Archive for November 2010
Me, me meme…
Jeremy Toeman explains…
And TechCrunch elaborates…
Richard Dawkins’ definition of a meme in The Selfish Gene is “a unit of cultural transmission.” Like genes and diseases, the prevailing characteristic of memes is that they tend to replicate, just add humans.
Anything can be a meme, but there are certain characteristics that make information units more likely to go viral (namely funniness).
The Internet, where replication is as easy as hitting “Like” or “Retweet,” is one big meme pool. Internet hipsters (people who spend a lot of time online – cough) now judge each other by whether they posted it before whatever it is it hit Buzzfeed.
Much like hardy genes confer biological advantage, being aware of memes now confers a feeling of superiority amongst those in the know. Hence the above video, which was basically engineered to propagate itself.
(TotH to Laughing Squid)
As we prepare to go viral, we might recall that it was on this date in 1960 that fishermen in British Columbia ended a labor dispute that had shut down the province’s herring fishery for a full year.
Back at work… (source)
Inside knowledge…
Original x-rays of Einstein’s brain will go under the gavel on December 3 at Julien’s Auctions in Hollywood (along with other such memorabilia as the first guitar used on stage by Jimi Hendrix and the Michael Jackson “Bad” costume made for and worn by the chimp Bubbles).
Taken by an old friend when the Father of Modern Physics was 66, the x-rays may illustrate the root of the genius’ genius; as the BBC explains:
Scientists at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada compared the shape and size Einstein’s brain with those of 35 men and 56 women with average intelligence.
They think their findings may well explain his genius for mathematical and spatial thinking.
In general, Einstein’s brain was the same as all the others except in one particular area – the region responsible for mathematical thought and the ability to think in terms of space and movement.
Uniquely, Einstein’s brain also lacked a groove that normally runs through part of this area. The researchers suggest that its absence may have allowed the neurons to communicate much more easily.
“This unusual brain anatomy may explain why Einstein thought the way he did,” said Professor Sandra Witelson, who led the research published in the Lancet.
“Einstein’s own description of his scientific thinking was that words did not seem to play a role. Instead he saw more or less clear images of a visual kind,” she said.
The x-rays are expected to fetch $1-2,000.
(TotH to Cakehead Loves Evil)
As we muse that the juxtaposition of items in the auction is… well, relatively odd, we might cast our eyes to the heavens in honor of Johannes Kepler, the mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer (the distinctions among those fields being pretty vague in Kepler’s time); he died on this date in 1630.
Kepler’s “laws of planetary motion”– most famously, that the planets move in elliptical orbits around the Sun– were the foundation on which Isaac Newton (one of the few humans arguably smarter than Einstein) built his theory of universal gravitation.
You can lead a man to knowledge…
… but you can’t make him think.
There is enough iron in a human being to make one small nail.
A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
Rapper Ice Cube’s real name is O’Shea Jackson.
There are 336 dimples in a regulation golf ball.
Readers can recharge with hundreds of other fatuous facts at Unnecessary Knowledge.
Episteme, the personification of knowledge, at the Celsus Library (source)
As we perfect our impersonations of Mr. Nigel-Murray, we might recall that it was on this date in 1986 that Ivan Boesky copped a plea, accepting a $100 million dollar fine for insider trading– he confessed to making $200 million trading illegally on inside information– and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors in rolling up the nationwide network of nods-and-winks that had fueled the Wall Street boom of the 80s. Among those caught in the subsequent round-up was Junk Bond king Michael Milken, who was indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud, and pled guilty to six. Milken’s fines and payments-in-restitution totaled over $1 billion. Boesky served 22 months of a three year sentence in Federal prison. Milken was sentenced to 10 years; but served only 19 months.
Boesky (top), Milken on their ways into the courthouse (source)
Best-laid plans, and all that…
Ohio Edison decided to remove a 275-foot smoke stack at its Mad River Power Plant in Springfield, Ohio. But in the event, on November 10, the mammoth chimney fell the wrong way– toward spectators and surrounding buildings . There were no injuries reported, but power was interrupted to more than 8000 customers by the errant stack. (Via msnbc.com)
As we stand well out of the way, we might recall that it was on this date in 1930 that Henry W. Jeffries invented the Rotolactor. Housed in the Lactorium of the Walker Gordon Laboratory Company, Inc., at Plainsboro, N.J., it was a 50-stall revolving platform that enabled the milking of 1,680 cows in seven hours by rotating them into position with the milking machines. A spiffy version of the Rotolactor displayed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair in the Borden building as part of the “Dairy World of Tomorrow,” was one of the most popular attractions in the Fair’s Food Zone.
Please, Please, Please…
He was “the Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” “the Godfather of Soul”– James Brown. Immensely popular with audiences from the mid-Fifties (when “Please, Please, Please,” above, was a hit), he was a tremendous influence on popular music, with admirers who included jazz greats like Miles Davis, and emulators like Sly and the Family Stone, Booker T & the MGs and “soul shouters” like King Curtis, Edwin Starr, and David Ruffin (of The Temptations). He was a famously-tough task master as a band leader; but it served his musicians well, as their education at his hands laid the foundation for several successful solo careers (e.g., Bobby Byrd, Lyn Collins, Vicki Anderson, Hank Ballard, Bootsy Collins, and Carlos Alomar). And he was the ur-source of Funk (e.g., admirer George Clinton cast Brown alumni Fred Wesley and Bootsy Collins centrally in the seminal Parliament-Funkadelic).
But Brown made what was arguably his most influential contribution with his feet: he was, as anyone who saw him perform can attest, an astonishing dancer. As a child, he’d earned pocket money buck dancing to entertain troops headed to Europe at the outset of WWII. Over the years he made that traditional form uniquely his own– inspiring performers like Michael Jackson and Prince, who modeled their moves on his, and prefiguring the current vogue of dance-centric pop performances.
James Brown died on Christmas Day, 2006. But happily, he left behind a guide to the moves that made him famous. The holiday party season, with its fraught occasions to dance, looms; but there’s no reason to fear, Dear Readers– just watch and learn. Michael Jackson did…
As we trip the light fantastic, we might recall that it was on this date in 1946 (when James Brown was 13 years old) that Walt Disney released Song of the South, a feature film based on the Uncle Remus stories of Joel Chandler Harris, in which live actors frame animated enactments of the adventures of Br’er Rabbit– like the story of “The Tar Baby.” The film won the Best Song Oscar for “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”; but, while the film was re-released theatrically in 1972, 1981, and 1986, and has been released to home video in Europe and Asia, it has never been released to home video in the U.S.— perhaps because Disney executives feel that it might be construed as racist.
James Baskett, who played Uncle Remus, was the first black actor hired by Disney to play a live role. He was unable to attend the film’s premiere in Atlanta, the event hotels there would not have him. (source)
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