Blog Without An Important Name

[Explanation of terms]

There’s an interesting (I think) article on Wired, titled Every Old Meme Is New Again. It refers to the creation of Godwin’s Law, which is something of an internet staple, especially on Slashdot, and probably Usenet still, if I ever looked at it more than once a year. The interesting bit is that it was consciously and deliberately created, by going and using the term, until it got picked up and took on something of a life of it’s own.

It also talks about someone recreating this effect in a much more overt and webserver destroying sort of way. Probably a good thing he’s hosted on typepad. However, in this case, it’s for a worthy cause (not that stopping endless Nazi/Hitler comparisons isn’t worthy). He plans to present something at the Modern Language Association conference about it, and wants people to link to his blog so that he can track the spread of this meta-meme (that is, seeing how a meme about how a meme spreads over the internet spreads over the internet). Just like I’m doing really (the linking, that is).

Apparently it took off a lot faster than he expected, and he’s having trouble tracking it. So I feel compelled to do my part and make it that much harder. Of course, I don’t expect my little blog with somewhere between half a dozen and one dozen readers[0] to make much of an impact. Unless of course, everybody links back to here and then to his, just to make me look more important…

[0] unless it’s something about Java[1], in which case it gets syndicated and spreads a bit further over the intertubes.
[1] I wonder if that mention of Java is enough to warrant putting the Java tag on this post and getting it syndicated far and wide. I might go with ‘no’ for now.

Things have been pretty flat out lately. I’ve gotten myself employed again, for a month or so. Should be good for the pocket money. However, with that I’ve been learning my way around the code for a very large and complex application. This is something that causes mental tiredness after several hours, so I’ve been quite worn out when I’ve been getting home.

Next week is a bit of a chance to regroup however, as I’m not going to be working. In fact, I’m going to be spending the whole week at Linux.conf.au, which is very handily being held in Dunedin. Looking over the program, there is going to be a lot of very cool stuff happening, and a fair bit that isn’t on the program, also. A few people I know online but have never met are down for it, which should be good.

This is going to mean a slow-down in all the things I should be doing, unfortunately. Finishing up what needs to be done on eMusic/J, and doing more thesis work are probably going to take a back seat for a while.

I found a site loaded with classic, now public domain, movies and shows that I’ve been steadily downloading from for the past few days. There’s a lot of good stuff here, Sherlock Holmes shows (which beat the pants off the more recent shows of CSI: Des Moines, CSI: New York but a Different Part than Gary Sinise Is In and NCSI: SVU WKRP), Metropolis, Flash Gordon, Night of the Living Dead, and piles more.

I think that I’m going to have to periodically go through this and see what’s new. I see a lot of black and white in my future.