The Mobile Communication.

I remember my first cellular phone. Or cellphone. I purchased it in 1994 while living in North Carolina. It was a state of the art technology that was suddenly available to the public, the second best thing after the Internet. It was huge, bulky and I grew very quickly tired of it. And angry with it as well. It used to run out of battery in no time and efficiently consumed my money.

The first time ever that I used it was on a trip out of state. Of course, this was when I thought it to be a marvelous idea - being able to call someone while traveling. It was a call to my neighbor who was taking care of my cat and as he was not at home, I made several calls. The bill later that month almost ruined me.

When I look at my iPhone today it makes me so brutally aware how fast the technology has evolved. This elegant, sleek, endlessly sophisticated item that I seem no longer to be able to live without. It can do pretty much anything I can think off, short of actually breathing. It can tell me the time, the date, the weather, my location in the world, both in numbers and show it to me on the map. It can show me how to get places, calculating the best route, navigating me through cities in Denmark and outside it, keep me updated on the news, let me send emails and text messages. I can use it to listen to music or radio and watch movies. It can make me relax, helps me pass the time by playing games. I can surf the net, pay the bills, purchase items, take photos, film movie clips. See where the inexpensive gas is, where the best offers are in my neighbourhood. It helps me keep track of my appointments, it reminds me of things to do, it wakes me up in the morning.
And, it is also a phone.
Making any landline obsolete. In fact I have not had a landline phone for almost ten years.

If I go back just a decade, the cellphones, or mobile phones as they are called in Europe, looked very different than they do now. It is amazing how quickly the design has changed and most of all, their intended use and the concept in which they are used as well. Still, when I moved back to Europe in 1999 with that bulky dinosaur of mine, I could not believe the beautiful design of the multitude of tiny Nokias and Sony Ericsson's around me. And I also marveled about the ease of their use. Everyone around me was on the phone, using their cellular constantly, to a fraction of the cost I was accustomed to.

My first European mobile was a flip Sony Ericsson, sapphire blue, with a little antenna and tiny, non colour display. It was a phone only and could fit into the palm of my hand. I got it for free when I signed up for a service with the company that offered it. Since then I have had many phones, but thinking back, the purchasing of my very first Ericsson was the most exciting buy ever. Even though it today looks very old fashioned and obsolete...

If you are like me and store all your discarded cellphones in your drawer, it might be useful to know that these can be donate or recycled.
There are many sites on the net that share information about this subject, here are a few examples:
recellular.com
about.com
msn.com

In Denial.

I am with a strong reluctance realizing that we have reached the summers peak. The second summer month is half way gone and even though I have not even considered giving autumn a thought, it is not possible to avoid with all the fashion catalogues that keep dropping down into my mailbox.
All my favorite on-line stores are having big summer sales and the autumn fashion is already being presented on their front pages.

It was not long time ago at all that I was sitting and looking through all the summer fashion in January; but somehow that felt so much more exciting.
I can not believe that anyone out there seriously thinks about autumn attire yet! Often I do not touch the magazines until at least September, but this weekend I decided to actually look through them, despite the overwhelming feeling of denial. (Did you know that denial is a Freudian term?)

I liked what I saw and much of it actually pleased me. However, in contrast to January, when I spend a whole weekend ordering summer clothes as soon as the magazines arrived while I dreamed of summer, this time the new catalogues were thrown under a pile of summer fashion reading, to be forgotten at least until the end of August.

"First" Meme.

The other day I became very curious about the origins of tags and memes. I have been tagged a few times and even "memed", if one can say so. I have even copied and "officially" stolen memes. But until now I never really understood the origins of the word nor the game itself. Being a scientist, I am very curious by nature and so of course I set on a hunt for knowledge.

So where do memes (or tags) come from?

First of all, I realized that I have been mispronouncing the word "meme" the whole time in my head. As I have never heard it being said out loud, I always just read it as it was written. Something to the extend of repeating "me", as in reference to my person, two times. That is however an error. Meme is pronounced more like "meem", riming with "dream". Another version is a short "mem", as a in "memory".

According to the Wikipedia, a definition of meme is (direct quote):
"...a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices that gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for "something imitated".

The word meme originated in a book by Richard Dawkins from 1976, called The Selfish Gene. Here he initially defined meme as a noun which "conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation". In the book he presents a very interesting theory on the spread of information and ideas through "memes". Comparing them to natural "genes", he hypotheses, that just like these evolve by natural selection, even "memes" will undergo changes while they are passed on through the processes of variation, mutation, competition and inheritance. In simple words; any information that is passed on might have been chosen, changed and survived for its content.

Interestingly for me, this all gave rise to the science of "Memetics", which I have stumbled upon in my work as well.

But back to our Internet Memes. These are in theory; a quiz, a list, a joke, a clip, an animation or a story that is spread through the cyberspace via email, blog, internet forums or IM. These memes can stay the same or evolve and the rate in which they spread is depending on a natural selection due to their popularity.

So there you have it, a short history on the origins and function of meme's.

While doing my research, I stumbled upon a tag here. I liked it so much I decided to copy it and post it in order to contribute to the spreading of the meme information. Anyone who is up for a game, please feel free to play along.;)

1. Who was your FIRST prom date?
Prom doesn't exist in Scandinavian school system. Fortunately.

2. Do you still talk to your FIRST love?
No. It is a statue of a prince and I have never said a word to him.

3. What was your 1st alcoholic drink?
Czech Beer.

4. What was your FIRST job?
Delivering commercials in the weekends with my sister.

5. What was your FIRST car?
Red ‘77 T-bird.

6. Who was the FIRST person to text you today?
My telephone company.

7. Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning?
The Irishman.

8. Who was your FIRST grade teacher?
It was a sweet old lady, but I do not remember her name.

9. Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane?
To Italy.

10. Who was your FIRST best friend & do you still talk?
A girl I went to school with in Slovakia - and yes, I am still in touch with her.

11. Where was your FIRST sleep over?
I never had one. As a child that is.

12. Who was the FIRST person you talked to today?
Someone at the lab.

13. Whose wedding were you in the FIRST time?
Hmm, I remember the wedding, but not whose it was. I think the couple were friends of my parents, I might have been around seven years old.

14. What was the FIRST thing you did this morning?
Hugged Batcat.

15. What was the FIRST concert you ever went to?
Eric Clapton.

16. FIRST tattoo?
I do not have one.

17. First piercing?
First and last; my earlobes when I was about a month old. That is customary in my culture; all the little girls wear tiny, golden earrings since they are toddlers.

18. First foreign country you’ve been to?
Hungary.

19. FIRST movie you remember seeing?
Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). I must have been around 4 or 5 and I remember falling on the way from the cinema and ruining my beautiful coat.

20. When was your FIRST detention?
Never.

21. What was the first state you lived in?
Czechoslovakia.

22. Who was your FIRST roommate?
A cat called Gypsy.

Annoying Voice.

For a few months now, I have been experiencing something very odd with my computer. I use a mac laptop and it has been talking to me. Talking might not be the right word actually; shouting out would be more appropriate. When I least expected it, a very desperate, scary voice would come out of the speakers yelling in the most terrifying way; "Oh my god, no way!"

To begin with, I ignored it. I even thought at first that I imagined it. It used to happen only a couple of times a week at first, but then it started to happen almost every day. That strange sentence gave me the chills. Finally I decided to investigate.

There could be several possibilities explaining the source. The worst one would be that my computer has been infected with a virus or spy-ware. That thought was definitely a very unpleasant one. Another possibility could be some strange adds that would pop up in the windows opened in my browser. Those "interactive" ones, that so often startle me. Those that will start talking or playing music, as soon as the mouse cursor runs over them. I have even experienced one that was truly surreal; each time my cursor passed the add, a slapping sound could be heard and the face of a man shown in the add looked as if it has been beaten up. Although it amused me to begin with, I found it quiet quickly terribly distasteful. It was an add for a car dealership; I guess they must be getting desperate with the decline in their sales.

But back to the scary voice. Finally, last week, I did one sensible thing left to do: a google search. And behold, many out there have been experiencing the exact problems with the computers shouting out this odd sentence. And the culprit is a "Smiley Add". A pop up add that appears on my webmail, advertising for a site where one can download animated smileys. The funny thing is that the voice is not triggered by the cursor, so how it comes on remains a mystery to me. One, which I have to accept and live with, as well as the annoying sound. Or the alternative is to stop checking my email.

Saturday Shopping.

I like to shop. No, let me rephrase that, I LOVE to shop. I think all, or at least most girls, do. And women as well. They say, it comes from our past. The cave men were hunters and the cave women were gatherers. We gathered things. And that is exactly what we do today. I have female friends who enjoy walking around stores, not actually buying anything. Just looking. Turning everything around, trying things out. Walking from shop to shop comparing prices. This of course highly annoys their male companions and husbands. Men do not understand this kind of shopping. Well, we women do take their time. At least most of us do.

There is also the other kind of female shoppers, a category where I belong. I know what I want and when I see it, I buy it. My problem is that I tend to like A LOT of items. Clothes, perfumes, makeup, shoes, candle holders, small ornaments, decorations, you name it.;) I always seem to need more.
In recent years, I do no longer enjoy visiting stores and malls. They are overcrowded and I find the items too expensive. Furthermore, I rarely have the time or energy to be wandering for hours around the stores, like I used to when I was younger. No, today the best is to sit comfortably in front of my computer visiting online stores. I have a few favorite ones; anything from fashion to cosmetics, even decorations. I love browsing through their merchandise, sometimes for hours, while deciding what to purchase. And I love the feelings of expectation during the days while waiting for my packages to arrive.

The online stores have made my shopping so much easier and enjoyable. Last week I received all the new catalogs with the spring and summer fashions. It is so tempting to order new clothes around this time. Especially as the weather outside is so dark and gloomy. Today was therefore a perfect day to stroll around my favourite cyberspace shops. I really do enjoy sitting in front of my computer, in the comfort of my own home, with a cup of coffee while I shop-til-I-drop.;))
I do not think I have developed an addiction yet, but I do try to think things over a few times before I click the “buy” button .;)