I am enjoying 23 Things as it is motivating me to really investigate sites that I've been meaning to look at but never find the time to do so. I've looked at many, many photos on various Flickr accounts, but never got around to creating an account for myself. So now, I finally have! And those mash-up tools were so cool! I had no idea they were out there. I've recently discovered the lolcats (yes, so behind the times, I know), and have been checking a site called I Can Has Cheezburger?, which has daily updates with new lolcats. And now, thanks to 23 Things, I made my own lolcat, with a picture of my cat Alex (right)! I had been curious as to the origin of the lolcat, so looked up the wikipedia entry about them. Which, in turn, led me to read the wiki entry about internet memes, which led me to the entry for meme itself, since I had seen the term on blogs for years, but never really knew what it meant. And boy, I really was not expecting a definition like this:
a unit of cultural information, cultural evolution or diffusion — propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution.
I mean, that's some heavy-duty, scientific-sounding stuff! I mean, I just wanted to know where the lolcats originated, but, as often happens online, that information leads me to more information I am curious about, and before I know it's 2 hours later and I've learned more than I expected.
So that's what interested me in technology this week. Silly pictures of cats with grammatically incorrect captions and how they propogate from mind to mind just like evolution!
Huh?
1 comment:
as often happens online, that information leads me to more information I am curious about, and before I know it's 2 hours later and I've learned more than I expected.
Well said!
I'm reminded of a quote, the author which (of course) I can't find or verify at the moment, to the effect that "Only the stupid, the hurried, and the strong close a reference book upon satisfactory completion of the original search." The Web is the biggest reference book ever, and we NEVER close it.
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