The Dot-This Meme

The Dot-This Meme is the name given to a class of internet memes that have the property of being self-referential. The first Dot-This Meme meme was in fact this article, which refers to itself to give itself meaning and truth.

Properties of Dot-This Memes
Dot-This Memes have the following properties:

• They refer to themselves in order to give themselves definition and credibility.
• The self-referentialism is explicit, so the reader knows he/she is not being “hoaxed”, but is rather creating the truth of the meme through the act of reading it.

“Actualised” vs “in-the-wild” status
A Dot-This Meme is said to be “actualized” when it is given credibility as a meme by sources outside of and not associated with itself . For example, once a Dot-This Meme is linked to by an article discussing the meme and created by an independent source, it is said to be actualized.

Until a Dot-This Meme is actualized, it is referred to as being “in the wild” . Currently, the Dot-This Meme meme is in the wild.

Bragging rights
The first person/website that writes an article linking to a Dot-This Meme that is in the wild (and is thus responsible for actualizing the meme) is said to have “bragging rights” over the meme. That is to say, a person who actualizes a Dot-This Meme is able to publicly claim to have actualized the meme .

Naming
The naming of the Dot-This Meme is a geeky reference to the keyword “this”, which is used in a number of programming languages such as C++ and Java to return a reference to the current object. In Java, for example, one may write:

this.x = y;

to refer to a local copy of “x” where it may have an additional context.

Examples
An example of a Dot-This Meme is the Dot-This Meme meme, which is in fact this blog post. The reason the Dot-This Meme meme is a Dot-This Meme is because it defines itself and gives itself credibility. It also is up-front about its self-referentialism. So, it is both the meme and the meme’s definition simultaneously.

Science that’s scary

In the last couple of weeks, the media have (barely) reported some really scary science news.

Example 1: Scientists discover giant void in universe

It seems that our boys in lab coats have discovered what is effectively a humungous hole in the universe, containing stupid amounts of nothing-at-alls. I mean, you don’t have to have read much science fiction to wonder if (a) it’s growing, (b) whatever ate all that stuff is heading our way, (c) the void is a hole to a parallel universe containing some titanic evil (btw, the scientists now think that at least the first half of possibility c is true).

Can you imagine being the scientists to discover it?

Scientist #1: Dave, I just got the latest WMAP scans in.
Scientist #2: Ok, hmm, let’s see…HOLY F***, THERE’S A BIG F***ING HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE!
Scientist #1: OH F***
Scientist #2: Wait, let’s not panic. How big is it?
Scientist #1: Um… it’s…ONE BILLION LIGHT-YEARS ACROSS??? F***!
Scientist #2: F***! F***!
Scientist #1: Do not want!

If this isn’t scary enough, consider:

Example 2: Scientists observing dark matter may have doomed the universe (oops)

This is a brainwave from some physicists who realised that, by observing dark matter, we are collapsing the outrageously improbable probability wave that allows our universe to continue existing indefinitely. Ie, our scientific enquiry into dark matter is letting the universe know that it should probably disappear in a little poof. Not wise.

Scientist #1: F***! STOP OBSERVING DARK MATTER! WE’RE KILLING THE UNIVERSE’S STATE PROBABILITY FUNCTION AND DOOMING THE UNIVERSE TO AN EARLY DEMISE.
Scientist #2: What? Wait. What? Oh. My. Sweet. F***ing. Christ.
Scientist #1: F***!
Scientist #2: Do not want!

When you put these babies up next to the usual media preoccupations like Iraq, climate change, the sub-prime mortgage collapse and Paris Hilton, the science makes the rest look like little guppies. And yet, are they being covered beyond their first page 7 two-columner? Are we seeing daily headlines like: DOOMING SCIENTISTS APOLOGISE TO ANGRY MOB or NO GIANT TENTACLED HORROR SPOTTED IN THE GREAT DARKNESS? Nope.

To the mainstream media: Just because it’s complex, doesn’t mean it’s not important, guys. So, could you please let any cosmologically significant catastrophe kinda float up to weekly coverage at page two? Please? Ok?

7 things that should win a Nobel prize

I let loose a small cheer today when I heard that Elbert Fert and Peter Gruenberg won a Nobel prize for some slick science that led to the development of really little hard drives, which in turn led to iPods, which in turn led to a revolution in music and media consumption.

I mean, mp3 players are a big deal. I have friends who rediscovered music because they shelled out a couple of hundred bucks on one of these devices and spent the next year bopping to their own personal soundtrack. How often is it that you can point to a nobel prize winner and say, “Cooooooool.”

In the spirit of rewarding groovy science, I hereby propose to the Nobel Committee that the following category be added to next year’s list:

The Nobel Prize for Coooooool

Obvious contenders would be:

1. Google. Because how cool is a search engine that finds everything from pornography to…well, all that other stuff on the internet. Like funny pictures and Dilbert and stuff.

2. Facebook. Because I experience indecent amounts of schadenfroid I whenever I read the latest status update of that big kid who used to beat me up in school (“Johnny is verry proud because he is teh employee of the months at macdonnalds”).

3. Twitter. I want to know every inane thing you are doing, all the time. Because I am a stalker.

4. ____sucks.com. Because revenge is sweet, and finally, the little guys can use the internet to protest injustice like it’s the world’s biggest megaphone.

5. Spore. Because it’s a game that lets you start with a little bacteria and evolve it to a super-race space-faring conquistadors. That’s cool. It should also annoy creationists. That’s cooler.

6. Buffy. I know, it’s passe now, but c’mon, you secretly worship Buffy. She kung fu’s vampires, for Chirst’s sake. Kung Fu’s. Vampires.

7. Pirate vs Ninja Batteries. Because they’re Pirate vs Ninja batteries.

Nobel prize organisers, note well.