So the other night during D&D, I had the sudden thoughts that:

1) Binary files are 1s and 0s

2) Knitting has knit stitches and purl stitches

You could represent binary data in knitting, as a pattern of knits and purls…

You can knit Doom.

However, after crunching some more numbers:

The compressed Doom installer binary is 2.93 MB. Assuming you are using sock weight yarn, with 7 stitches per inch, results in knitted doom being…

3322 square feet

Factoring it out…302 people, each knitting a relatively reasonable 11 square feet, could knit Doom.

Hi fun fact!!

The idea of a “binary code” was originally developed in the textile industry in pretty much this exact form. Remember punch cards? Probably not! They were a precursor to the floppy disc, and were used to store information in the same sort of binary code that we still use:

Here’s Mary Jackson (c.late 1950s) at a computer. If you look closely in the yellow box, you’ll see a stack of blank punch cards that she will use to store her calculations.

This is what a card might look like once punched. Note that the written numbers on the card are for human reference, and not understood by the computer. 

But what does it have to do with textiles? Almost exactly what OP suggested. Now even though machine knitting is old as balls, I feel that there are few people outside of the industry or craft communities who have ever seen a knitting machine. 

Here’s a flatbed knitting machine (as opposed to a round or tube machine), which honestly looks pretty damn similar to the ones that were first invented in the sixteenth century, and here’s a nice little diagram explaining how it works:

But what if you don’t just want a plain stocking stitch sweater? What if you want a multi-color design, or lace, or the like? You can quite easily add in another color and integrate it into your design, but for, say, a consistent intarsia (two-color repeating pattern), human error is too likely. Plus, it takes too long for a knitter in an industrial setting. This is where the binary comes in!

Here’s an intarsia swatch I made in my knitwear class last year. As you can see, the front of the swatch is the inverse of the back. When knitting this, I put a punch card in the reader,

and as you can see, the holes (or 0′s) told the machine not to knit the ground color (1′s) and the machine was set up in such a way that the second color would come through when the first color was told not to knit.

tl;dr the textiles industry is more important than people give it credit for, and I would suggest using a machine if you were going to try to knit almost 3 megabytes of information.

@we-are-threadmage

Someone port Doom to a blanket

I really love tumblr for this 🙌

It goes beyond this.  Every computer out there has memory.  The kind of memory you might call RAM.  The earliest kind of memory was magnetic core memory.  It looked like this:

Wires going through magnets.  This is how all of the important early digital computers stored information temporarily.  Each magnetic core could store a single bit - a 0 or a 1.  Here’s a picture of a variation of this, called rope core memory, from one NASA’s Apollo guidance computers:

You may think this looks incredibly handmade, and that’s because it is.  But these are also extreme close-ups.  Here’s the scale of the individual cores:

The only people who had the skills necessary to thread all of these cores precisely enough were textile and garment workers.  Little old ladies would literally thread the wires by hand.

And thanks to them, we were able to land on the moon.  This is also why memory in early computers was so expensive.  It had to be hand-crafted, and took a lot of time.

Don’t underestimate the impact craft has had on our culture

I want to expand the story with: THE JACQUARD LOOM.

No, wait, that’s not a loom! That’s a photograph of Joseph Marie Jacquard. No wait, that’s not a photo of Joseph Jacquard, that’s a portrait of Jacquard he wove on a Jacquard Loom in 1839! 

It’s the woven portrait of Jacquard once owned by Charles Babbage!

This one’s a jacquard loom. I got it now.

You’ll notice the fabric being displayed at the side has a “brocade” look (I’m not gonna go deep into fabric, but you’ve seen this look in every period drama.) This look has always been painfully, painfully Cool in Europe, because brocades produced by skilled weavers Asia and the Middle East were in limited supply.

Those brocades were produced on looms like this puppy:

Yes, that is a second person inside the machine, serving as a human computer to track the pattern. While wooden cards with holes were used since antiquity in China to help with simpler brocades, keep in mind that this loom was already perfect for master weavers—if weaving took intense skill, then they controlled supply and made bank. They didn’t develop a machine to replace human calculators because they weren’t motivated to.

Jacquard, meanwhile, would have been highly motivated to build something that could mass-produce to flood the European market. The loom head he introduced in 1804-5 drew on Bouchon’s 1725 attempt, which used cards but still needed that second human calculator. The jacquard loom head uses a row of hooks, which move across cards with a pattern of holes: where there’s a hole, the hook can drop through and pick up the warp thread, moving it to the opposite side of the weft; where there’s no hole, the warp stays where it is, creating a two-tone design.

The beautiful knitting machine max-vandenburg is showin’ off up there has a pedigree going back to 1589. At that point it was used for single-color knitting, most importantly the unspeakably huge economic demand for the production of basic necessities like stockings. In the 1800s, as the jacquard loom head spread, machine knitters quickly developed their own punch cards to reproduce knitting’s own traditionally lusted-after Luxury:  colorwork.

Let’s acknowledge here it’s a little odd talking about textile machines because I’m simultaneously going to call textiles “women’s industries” and saying all these machines were invented by men.

Partly, this is because The Women’s Industries have always been seen in multiple lights. In medieval Europe textiles were both luxuries created by “master artisans” who underwent intensive formal training in craft guilds, with enormous economic value, and necessities created by women everywhere, with…enormous economic value.  

“Cottage industry” is an unfortunate term, but try to keep in mind that throughout history people have needed warm clothes (and hot food, and clean laundry, and home medicines and candles and soap.) In Europe and colonial North America, outside of the largest cities with their craft guilds, women made, bought, and sold all those things. Women’s choices have always been the fundamental driver of economic activity; what’s changed over the centuries is that we’ve moved from a woman-to-woman marketplace largely conducted between homes to an industrial company-to-customer (largely: women customers) model.  Your understanding of economics, history, and gender is fundamentally flawed if you  believe that women didn’t work just because the amount of much cash (or a non-monetary, more immediately valuable payment like ‘food’) colonial housewives earned selling soap isn’t part of The Historical Record. Those historic maketplaces of the Women’s Economy were always vibrant, significant, and huge.

Let’s also acknowledge any part of ourselves that wants to think, “well, the peasant women were just making charming rustic stuff, the men with formal training developed the fancy patterns that inspired the knitting machine.” That part has been programmed with some insidious shit, so let’s take it on a trip to Muhu Island.

Or…Fair Isle. Or anywhere rocky and cold where men went out to fish and a bunch of women were “sitting around at home” determined to 1) make everything needed to survive 2) SHOW THE HELL OFF.

The intense intellect, concentration, and calculation it takes to create textiles WAS once recognized. Mechanization has done wonders and women have absolutely been directly and massively involved in more modern developments, at the core of aerospace, engineering, camera design and film editing, both because of their own particular talents and because Everyone Knows if it’s huge and repetitive and kinda dull you pawn it off on a woman whose delicate lady hands just instinctively know how to craft. But it is unfortunate that the mass-production of textiles has helped our culture devalue and mis-imagine historical women’s skill. There is a reason that textile arts were once so closely linked to magic; in Northern Europe there was a belief that a woman even whispering someone’s name while she wove or knit was enough to lay a curse, and she might be criminally charged. People knew that shit was serious business.

My point is yes, a man designed the first knitting machine, because he had the insight and materials to adapt a body of skilled knowledge largely developed by women. A man built the Jacquard loom based on another vast body of weaving knowledge.

Babbage’s Number Cards were not a pure, precious, sprung-from-the-forehead-of-Zeus inspiration. They were an insightful use of knowledge rooted in history.

Math has never belonged to men. Computers never belonged to men. “The economy” does not belong to men.

Once I’ve finished pondering my orb I begin orbiting my pond

I really love this

love being in bed under big winter covers i feel like an old king dying of illness telling his last will to his son

We’re officially living in a Parks and Rec episode.

david attenborough: [to dramatic orchestral score] this is the biggest north-facing sandstone incline in the World…    and there is a very special Bug who lives here

me: wow

Legend

this edible ain't shit

ah

someone knocked on my door and they were wearing a red hat. i didnt answer cuz i was scared it was donald trump

what if it was mario you utter fool

Mercury square Uranus

You possess a quick mind, you are very intuitive, and you require a great deal of mental stimulation to keep from feeling bored. The ways in which you think are offbeat to the point of brilliance. You are usually attracted to learning new things, and everything can be mentally stimulating for you, using knowledge for the purpose of enlightening, which tends to excite you. People would think that you would have it easy in school, flying through your subjects and grade levels, acing tests with flying colors. But, think again. It’s actually more common to hear you say that you couldn’t stand school and that you didn’t get the best grades. It’s quite a contradiction as, again, you are usually highly intelligent. But, the thing about the school system is that it can be confining, to the point of wanting to put all of its students into a little box of thinking and learning. But, your mind don’t fit into that neat little box. Therefore, the conflict is established. You might have seen the classroom, growing up, not as a haven of stimulation but as an oppressive cage. There is a part of you that loves to shock, challenge, and instigate with the things you say; however, this may not be a conscious process. Your mental energy and output is extremely variable–one day you might be capable of enormous effort and interest in a project, and the next day the opposite. This is largely due to the fact that you feel a strong need to be true to your instincts and intuition, and if you are not absolutely inspired, you don’t feel right working on a project–you might feel that you are “faking” it, and this doesn’t sit well for you. The problem is that in life there are always going to be routine tasks to complete, things we have to do that don’t entirely suit our interests, and so forth. School years may be challenging as a result of your disdain for a linear approach to learning, routine tasks, and subjects that don’t inspire you, but not because of any lack of mental ability. In fact, you can have real flashes of genius and your ideas and perspectives are often very original. At times you can be very dogmatic. You are prone to rebelling on a mental level. This is how you probably dealt with school throughout your upbringing. You bucked and balked against the system, not appreciating being told what to think and what to be interested in. In fact, you might have become deeply misunderstood, as a result. Students with these aspects can stand out in the classroom, for better or worse. Your inability to color inside the lines might have worried teachers, making them feel like there was some sort of disorder or behavior issue going on. Hopefully, you had some sort of particularly friendly teacher to guide you. You are only difficult to handle when others try to make you rigidly conform. But, if you had a teacher who recognized your giftedness and befriended you, showing total tolerance toward your individualistic ways, you felt much more motivated and stimulated in class. But, all throughout life, there can be an element of you being misunderstood via the way you communicate. You have such erratic, left-field thoughts that the things you say often leave people scratching their heads. Others might be easier to understand on a logical level but just difficult to fully reach or gain a read on in conversation. You have a remote quality to the way in which you communicate, as your mind can often seem to be somewhere else. Sometimes, your head is just way out in outer space. Having this aspect can make you more of a frustrated genius, as it can be difficult for you to translate those extraordinary ideas into a sensible reality. Trouble listening can occur due to lack of concentration or being easily distracted. This can lead to you saying the wrong thing in response to others as you did not fully understand what they said first. This can be difficult and make you feel even more isolated in your outlook. But, when you find a healthy balance between common logic and wild inspiration, you are capable of putting your unique intelligence to good use. You are an unpredictable talker, as well, leaving those to expect the unexpected when speaking to you. It’s a regular occurrence for people to walk away from a conversation with them saying, “Where did that come from?” This can be regarding brilliant insights, wildly inventive ideas, provocative jokes, and unusual comments that all come spilling out of your mouth. There is a suddenness to the way you speak. You might appear to really blurt things out. But, this is the way in which your mind naturally works, as your thoughts manifest like quick flashes of lightning. You must feel like you’re being given the complete freedom to just say whatever’s on your mind. While you may well have a brilliant mind, your sometimes provocative ideas or eccentric manner can upset others and lead to relationships difficulties. Having this aspect doesn’t make you too encumbered by tact or pretense or politeness. You don’t care too much about how what you’re saying is being received and your detachment from social conventions can be quite startling to some people. Therefore, you might often end up rubbing someone the wrong way or offending them through your speech. Talking to you can feel like sticking your finger in a socket. Your words truly shock people, in some way or another, and you might just get off on doing so. Yet, this can contribute to that mental perspective of being misunderstood. Your brain just doesn’t work like most people’s do. So, thoughts and ideas and opinions that you see as totally normal are often considered odd or absurd to others. It’s the age-old tale of the genius: being so ahead of his/her time that he/she walks a lonely path. Basically, you must get used to the idea that your mind works differently and fully embrace that, without feeling like a freak and without feeling the rebellious need to push others’ buttons, as a result. You can continually up the shock value in your conversation, which can stem from a certain frustration that comes from constantly being seen as a weirdo or a troublemaker. If this is the case, you must learn how to focus that mental energy on something more constructive. You still might end up being shocking via your speech. But, just don’t try so hard to do so on purpose. Gifted people often struggle with the process of claiming their giftedness, as society can make them feel ostracized or ridiculous for doing so. The same can be said of you, who may fall into the gifted category. You might have spent so much of your life being told your ideas were crazy and unacceptable that you isolate yourself from the crowd and don’t share your ideas, just talking to yourself about them instead. The same can be true of your high intelligence, which can, of course, make you an outcast in a different way while growing up. Your issue might be simply owning up to the fact that you are very smart. That can sound like egotism which can make you uncomfortable but it’s not egotistical if you’re using that intelligence to help advance the world and the people around you. This needs to be your primary focus. You have the mind of a true innovator, capable of looking at things from unusual, highly interesting perspectives. That “light-bulb” in your head turns on without warning and you are an avid brainstormer, capable of engaging in a flurry of mental energy and exchanges. You might be rather overwhelmed with your mad-scientist point of view, as your mind doesn’t seem to stop spinning in unpredictable directions. You might not just think outside of the box. The concept of a box might not even cross your mind. This is a highly creative combination. Your creativity stems from sheer inventiveness and a willingness to go out on a limb intellectually. Therefore, you must cultivate numerous “experiments” in life in order to channel this. In doing so, you can help open up and progress the minds of those around you. You’re not content with mundane, small-talk conversation. You want to discuss truly stimulating subjects that will push both you and the other person to really think. You have an electrifying influence in your conversations and people can walk away from you impressed by how unique your observations and opinions are. However, when someone or something bores you, you’re totally disconnected, to the point of seeming to be taking off on a spaceship to someplace much more interesting. This is another reason why you can hate school. You’re much more mentally detached than most when you’re uninterested in something, which could’ve been a few subjects in school. Yet, when you are truly interested, your genius shines through. You definitely don’t appreciate being told what to think. In fact, that’s the number one rule for getting to know you: don’t tell you what to think. Preferring to be self-directed, you don’t always take advice easily. No one should just freely dish out advice to you, especially when it’s unsolicited. In your mind, you and you only determine your opinions. Your manner of comprehending things is highly independent, sometimes to a startling degree. It’s rare to find you to constantly seek people’s advice. It will be an out-of-the-norm event when you do and, even then, you will still filter it through your own logic. The disapproval of others doesn’t deter you, even if it might secretly bother you. In fact, the more people disagree with you, the more determined you become to stick to your point of view or your decision, like the rebellious-minded individual that you will eternally be. Because of this, your opinions usually go against the normal conventional thought of society. This can apply in many different areas, possibly even just about every area you can think of. You do not readily go along with the herd’s mentality but stop and question things for yourself. Peer pressure is never, ever an issue for you, as you’re far from easily influenced. You’re generally not prejudiced in your thinking. In fact, you can feel even more isolated, sometimes, due to your ability to not place people in such rigid, stereotypical categories because of their race, sex, class, sexual orientation or anything else. With this aspect, you can see the inherent stupidity of people’s discriminatory thinking much more readily than others. As a result, you find it easy to detach from these perspectives, seeing them as totally illogical, and follow your own broad-minded mode of thought that sees everyone as one and the same. You have a future-oriented mind. You are ready to take us into a whole new age of thinking and have probably been ready their entire lives. With this aspect, you are always two steps ahead of the pack, in one sense or another. However, it’s difficult for you to realize this until the others catch up and you see how much faster you are than them. At times you can have an irritable temper and need to channel some of your nervous energy into constructive pursuits. You sometimes act as if you are mentally superior, acting like a “know it all.” A great impatience can develop with others who don’t perceive things in their way or are not fast enough to keep up with your string of thought patterns. Sometimes, it results in you being unable to communicate with others harmoniously, so learning to be calm on the mental level is challenging for you at times. You may suffer from breakdowns in communication, and may have developed twitches, convulsions, or nervous ailments being something of an intellectual “live wire.” The mind needs to learn how to wind back down, your biggest difficulty is switching your brain off, which can lead to mental instability. You may talk fast, read fast, and learn fast; it’s in your DNA to go full steam ahead in the area of communication, and the way you mentally processes ideas is nothing short of breathtaking. Because of your quickness, you are usually the first person in the room to get the joke. It takes someone who’s as fast on the uptake to keep up with you when you’re in a humorous mode, as you not only have a very quick wit but can go off on crazy riffs and tangents that seem to take on a life of their own. And of course, your sense of humor always has that edginess, that feeling of no one knowing exactly what you’re going to say. And most wouldn’t have it any other way. You may be particularly amused by, and drawn to novelties, and your quirky sense of humor would come in handy as a comedian.