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The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

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Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 1804! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_machine

So _that's_ what a Jacquard loom is. I've seen it mentioned often. Thank you.

There are some old Jacquard card stacks which are literally the oldest machine readable datasets in existence, a century before Hollerith.

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#53
post #12

Speaking as an artist and a programmer, has it ever struck you how utterly low it is to sit in a room making things? You are interacting with little speck of dead stuff. Staring, unmoving, practically dead yourself. Playing with a little dream. There's something deeply wrong with that. Spiritually wrong even. Sometimes I reflect and feel shame at my wastefulness.

Hello, fellow artist+programmer (: What do you think of the quote: "Whatever you do will be utterly insignificant, but it is very important that you do it" ? Personally, I think playing with little dreams is beautiful, but I do hope you find something that satisfies your soul. In my experience, artistry and a bit of depression often go hand-in-hand. If you spend a lot of time paying attention to things, you're bound…

"Gaze not into the abyss, lest you become recognized as an abyss domain expert, and they expect you keep gazing into the damn thing." —@nickm_tor@mastodon.lol

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#54
post #48
post #2

Author here for your obscure Pentium questions...

Not a pentium question, but.. > Due to the end of the Cold War, Hughes acquired General Dynamics' missile business in 1991 before being acquired by General Motors in 1985 and sold to Raytheon in 1997. I'm guessing that's supposed to be 91 -> 95 -> 97?

Trying to sort out aerospace companies is always a mess. I got the dates mostly right but reversed the timeline. GM acquired Hughes Aircraft in 1985, forming the Hughes Electronics unit which consisted of Hughes Aircraft and Delco Electronics. Hughes Aircraft acquired General Dynamics' missile business in 1992 to form the Hughes Missile System Company. In 1994, Hughes Electronics combined three operations into the Hughes Aerospace and Electronics Company (still a unit of GM). In 1997, Raytheon acquired the military business of Hughes Electronics Corporation from General Motors for $9.5 billion. At least I think that's what happened :-)

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#55
Wow, what a gem of a post. I knew about the Navajo codebreakers but didn't ever hear about the Shiprock connection.

I also am admiring how deftly the author was able to weave in (heh) little bits of low-level computer knowhow. This is an article I can send to my non-tech friends!

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#56
This how I have always thought of the Giza plateau and other temple sites. They look like different digital components or circuits attached to each other. It was easy to convince myself that they were indeed designing some type of deep logic within the structures.

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#57
post #7
post #2

Author here for your obscure Pentium questions...

I laughed at the bit where the gallery picked the wrong side of the rug to display, but this got me thinking -- presumably all the die photos we see are from the etched side of the wafer, what does it look like on the other side? Is it just all flat?

"Such hearts, such brains, would be unable to comprehend that one's attachment to a masterpiece may be utterly overwhelming, especially when it is the underside of the weave that entrances the beholder and only begetter, whose own past intercoils there with the fate of the innocent author." --- Nabokov, "Pale Fire"

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#58
post #12

Speaking as an artist and a programmer, has it ever struck you how utterly low it is to sit in a room making things? You are interacting with little speck of dead stuff. Staring, unmoving, practically dead yourself. Playing with a little dream. There's something deeply wrong with that. Spiritually wrong even. Sometimes I reflect and feel shame at my wastefulness.

That's a remarkable question.

Have you, reader of this comment, ever created something that will subsequently never interact with a living being?

I don't think I have... except maybe when I've blinked Morse into the sky with a flashlight or laser.

There's always someone or something on the other end. I try to remember that.

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#59
post #2

Author here for your obscure Pentium questions...

As a hobby hand-spinner and occasional weaver who’s been in IT my entire working life, and interested in learning more about what my home country has done to the nations that were already there, this article is excellent in all regards.

Re: The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving

#60
post #12

Speaking as an artist and a programmer, has it ever struck you how utterly low it is to sit in a room making things? You are interacting with little speck of dead stuff. Staring, unmoving, practically dead yourself. Playing with a little dream. There's something deeply wrong with that. Spiritually wrong even. Sometimes I reflect and feel shame at my wastefulness.

That's a remarkable question. Have you, reader of this comment, ever created something that will subsequently never interact with a living being? I don't think I have... except maybe when I've blinked Morse into the sky with a flashlight or laser. There's always someone or something on the other end. I try to remember that.

The classic excercise is: write a poem, tear the paper to pieces and throw it away.
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