A brief thought I had this morning about Memestreams representation of the Meme, which was sparked while reading the current discussion postings regarding the year summary of memestream data and its future:

In Memestreams, each link is considered a seperate Meme, despite the fact that two links may be involved in the same concept or idea. For example, the recent tsunami disaster has generated a wealth of links for donations sites, news updates, weather data, etc. It would seem that many of these links are part of a larger Meme, a greater idea. Despite this, the memes, that is, the individual links, as represented by Memestreams, remain separated, independent of one another.

It may be interesting to consider the potential for abstracting the representation of the meme such that the greater Memes have a chance to propogate. For example, and here, really, is what I was originally thinking, if Memestreams allowed multiple links per post, that is, more closely related to a traditional blog post, which may have several reference links either within or aside from the text or content, then perhaps all links there could be treated in the same bigger Meme as well as a smaller meme. That is, the links could be recommended invididually, as in the current system, but their relationship is recorded and the Meme as a whole could also be tracked, propogated, and recommended.

This approach would have several advantages and drawbacks, which are probably not immediately apparent, though I think further thought and analysis would be warrented, if for naught but mere curiosity. As for one advantage, it would give flexibility to more flexibly create and inject these meme encapsulations, a representation within Memestreams, into the pool. Currently, Memestreams encapsulation method lends itself to news articles and other timely information very well, but as for creating one's own, for lack of a better term, 'thought capsules', that is, more closely related to an 'idea' rather than an 'event'.

I think I'd like to elaborate, but that requires a bit of time -- something I currently lack.

I enjoyed reading through this because it gave me a chance to step back and look at all the things that people as users do and people as programmers implement everyday, without thinking of potential alternatives. It provides several scenarios which, at first glance, caused me to think, "Well, what's wrong with that?" but after presenting a few extremely reasonable questions or suggestions for improvement, I was left slightly stupid -- "Oh. That's why."

Its fairly important to keep things consistent or familiar for the people using current interfaces, though I would love to see some alternatives to aging methods being used in the very near future.

Unfortunately, I think getting people into something different may be quite tricky. Ripping out the Save option, for instance, would probably leave many people asking "How do I save? What's the filename?" Eliminating the File Open/Save dialog window would cause people to pluck their brains from Happy Paradigm A and force them into the New-But-Terribly-Uncomfortable Paradigm B. It will probably be a slow thing coming, if it comes at all.

When good interfaces go crufty

] The US spends almost $50 billion each year on education,
] so why aren't kids learning? Forty percent of students
] lack basic reading skills, and their academic performance
] is dismal compared with that of their foreign
] counterparts. In response to this crisis, schools are
] skilling-and-drilling their way "back to basics," moving
] toward mechanical instruction methods that rely on
] line-by-line scripting for teachers and endless
] multiple-choice testing. Consequently, kids aren't
] learning how to think anymore - they're learning how to
] memorize. This might be an ideal recipe for the future
] Babbitts of the world, but it won't produce the kind of
] agile, analytical minds that will lead the high tech
] global age. Fortunately, we've got Grand Theft Auto: Vice
] City and Deus X for that.
]
] After school, kids are devouring new information,
] concepts, and skills every day, and, like it or not,
] they're doing it controller in hand, plastered to the TV.
] The fact is, when kids play videogames they can
] experience a much more powerful form of learning than
] when they're in the classroom. Learning isn't about
] memorizing isolated facts. It's about connecting and
] manipulating them. Doubt it? Just ask anyone who's beaten
] Legend of Zelda or solved Morrowind.

High Score Education

] "Many of search requests are pretty reasonable - "Michal
] Zalewski" or "lame homepage" - but some are really weird,
] funny, or disturbing. I decided to set up this page,
] updated every few hours, with the complete list of all
] requests from several known search engines."

(packetstormsecurity.org's site of the week)

Its interesting to see what some people try to find on the net.

[lost souls]

] "The people are now the arbiters of the truth. And this
] is as it should be. The only people who are purely
] interested in the truth are the citizens at large. They
] are, therefore, the only people who can be trusted to
] find it."

A short rant Decius wrote about the impact that weblogs will have on the media.

Weblogs and Democracy