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ellingsworth · 6 months ago
Thanks for sharing.

Similarly, Margo Selby crafted a very large, vibrant 16m textile installation titled ‘moon landing’ based on the work of Navajo women who wove the integrated computer circuits and memory cores that enabled the 1969 moon landing. Until recently it was on display at Canterbury Cathedral. It is accompanied by a musical composition for strings by Helen Caddick.

https://www.margoselby.com/pages/moon-landing

segfault99 · 6 months ago
Back in the 1980s2H there was a brief fashion trend of woollen knit sweaters with IC mask type patterns. Guessing related to designers playing around with design software and knitting tech made possible by microprocessor revolution.
BobbyTables2 · 6 months ago
We’ve come full circle - knitting tech was the basis for early computing machines!
vishnugupta · 6 months ago
Jacquard loom!
djmips · 6 months ago
This is how we pass our chip designs to our descendents so they may rebuild civlization.
flitzofolov · 6 months ago
Reminds me of "A Canticle for Leibowitz".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz

MisterTea · 6 months ago
A very inaccurately timed civilization.
snickerbockers · 6 months ago
Thats on you for not consulting the tolerance band on your resistors.
chairmansteve · 6 months ago
Needs to be stone monoliths!
kens · 6 months ago
Author here if anyone has questions...
amelius · 6 months ago
Yes, my question is: did the weaver have any questions?
kens · 6 months ago
Marilou Schultz asked me to suggest some chips that would make good weavings, and I suggested the 555, among other chips. She also had questions about the different colors and textures in the chip. She notices a lot more about the colors than I do; I look at a chip in terms of functionality and connectivity and don't pay attention to the colors.
sophacles · 6 months ago
Any question I have starts with "tell me a lot about the Navajo people"... so no questions for here. Just want to say: good article.
kens · 6 months ago
I went into a lot more of the Navajo history in my previous article [1] so I didn't repeat it in the new article. The quick summary is that the Navajo suffered a century of oppression, were forced off their land in the Long Walk, and had their sheep slaughtered in the 1930s in the Navajo Livestock Reduction. In the 1960s, the Navajo had 65% unemployment, $300 per capita income, and lacked basic infrastructure. Various groups looked to industrialization as a solution, so Fairchild opened an IC manufacturing facility on Navajo land in 1965, employing 1200 Navajo workers and becoming the nation's largest non-government employer of American Indians. The plant was generally considered a success, but in 1975, Fairchild had business problems and laid off 140 Navajo employees. Things went downhill and a radical group, AIM (American Indian Movement), took over the plant with rifles. The armed occupation ended peacefully after a week, but Fairchild closed the plant and moved production to Asia.

[1] https://www.righto.com/2024/08/pentium-navajo-fairchild-ship...

rolph · 6 months ago
between navajo, and the northernmost south american migrations [i.e. Aztec]

it appears northam was colonized thousands of years before anybody else even knew, let alone cared for it.

SecretDreams · 6 months ago
Cost for a piece like this? It's striking!
kens · 6 months ago
I don't know the cost of her weavings. They are very time-consuming to create, so I hope she charges a good price.
mkl · 6 months ago
Fascinating related article about a weaving of a Pentium (linked near the bottom): https://www.righto.com/2024/08/pentium-navajo-fairchild-ship..., discussion a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41418301 (84 comments)
jacquesm · 6 months ago
What fascinating glimpse at a part of history that I had no clue about. The main reason Navajo (and other nations) native Americans figured in my 'history of the world' so far was the WWII era communications saga.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indi...

RobertEva · 6 months ago
Delightful crossover: silicon layout turned into textile logic. The 555 is perfect for this—bold pinout, big blocks (comparators + RS latch), and routing that reads from a distance. Add a tiny legend and it’s a great teaching piece.
crucialfelix · 6 months ago
I saw her work at MoMA, loved it. She's 70? That's even more awesome.