MX BUSTER

Happy 15th birthday to Nyan Cat! The post above is the original and first post of the 8bit kitty back on April 2nd, 2011.

[JERRY STARES AT GEORGE FROM ACROSS THE TABLE IN CONFUSION AND DISBELIEF FOR SEVERAL SECONDS]

JERRY: “You understand trans people?”

GEORGE: “Is that so hard to believe?”

JERRY: “I find it hard to believe you understand yourself.”

GEORGE: “But that’s kind of my point, see. When one life isn’t working out, you can just try to find one that does. You’re doing your best as Danny, things aren’t going great… [GEORGE CLAPS HIS HANDS FOR EMPHASIS]… give it a second go as a Deborah.”

JERRY: “Like a do-over.”

GEORGE: “A do-over.”

JERRY: [PICKS UP COFFEE CUP] “I don’t think that’s what’s going on.” [DRINKS COFFEE]

GEORGE: [COMPLETELY IGNORING THIS] “And I get that. I really do. Because things have never worked out for George. George has never been able to stick the landing. But Georgina? [HE CHUCKLES CONFIDENTLY] Georgina’s going places.”

JERRY: “Georgina.”

GEORGE: “It’s a work in progress.”

JERRY: “Ya know, I think that the trans community is facing enough challenges without you being in the mix.”

GEORGE: “What, are you implying they’re too good for me?”

JERRY: "George is thinking of being Georgina"

GEORGE: "look im just saying I understand trans people, maybe Id be a good woman"

KRAMER: "you know I was a woman for a few years"

JERRY: "you were a trans woman?"

KRAMER: "Trans woman? No"

GEORGE: "Youre a trans man?"

KRAMER: "never been trans in my life"

JERRY: "but you were a woman?"

KRAMER: "look, I cheated an old woman at cards and she threw some dust in my eyes and I became a woman for a few years, happens to anyone"

JERRY: [SHAKING HIS HEAD] "I dont think thats ever happened to anyone."

KRAMER: "sure it has! Happens to anyone, want me to prove it?"

JERRY: "no!"

KRAMER: "cause you know im right!" [STORMS OUT]

GEORGE: [SCROLLING HIS PHONE] "Im thinking Elaine"

JERRY: "we know an Elaine"

GEORGE: "I know another George at work, I didnt tell him one of us needed to change our name!"

JERRY: "youre about to though"

GEORGE: [SHAKING HIS HEAD AS HE LEANS BACK IN HIS SEAT] "youre right, I cant let this guy win. What do you think? I trans him first so I dont lose, then new start for me?"

you need to take them into the woods

I do outdoor education work, and within minutes of any elementary to middle schooler getting free permission to mess around with their friends in a clearing, they’re curious and driven again. they’re asking each other questions and yeeting pinecones at trees (science) and using their bodies. sometimes for evil. as is developmentally right. they want to know the names of birds! they want to teach someone pokemon! they want to build stuff and kick stuff and tackle each other and you into the snow!

they’re basically fucking institutionalized for 90% of their lives but their spirits are alive. you need to take them into the woods you need to treat them like animals with powerful inner lives and they’ll show you they are.

This is jacquard fabric:

For much of its existence, the fabric had to painstakingly handwoven due to the complexity of the motifs that characterised jacquard weaves.

In 1804, the Jacquard punch card was patented, which enabled manufacture to be done at a fraction of the speed:

However, the above cards inspired a connection between the mathematic patterning of the jacquard cards and the idea of a precursor to our modern computers, by none other than Ada Lovelace.

There are similar concepts underpinning other forms of needlework/handicrafts - needle lace and bobbin lace is made to pattern sheets that were originally done by hand, before becoming digitised such as in the Leavers Lace machine.

I'm the head of the Outreach Committee at my fiber arts guild (as well as being vice president) and while we ALSO do demonstrations at historical events, my focus has been bringing in the connections between Fiber Arts and STEM subjects, ESPECIALLY at schools!

Last spring, for example, a nearby middle school had a STEM day and invited us, so I went to the school and set up a display of various Fiber Arts tools and materials, all of which I could use, and a prompt by each one explaining how it uses math or relates to science or whatever, with notes/script I had written out for myself to explain how each one is connected. (The pictures I've included are from the same setup at a different event; I'm not putting up pictures with middle schoolers in them and I didn't catch any before/after.) I had:

A display of silk in different forms ("hankies" or unspun stretched out cocoons, handspun yarn from hankies, rough spun yarn from leftovers, beautiful slippery shiny reeled-and-thrown yarn) and a story about how sick silkworms led to research by Agostino Bassi and his very early work on the Germ Theory, who inspired Louis Pasteur, who inspired Joseph Lister (Science, particularly medical science)

An 8-shaft table loom, with a set of simple punch cards showing how a Jacquard loom would work, and how those punch cards inspired Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace and how the more complex punch cards were widely used right up through the 60's and 70's (Technology)

A spinning wheel, with a mark on one side of the large wheel so you can see when it had made a complete circle, a bobbin that spun faster, and a discussion on how gearing ratios change the work you do (Engineering)

A display of knitting projects, with a book on fitting different motifs together; for instance, if you have a motif that repeats every 24 stitches, it would be best if your sweater was a multiple of 24 stitches around. But what if you also have a motif that repeats every 7 stitches and another motif that repeats every 15 stitches? This book gets around that problem by having EVERY motif be 24 stitches, but it still brings up the issue. Also, a pair of socks with a ball of similar yarn next to them, so we can talk about different ways to estimate whether or not you've got the right amount of yarn to make another pair of socks. (Math)

As a bonus, an interactive set of drop spindles attached to already-spun yarn, so the kids could spin them themselves without having to worry about messing up the yarn or dropping the spindles on the floor. The spindles were different weights and sizes, so the kids could see how that affected the length of time the spindles would spin. (more Science - physics this time!)

I didn't even get into the math of warping a loom, which usually takes me a couple of pages of scribbling notes and calculations, multiplying by ends-per-inch, adjusting for percentage of shrinkage and percentage of take-up and how much loom waste to allow, and margins of error, and stuff like that.

I also learned how to get hand x rays.