A suspended lifetime

This is what a real, qualified OBGYN will tell you about what women feel when they get an abortion

@theminky – just gonna leave this right here for LJ……

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

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.

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.

2016 World Nomad Games in Kyrgyzstan

Let it pass.

do I use this script or not

also vedj - still going, but will probably miss some days and that’s OKAY I’m worried for this video, because rather than generalising mental illness as important, and needs to be talked about, I go into detail about the specifics of what I’m feeling. And it’s not pretty. If you can’t relate, and I hope you don’t, I’m going to seem very very strange. But mental illness isn’t simple, it’s not all let’s blow on thumbs together to stop these darn panic attacks, or this cute cartoon girl crying in a corner. It’s so much bigger and uglier and more complex. I haven’t been making videos because I didn’t know how to when my head has been consumed and overtaken by what I’m about to talk about. But I think I’ve figured it out. so here’s the thing you may have seen on twitter i mentioned that i haven’t really felt like i’m here since i was 17 in a vid recently and then within the last week that sort of upped as a problem by like, 80% i went to wales for some shoots, felt crazy the whole weekend, then came back and got very panicky about the fact that I was going mad I had slept fine, and I kept expecting to wake up better, but I just didn’t I’ll explain what this all actually is and how it feels in a bit, plz hold so I got back, and knew that I felt messed up, so tried registering to the doctors walked there, in my weird dream state, took a proof of address cause I knew I needed that, handed it in, and then they said that I needed proof of address within the last two months i was teetering on the edge of tears and also feeling really weird so I think they must have thought I was actually insane I forgot how to say thanks and bye so I think I just left, dunno walked home, in this strange, bright dream world tried finding proof of address, forgot how to talk to my housemate, scared she was going to notice that I was drunk, except i wasn’t drunk and then my mum called and said dodie are you okay and I just sort of broke i was sobbing, rummaging through bin bags to try to find some sort of proof of address, on the phone to mum, and I decided to visit home home for some sort of familiarity, cause I used to feel so normal and alive in that house, when I was younger so I went home home, crying on the train, panicking about the fact that I was going mad and all my friends were like dodie wtf that was when I tweeted saying I needed a break then I saw mum and started crying about the fact that I left my old bedroom bed in dovan flat, cause I just wanted my normal bed in my normal room so I could feel normal and I came home but of course I wasn’t magically cured because going to that house is not the same as time travel i’m not taking a trip to 2012 when I go home, as much as I want to, i’m a broken dodie visiting a broken house and a broken ish family I even visited my old primary school which shut down, like, years ago, and I wandered around with hedy I don’t think that helped, cause it felt like it had just, grown leaves and aged in like 20 seconds it just made me feel even weirder so what am I feeling? Okay. let me explain. Or try to. here are a bunch of messages I have sent to friends of mine, to try and explain wtf this is “i’m so tired I’m just so tired I feel like I’ve been awake for 4 days And I don’t feel like I’m here I feel like I’m drunk Like I’ve had three wines and shots and beer and I’m tired and ready to go home and I can’t talk to anyone because I’ve forgotten how I usually talk I don’t even look like me Everything is so wrong and weird and scary I honestly think I’m going mad I can’t stop crying I’ve got such a bad headache” to lucy And I’ve just constantly felt like Drunk and blind You know when you’re hammered And everything’s really bright and you can’t remember how to talk properly and you’re not really taking anything in cause you feel really weird and you can touch things and see things and talk to people but you’re not really There I genuinely genuinely think I’ve gone mad And I don’t know if I’m ever going to see things like normal again” to sammy “Here’s the thing I’m alive I can breathe I can eat and talk and sleep and see and feel So I should be okay And objectively, I am fine So why am I not It’s one of those things that I keep thinking about over and over to the point where my head is like is this really happening and then I’m like is WHAT really happening I used to not understand mental illnesses at all I was like Just think of cats and rainbows But now I get it It’s so much deeper in your brain than cats and rainbows I used to say if I ever got dementia or something id fight it But how can you fight it when the it is the thing you’re using to fight with Dodie has gone full blown mad” to jon now, thanks to the last vid, and to google, I’ve found out what this probably is and I’m trying my best to register and see a doctor and get therapy and sort this out and also I know what you’re thinking if you have no idea what I’m talking about, if you’ve never had anything even close to this, if you are mentally dandy you’re thinking dodie you sound mental just shut up, turn it off you’re fine you’re obsessing over nothing, you’re attention seeking, just stop thinking about it firstly, I am so happy and thankful that you feel normal and happy and go and enjoy your life because you can and secondly, I would do anything to turn this off and feel normal again, literally anything. But I can’t. not right now. I don’t know how. so. here’s my plan. I’m going to act fucking normal. I can still sing. I am still alive, on this planet, even though I don’t feel like it. I still find things funny, I still can taste food, I can make jokes, and write songs and hang out with friends, even though I literally feel like I’m hiding something from everyone and I keep looking at everyone as if I’m a robot. but I’m going to sort this out, somehow. I’m going to sleep before midnight and wake up before 9, I’m going to give myself weekends, I’m going to do mindfullness meditation at 11am, and Im going to go running at least twice a week and eat healthy and drink water and not drink too much alcohol and treat myself when I’ve done well and not overwhelm myself. And I’m going to go to a doctor, and then therapy, and deal with this. But this will not consume me. Yeah I feel fucking weird. Bring it. I’m so done with the constant buzz in my head - why do I feel like this why do i feel like this why do i feel like this I just do. And I can’t change it right now. It’s not going to turn off. and I can’t just stop the world until I feel normal again, because I’ll get to my 70s and be like well shit, I missed it all. So I’m going to do the best I can. I’m going to make the videos that make me happy. And I’m going to laugh about the fact that I’m a bit mental. Cause what else can you do.

Whilst I type this I’m on the phone to my bank to get a statement sent to prove my address to go BACK to the doctors to prove I live here then get an appointment to get referred to therapists. The NHS may be free but it’s not bloomin easy lol.

just watch this. 

“blablabla, disloyalty”

“oooh!”