You’ve Read About 3d Printing…Here’s 3d Knitting

Customized blazers made on-site in about 90 minutes. (Some might call this product more of a cardigan.)  More from the retailer and the equipment manufacturer.

Benefits of this approach compared with the traditional process include better fit, reduced fabric waste (indeed, the process starts with yarn rather than with fabric), elimination of seams for better durability, and avoidance of inventory vs demand mismatches.  OTOH, the machine is priced at $190,000 and for a store with high volumes, several of them are going to be required.  I’m not sure whether this will be only a niche product/service or whether it heralds the beginning of a sea change in the traditional cut-and-sew method of apparel production…surely something that will come sooner or later, with vast consequences.

This innovation reminded me of a story from pre-industrial-revolution days.  In 1589, an Englishman named William Lee invented a device called the stocking frame, which aimed to greatly improve the productivity of knitting the material for the stockings that were then in vogue. According to a common story, he was motivated to create the machine because when he came to call on a girl he was sweet on, she persisted in paying more attention to her knitting than to him.  So his intent was either (a) free up her time so she would have more (hopefully) for him, or (b) get revenge on her for rejecting him. (I’d rather think he was naive (version A) than vicious (version B))

He then arranged to demonstrate the machine to Queen Elizabeth, hoping for a patent.  In one version of the story, she expressed disappointment that the machine was only good for wool and told him to come back when it could also handle silk…which enhancement he was indeed able to accomplish.  In any case, Elizabeth ultimately rejected the device because of concerns about technological unemployment:

Thou aimest high, Master Lee. Consider thou what the invention could do to my poor subjects. It would assuredly bring to them ruin by depriving them of employment, thus making them beggars.

The inventor moved to France and was there granted a patent by Henry IV…he began successful manufacturing of stockings in Rouen, but the King’s assassination in 1610 made the political climate for the venture untenable.  William Lee lived out the rest of his life in poverty.  It appears that in the late 1600s an improved version of the machine was re-introduced to England by Huguenot refugees from France, this time successfully, and further improvements were made over time, including the ability of the machines to work with cotton.  These improved versions were however too expensive for most artisans to purchase on their own, and they were generally rented out by the same entrepreneurs who provided the framework knitters with their raw materials and purchased their resultant product.

An interesting article on William Lee and his machine here.

The Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters has a wonderful coat-of-arms featuring William Lee and the object of his desire, with the machine between them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Long Hot Summer in the Making

Just when I start to think that the fans of Hillary Clinton and her minions in the national establishment are calming the heck down, after the unexpected shellacking at the polls by Donald Trump of Her Inevitableness, the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua … nope, the insane is being cranked up to twelve – that is two more above ten. (Obligatory Spinal Tap reference there.) And the inmates of certain college campi are running the insanity all the way up to thirteen or fourteen, as witness the furious activists at Evergreen University, in Olympia, Washington State. They are bent out of shape over the usual crap that student activists are usually bent out of shape over – but in this case, the frosting on the cake is a video of a raucous demonstration by student activists making their demands, and generally acting like spoiled three-year-olds throwing a screaming tantrum. The video is linked here -And the students take? “We demand that the video created for Day of Absence and Day of Presence that was stolen by white supremacists and edited to expose and ridicule the students and staff be taken down by the administration by this Friday.” Sorry, kids – the internet is forever. Don’t want to be ridiculed by strangers who don’t give a damn for your sensitive little egos? Don’t do ridiculous things.

Ridiculous things like … oh, I don’t know – pose for an elaborate video shoot with a blood-soaked fake head of Donald Trump, especially if you are a pathetically unfunny failed comedian like Kathy Griffin. In whom, like the Kardashians, I am fabulously disinterested but such is theirs and Kathy Griffin’s unseemly lust for public attention that I can’t help knowing about them anyway, much as I would wish otherwise. At this point, it looks like this tasteless stunt as cost Ms Griffin a gig with CNN on New Years Eve – story here. I imagine that the suits at CNN are counting up the numbers and calculating how many more viewers they can lose if they really put their backs into it.

And speaking of media figures taking their lumps – last week we had the interesting spectacle of one Greg Gianforte, running for a congressional seat in Montana, charged with roughing up a reporter for England’s Guardian newspaper. Gianforte won the contest anyway, leading observers like myself to wonder if he did any damage to his campaign at all. After all – who hasn’t wanted to slap the cr*p out of a rude and obstreperous reporter now and again? This could get very popular, if incorporated onto White House press briefings. Sean Spicer could draw a name from a hat at the start of every briefing, and punch out the selected reporter. We could call it “Beat the Press.”

And finally – the latest to surface in the cacophony of crazy is the demand by a group calling themselves “Texas Antifa” to remove a prominent statue of Sam Houston from Houston’s Herman Park, on the grounds that Houston was a slave owner. Doubtless, Texas Antifa is trying to hop aboard the movement to banish statues of Confederate leaders and soldiers from public spaces across the old South and garner some of that sweet, creamy media attention … either that, or someone – either on the right or left – is doing an epic troll. While Sam Houston did own slaves (about a dozen, some of whom were purchased so as to keep a family together, or so sayeth one of the biographies I have read) he was emphatically against the expansion of slavery to the Western territories, against secession from the United States and resigned his office as governor rather than take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. In any case, Texas Antifa has called for a rally on June 10th. At the very least, this event may draw more supporters of keeping the statue where it has been since 1925. I’m no particular judge of prog-speak: Texas Antifa’s Book of Face page is here. Read for yourself and decide – for realsies lefty, stark raving nuts, or clever parody?
Discuss, if you can bear it.

Memorial Day

In 1863, two of my ancestors, brothers of my great grandfather, enlisted in the 55th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Company G was recruited from La Salle County and my two great great uncles enlisted on August 6, 1861.

They enlisted at Camp Douglas and then were transferred to Benton Barracks, Missouri.

When they were transferred to St Louis in December 1861, there were already 50 men ill with measles, which was to take the life of James Kennedy later. Soon after their arrival, their new commanding general arrived, William T Sherman. There were rumors that he had been relieved of command in Kentucky and was crazy. All looked at him with curiosity. He wore no uniform or decoration. The 55th followed him throughout the war until the Grand Review in 1865.

The Story of the Fifty-fifth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War, 1861-1865 has been used as an e-book for some of this story.

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Yngwie F’ing Malmsteen

When I was in high school Yngwie Malmsteen hit the metal scene like a hurricane. That was back in the day when you would have long and furious arguments about who was the “best” guitarist (remember, we didn’t have the internet and had to fill our time with something other than social media). When Yngwie emerged the term “shredding” became the norm and Yngwie was the apex of that style of guitar playing – almost the photo that you would put adjacent to that term in the dictionary.

His debut album “Rising Force” was a classic in that genre – mostly instrumental and filled with probably just about the recommended dose of Yngwie for most non die-hard fans. The hand raising his iconic guitar above the fire is the image of Yngwie that jumps into my mind first and foremost.

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Worthwhile Reading

(Worthwhile but not very cheerful reading, for the most part, I’m afraid)

“Progressives” as Minor Nobles of Exquisite Breeding and Dubious Character

Related:  The New Class War

Ex-Muslims in America meeting in secret for reasons of safety

Bookworm links a carefully-reasoned Victor Davis Hanson about Trump and the accusations being made against him, and contrasts it with  “the incoherent rage attack visited upon a conservative friend of mine via a series of text messages from one of the parents in his children’s community.”

American universities as assembly points for the anti-free-speech Left

Case in point:  Student mob shrieks at professor and calls for his firing

Manchester and the lies we tell ourselves about terrorism.  A good piece, though I would question to use of the word “we” in the title–the intellectual fallacies described in the post are held by a set of people comprising less than 50% of the population…but still, a set of people with considerable power and influence.

In Robert Heinlein’s 1952 story The Year of the Jackpot, a statistician observes many simultaneous indicators suggesting that the society is going totally insane.  Young women are removing all their clothes in public, but can’t explain why they are doing it.  A man has sued an entire state legislature for alienation of his wife’s affections–and the judge is letting the suit be tried.  In another state, a bill has been introduced to repeal the laws of atomic energy–not the relevant statutes, but the natural laws concerning nuclear physics.

I was reminded again of Heinlein’s story by this post:  Woman sues candy maker for it’s sugar-filled jelly beans and again by this piece of late-Weimar-level degeneracy.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post some more encouraging links for the next roundup…