Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I'm begging of you, please don't take my man

Your sword is long, your lance is keen, your shining helm afar is seen

But into darkness fell your star, Jolene

Long ago you went away, and where thou dwellest none can say,

In Mordor where the shadows are, Jolene.

The last whose realm was fair and free between the mountains and the sea

Gil-galad was an Elven king, Jolene

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.

(little old ladies sewed the space suits, too)

Fun fact: one nickname for it was LOL Memory, for “little old lady memory.”

I mean let’s also touch on the Jacquard Loom, if you want to get all Textiles In Sciencey. It was officially created in 1801 or 1804 depending on who you ask (although you can see it in proto-form as early as 1725) and used a literal chain of punch cards to tell the loom which warps to raise on hooks before passing the weft through. It replaced the “weaver yelling at Draw Boy” technique, in which the weaver would call to the kid manning the heddles “raise these and these, lower these!” and hope that he got it right. 

With a Jacquard loom instead of painstakingly picking up every little thread by hand to weave in a pattern, which is what folks used to do for brocades in Ye Olde Times, this basically automated that. Essentially all you have to do to weave here is advance the punch cards and throw the shuttle. SO EASY. 

ALSO, it’s not just “little old ladies sewed the first spacesuits,” it’s “the women from the Playtex Corp were the only ones who could sew within the tolerances needed.” Yes, THAT Playtex Corp, the one who makes bras. Bra-makers sent us to the moon. 

And the cool thing with them was that they did it all WITHOUT PINS, WITHOUT SEAM RIPPING and in ONE TRY. You couldn’t use pins or re-sew seams because the spacesuits had to be airtight, so any additional holes in them were NO GOOD. They were also sewing to some STUPID tight tolerances-in our costume shop if you’re within an eighth of an inch of being on the line, you’re usually good. The Playtex ladies were working on tolerances of 1/32nd of an inch. 1/32nd. AND IN 21 LAYERS OF FABRIC. 

The women who made the spacesuits were BADASSES. (and yes, I’ve tried to get Space-X to hire me more than once. They don’t seem interested these days)

This is fascinating. I knew there was a correlation between binary and weaving but this just takes it to a whole nother level. 

I’m in Venice, Italy several times a year (lucky me!) and last year I went on a private tour of the Luigi Bevilacqua factory. Founded in 1875, they still use their original jacquard looms to hand make velvet. Here are the looms:

Here are the punch cards:

Some of these looms take up to 1600 spools. That is necessary to make their many different patterns.  Here are some patterns:

How many punchcards per pattern?

 This many:

Modern computing owes its very life to textiles - And to women. From antiquity weaving has been the domain of women. Sure, we remember Ada Lovelace and Hedy Lamarr, but while Joseph Marie Jacquard gets all the credit for his loom, the operators and designers were for the most part women.

I’ve seen this cross my dash a few times, but I’ve never watched the video before. Maybe I just didn’t pay attention when I was a kid, but I don’t remember ever seeing just how the Jacquard loom works. I just knew that the punch cards controlled which threads were raised. It’s cool to see the how, not just the what.

Don’t hide this in the tags, @drylime :D

Thank you so much for sharing this!  I’d seen it before, but didn’t save it, and I want to share this with my Girl Scout Cadettes.  We’re doing the Think Like a Programmer leadership journey, and these are great examples of thinking like a programmer without having to do the coding.

@opalescentegg

Utterly fascinating

Thank you for making this!

Bí Bog Léi

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2Z55qxX

by AiKat (OldEmeraldEye)

Déanann Emma iarracht Lá Vailintín a dhéanamh mar a bhí beartaithe. Millteoir foláireamh, ní dhéanann sé.

Words: 302, Chapters: 1/?, Language: Gaeilge

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2Z55qxX

I cannot believe this! So happy! Go hiontach! Go raibh míle, míle mhaith agat!

Title: even though our love is doomed [art] Link: Click Here To View and Comment Artist: lesbrarian Find them on: -Twitter: tinylesbrarian -Tumblr: @tinylesbrarian Title: Even Though Our Love is Doomed Link: Click Here To Read and Comment Author: Whistle_Silver Find them on: -Twitter: -Tumblr: @whistlesilver Rating: Teen and Up Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply Words: 24k Summary: Emma makes a startling discovery; Regina is a huge fan of nineties rock, especially that sung by women. As they indulge in a nostalgia trip, they get to know each other and fall hard.

Remember - writers and artists spent months creating the fics and art you enjoy, so it would mean the world to them if you commented to tell them what you liked! A creator who feels appreciated is a creator who is more likely to write or create art again in the future!

We're doomed, everyone. This was so much fun to write. It night have added years to my life

Title: Crossed Destinies (fanart) Link: Click Here To View and Comment Artist: italymystery Find them on: -Twitter: italymystery -Tumblr: @italymystery-swanqueen Title: Crossed Destinies Link: Click Here To Read and Comment Author: Whistle_Silver Find them on: -Twitter: -Tumblr: @whistlesilver Rating: Teen and Up Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply Words: 13k Summary: Emma Swan has spent a decade crossing the forest and mountains, exploring and delivering messages. As she rides towards a former mill, and her lover Regina, she tells the story of how they met and fell in love.

Remember - writers and artists spent months creating the fics and art you enjoy, so it would mean the world to them if you commented to tell them what you liked! A creator who feels appreciated is a creator who is more likely to write or create art again in the future!

This is my first time participating in this wonderful event. Thanks @whistlesilver , it was awesome work with you.

Thanks to @sqsupernova for organizing and for great help.

Thanks to all SwanQueen fandom.

So fucking proud of you dear

Yes! I’m so happy to read this. 🤗😍😘😘😘😘😘

You should be very proud of yourself! Not only are you incredibly talented, you’re kind, encouraging, intelligent and fun!

Don’t make me blush and thanks to you for everything, especially for bearing my English

Your English is way better than my Italian!

Title: Crossed Destinies (fanart) Link: Click Here To View and Comment Artist: italymystery Find them on: -Twitter: italymystery -Tumblr: @italymystery-swanqueen Title: Crossed Destinies Link: Click Here To Read and Comment Author: Whistle_Silver Find them on: -Twitter: -Tumblr: @whistlesilver Rating: Teen and Up Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply Words: 13k Summary: Emma Swan has spent a decade crossing the forest and mountains, exploring and delivering messages. As she rides towards a former mill, and her lover Regina, she tells the story of how they met and fell in love.

Remember - writers and artists spent months creating the fics and art you enjoy, so it would mean the world to them if you commented to tell them what you liked! A creator who feels appreciated is a creator who is more likely to write or create art again in the future!

This is my first time participating in this wonderful event. Thanks @whistlesilver , it was awesome work with you.

Thanks to @sqsupernova for organizing and for great help.

Thanks to all SwanQueen fandom.

So fucking proud of you dear

Yes! I’m so happy to read this. 🤗😍😘😘😘😘😘

You should be very proud of yourself! Not only are you incredibly talented, you're kind, encouraging, intelligent and fun!

Title: Crossed Destinies (fanart) Link: Click Here To View and Comment Artist: italymystery Find them on: -Twitter: italymystery -Tumblr: @italymystery-swanqueen Title: Crossed Destinies Link: Click Here To Read and Comment Author: Whistle_Silver Find them on: -Twitter: -Tumblr: @whistlesilver Rating: Teen and Up Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply Words: 13k Summary: Emma Swan has spent a decade crossing the forest and mountains, exploring and delivering messages. As she rides towards a former mill, and her lover Regina, she tells the story of how they met and fell in love.

Remember - writers and artists spent months creating the fics and art you enjoy, so it would mean the world to them if you commented to tell them what you liked! A creator who feels appreciated is a creator who is more likely to write or create art again in the future!

The Supernova reveal! My first time participating in any kind of writing challenge. Had a huge amount of fun! Thank you @italymystery-swanqueen for everything! And thank you to @sqsupernova. What an amount of time and effort!

I just adore this wonderful example of a kind, decent human being.

Guardian News: “‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,’ climate activist Greta Thunberg has told world leaders at the 2019 UN climate action summit in New York.”

Pure and simple, we all need to do better. We need to change.

my dream girl<3

Goddamn it Irish is not a made up language, people.