical reason that a lightbulb needs to be made of glass, so we can make a collapsing one, and unfold it inside like a ship-in-a-bottle
sergiotapia 12y ago
Please don't give interviewers any ideas.
hfsktr 12y ago
Depending on the wording I would assume that the small lights in a fridge or a small flashlight or maybe even Christmas lights count. I think those should fit through many bottles pretty easy.
- gabriel34 12y ago
  or a big, wide opened bottle
  - tritium 12y ago
    At what point does a bottle become a jar?
    - lwhalen 12y ago
      about the same time a flask becomes a beaker. As Bill Nye has taught a couple generations of kids, you know the flasK has a necK. :-)
wavefunction 12y ago
Just grind it into a fine powder and pour into the bottle. Done.
- Swizec 12y ago
  You. I like you. You're like an evolutionary algorithm satisfying a fitness function. Spirit of the problem completely ignored, but problem bloody well solved.
  - Mchl 12y ago
    (S)He's really more of a wave function
Someone 12y ago
I couldn't find a picture (link?), but I would just blow he bulb inside the bottle. Alternatively, use the bottle as the bulb, add filament, pump out the air, and put on the cork, but I'm not sure whether that qualifies as a lightbulb in a bottle.
praptak 12y ago
With a pencil and a couple of rubber bands.

frik 12y ago

I see more and more everything2.com [1] in comments on HN - is it popular again? I remember E2 as (unofficial) predecessor of Wikipedia more than ten years ago [2]. Back in the days Wikipedia also had a triva section - nowadays its forbidden [3], what a pitty. (good we still have IMDb and its trivia pages) It's sad that Harry Eng's Wikipedia article redirects [4] to "Impossible bottle" article and Bulwersator removed the paragraph about Harry Eng two years ago [5]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything2 [2] /. posts that made Wikipedia popular, "Everything2 Hits One Million Nodes": http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/29/2035230/everything2-hits-one-million-nodes http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/29/2035230/everything2-hits-... , http://news.slashdot.org/story/01/03/02/1422244/nupedia-and-project-gutenberg-directors-answer http://news.slashdot.org/story/01/03/02/1422244/nupedia-and-... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Trivia_sections http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Trivia_sections [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Eng#Harry_Eng http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Eng#Harry_Eng [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Impossible_bottle&diff=495885230&oldid=495881057 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Impossible_bottle&...

ogig 12y ago
I didn't knew E2 before, but reading that article was almost impossible with all those nonsense internal links. I simply don't get whats going on, it's supposed to be some SEO? Awful
- tesseract 12y ago
  Those are traditional at E2 - a quirk of that particular community. I don't think they're SEO. If done right, sometimes they make you think. Sometimes they don't even go anywhere and are still successful in that regard. Sometimes not.
- lcrs 12y ago
  e2 is fairly deranged. It's not your place to head for an informative read, and "encyclopedia" would definitely not be the right word, but it's great for ideas, stimulation, not-quite-sure-if-satire, unfinished short fiction, and link chains like "geometrical" > cannon defense patterns > transhumanism > The Broken God > a cloned kitten named "cc". I think of it like /b/ for bored grad students who are into Barthelme and Jeff Noon. One of the treasures of the internet, in my book :)

not_kurt_godel 12y ago

Not to detract from the subject itself, but that is some shockingly bad layout and design for a site whose sole content is long-form articles. Small font on a too-dark background in an unreadably wide column - what an absolutely embarrassing UX failure.