[HN Gopher] The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving
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       The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving
        
       Author : GavinAnderegg
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2024-09-01 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.righto.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.righto.com)
        
       | kens wrote:
       | Author here for your obscure Pentium questions...
        
         | hindsightbias wrote:
         | Well done.
        
           | kens wrote:
           | Thanks! Curiously, the article doesn't show up on HN. Maybe
           | my domain got banned or something?
        
             | Joe_Cool wrote:
             | I just saw it on the frontpage and very much enjoyed it.
        
         | teruakohatu wrote:
         | That was a very interesting and well researched article. Thank
         | you.
        
         | omoikane wrote:
         | 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?
        
           | kens wrote:
           | The other side is plain gray silicon; I've looked at the back
           | side of dies by mistake many times. (Intel is starting to do
           | power through the back side, which would make the back more
           | interesting.)
        
         | n8henrie wrote:
         | Just moved back to ABQ from Shiprock last month, after 8 years.
         | Not every day you see Shiprock featured in an HN post!
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | Fairly rare to be able to connect sheep with semiconductors.
       | 
       | I wonder if anyone is working on ovine AI opportunities yet.
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | That story about Fairchild manufacturing at Shiprock is
       | fascinating and heartbreaking. Glad to see it so thoughtfully
       | researched and presented.
        
         | tarellel wrote:
         | And as sad it is, they cycle as has repeated itself and its
         | still a sad situation around Shiprock. I'm someone who lives
         | within the general area and poverty is still saturating the
         | Navajo community. To make things worse the oilfield in the area
         | has shifted to Texas. And within the last year the Four Corners
         | Power Plant (PNM) and Navajo Mine (BHP) have shut down. These
         | have been 2 extremely large employers of the area for the
         | Navajo people since the 70's. Lots of businesses in neighboring
         | towns like Farmington and Gallup have shuddered. And a large
         | amount of people (who could afford to) have moved to places
         | like Phoenix and Denver so they don't get stuck being part of
         | the situation.
        
         | BoingBoomTschak wrote:
         | You know what they've said for millennia: "Vae victis"!
        
       | niccl wrote:
       | A fun full-circle. The Jacquard loom was influential for input
       | for early computers, and now the computer is influencing the
       | output of looms
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | groestl wrote:
         | Dead stuff is stuff without structure. I tend to think about my
         | interactions with the universe as extending the structure that
         | is me to dead stuff. Stuff is lifted to structuredness, and
         | becomes part of us as a whole. I don't feel that's low at all.
        
         | turtledragonfly wrote:
         | 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 to notice the Abyss.
        
         | robocat wrote:
         | Soeaking as an engineer, has it ever struck you how utterly low
         | it is to sit in a room making art? Sculptural materials and
         | paint is dead. Words are but faint echoes of human life.
         | 
         | Your comments are more a reflection upon your own worldview.
         | 
         | To improve things you merely need to change your own
         | perceptions.
        
         | retrac wrote:
         | Playing with our little dreams is what makes us human. Best not
         | to get lost in them though. Some crafting is wasteful, much
         | serves a useful purpose - and there's nothing deeply wrong with
         | that. And idle crafting, is often a kind of play, keeping
         | skills sharp. I do often think I could spend my time better.
         | But that usually means I need to be doing less dreaming and
         | more hacking away at some dead matter to make a dream into
         | reality.
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-01 23:00 UTC)