A friend of the blog shared the Embroidered Computer, a programmable 8-bit computer created by using a combination of magnetic and glass beads, gold wire, and traditional gold embroidery techniques to fix material elements to cotton cloth. When complete, it has the processing capacity of a 1950s mainframe computer without the modern silicon microchip. Something about this reminds me of Ellen Ullman’s observation that computers are made of boxes and wires, written on chips and tape. (via)