What Does it All Meme?

I've heard and seen the word "meme" with alarming frequency. A meme is an idea, symbol, or practive that spreads through society, like "making fire," or "smoking is cool." It is a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins in a book called The Selfish Gene published in 1976. I won't paraphrase the entire wikipedia entry. I am a late comer to the word myself. I think the first time I saw it was a month or two ago when I was reading a book called Glut which was about the history of information systems.

Now it seems I am seeing it in news stories, I am hearing it on podcasts, and I think I even heard someone use it at work. I think I have mostly heard it used in the slang version of "meme" which is an "Internet meme," or an idea, or almost anything else, that spreads quickly across the Internet, like a viral video. Maybe we needed a word for that, but I don't think I like "meme." I don't like the way it sounds, so I don't know if I can endorse the meme of using the word "meme."

Birthday

I broke with tradition on my birthday this year and had oatmeal instead of my usual cold cereal. Since it was my birthday, I put some salt on it.

I also took a picture of myself for documentation purposes.

Garbage in, Garbage out

I have some ideas for statistical analysis of disk performance at work, but I think that's the only idea I have right now. I've been feeling uninspired in general for the last few weeks. I'm not sure if it is the Winter, or the proximity to my birthday or what. I've been trying to read more. Maybe I'm too comfortable. I might need to go places, do more suffering, etc. I might have the opportunity to do both next weekend.