Wow! So are they specifically engineered that way to increase comfort or is it a byproduct of modern manufacturing methods and dyes?
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pretty sure to increase comfort in sunny conditions, but maybe both? black-black still exists.
e/ and that kind of “black” fabric is getting brighter to near white in the sun, but not under artificial lighting, not nearly as bright.
e2/ (damn, this is getting ot…)
comfort, I say comfort, because the thermo-leggings on the left are still black…and the button-shirt on the right is still black (kinda black, old and washed out), because its from the 70s;
e3/ is this all hopefully answering your decade-old question, @anon27554371? 
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Fascinating.
And I know that some visually-black building materials have been specifically engineered to have properties similar to what is being described here. (In Texas, I keep wanting black auto paint to do some of what you describe about textiles. I think I have been wearing the wrong kind of black t-shirts here too–oh dear.)
So if in Dune the year is 10,000-something in Herbert’s Universal Calendar scheme, and we see all this other cool tech like Villaneuve’s dragonfly ornithopters, it is reasonable to expect that we can see something as sophisticated as a stillsuit have an engineered dark cladding that performs as well as your alpha ma1 jacket.
I appreciate the pitch you’ve made. Consider me 90% persuaded.
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Speaking of: is there any way an ornithopter like the ones portrayed in the film could be built without computers stabilising the flight? The ones in the book aren’t described in too much detail (IIRC) but I’m having a hard time imagining any kind of practical flying machine with flapping wings being able to do what they do in the story without fly-by-wire systems.
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IIRC, the Butlerian Jihad only banned computers that approached human-like capabilities and intelligence. So it seems like fly-by-wire systems would be okay? Am I misremembering?
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IIRC the book’s version of ornithopters have jets, and wings more like an eagle’s. Not like a dragonfly. Jet propulsion.
Of course, we know that Villaneuve is rewriting and synthesizing from the book’s original material and that he is going for the strange, the new, the visually compelling, the dramatic. And that he’s making a lot of editorial choices (deleting) re whole sections of the original story. This not a complaint. So I accept that his version of Dune is something of a reboot.
Herbert walks a fine line in the first books, stating that machines shall not be made in the likeness of a human mind. Butlerian Jihad and all.
But there are definitely small computer-like devices all over the place in the books, and in the movies. I have questions.
ETA:
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define “computer”, wikipedias entry for analog FBW;
The hydraulic circuits are similar except that mechanical servo valves are replaced with electrically controlled servo valves, operated by the electronic controller. This is the simplest and earliest configuration of an analog fly-by-wire flight control system. In this configuration, the flight control systems must simulate “feel”. The electronic controller controls electrical feel devices that provide the appropriate “feel” forces on the manual controls. This was used in Concorde, the first production fly-by-wire airliner
and integrated circuits and mechanical gyros should be enough for stable flight. I think.
the film versions ornithopters have jets, too;
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I could imagine it would be as plausible as a helicopter, which functionally uses flight instability as both propulsion and steering, without complicated fly by wire.
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A dragonfly manages to fly very well in simulation of an ornithopter and only has a dragonfly’s mind with which to do it.
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and a dragonfly that farts has even jet propulsion. its a neat trick; the dragonfly can disgust the bird chasing her and she gets the needed additional velocity for escape. wonders of evolution.
(some minor rethorical and scientific corrections, so brian gets it right)
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