Thursday, May 19, 2005

When worlds collide

I love it when two separate parts of my life collide. Ruth Blau just posted this on the WeaveTech List

This past weekend, I attended a wonderful knitting workshop with Debbie New. One of her approaches to designing is based on the Sierpinksy triangle fractal. You can do it with color (either two colors, or better yet, with dark & light and then use any colors you want), with stitches (knit vs. purl) or w/ broader design concepts, e.g, cables. She calls it "rule-based knitting." At any given time, the stitch (or color or whatever) you use is determined by the stitch's surroundings. Here's an example. Assume you're ready to knit a stitch. Look at the three stitches below it (one directly below and the two on each side of it). Your rule is this: if one (and only one) of the stitches below is purl, then you purl. Otherwise you knit. It could also be this: if one and only one of the stitches below is light then use light yarn, otherwise use dark. You make this decision for every stitch in the row (yes, it's slow going).

If you happen to have Debbie's book "Unexpected Knitting," this is in the section called Cellular Automaton Knitting.

Intel Exudes Confidence

Headline and lead-in from an InformationWeek article

Intel Business PCs Won't Include Dual-Core Processors
The business-PC platform includes only technologies that have been validated, and the chipmaker promises it will remain stable and unchanged for the next 12 months.
By Darrell Dunn

Are you getting a warm fuzzy feeling about the Intel dual core chips?

Monday, May 16, 2005

Pauli Exclusion Principle applied to Airlines

Pauli Exclusion Principle

No two people on any particular airplane shall have paid the same amount for their ticket.