Kniterate Notes | Hacker News Reader

Kniterate Notes

soup.agnescameron.info

61 pointssurprisetalk12 comments

Other knitting articles for background (knitting machine; programming the machine; etc.) are linked on the same site here: https://soup.agnescameron.info/index.html

I applaud their restraint. Me, I would've been compelled to title it, "Kniterate Knotes".

I used to live near a town called "Knik" which all the locals pronounced with a hard "K" like "Kuh-nick". It launched a terrible habit of intentionally pronouncing silent K on all words, which was way more fun that it should have been. I started using all sorts of phrases just so I could pronounce the hard K, like "Don't get your kuh-nickers in a twist". I also started using a handle of "The Knight of Knik" which I of course pronounced as "The Kuh-nite of Kuh-nik", which then I shortened to "The Knik Knight" (pronounced "Kuh-nik Kuh-night"). I likewise applaud the author's restraint.

This looks interesting but I have no idea what it's talking about. I assume this is how non-techies feel when reading a programming article.

Indeed. I’m also quite lost but it caught the eye of an acquaintance. Hopefully, we’ll have a discussion over tea about it.

To me, knitting seems to be such an intimate art where a person pours their skill and heart. When I wrap myself in the sweater that my grandmother knit for me in a city far away from home, I feel her presence and love in the patterns woven in the fabric, wondering what she’d have been thinking while knitting. “I was thinking about the latest mischief of our naughty goats and this boy frolicking along with them.” She’d answer whenever someone asked.

Programming and automating this takes away all that intimacy out of that art but I guess it is inevitable for the “engineering” minds. Maybe there’s a wonder to it just by exploring the possibilities, albeit through machines.

The thing is, early knitting machines were advertised by showing them competing against "mighty fishermen of many years" since it was deemed a necessary activity for fishing communities in winter.

View it as an extension of Jaquard looms and the punch cards used for them being the precursors of modern computers.

c.f., the Native American representations of Intel chip designs:

https://kottke.org/24/09/a-navajo-weaving-of-an-intel-pentiu...

hi, I wrote the post!

one of the things that interests me about knitting machines (+ knit in general) is the intimacy that people develop with them... loads of knitters I know use (and have a very close relationship to) domestic knit machines, which sit somewhere between automated knit and hand knit.

my interest in working with my students to make knit software is not 'less intimiate knit' so much as 'more intimate code' + changing our relationships to the machines we use. loads of stuff is already made through automated knit (like -- your socks!) but the software those machines run is super rigid.

anyway I'm glad it's of interest!

This is quite fascinating...

I understand hand knitting as craft (that can also or exclusively be art).

I also understand some programming as craft (that can also or exclusively be art).

But when you combine the two and add some kind of machinery it is much harder for me to see it as craft and not as production. This has me thinking, I like to think!

The work you do expands my understanding of the world, thanks!

This is a programming article, just not in your subfield.

If you have any programming background and some time to aquiantence yourself with the specific words and aspects of this kind of programming I'm sure it will make sense to you too :)

It's mostly the knitting terms I don't know, not so much the engineering ones. Fairisle, Jacquard, etc.

Possibly you might be missing the point. Unless maybe this comment is subtle humor?

If it is subtle humour it's too subtle for me ;)

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