Shockin’ bloggin’ performance by yrs truly lately. Many apologies. I blame Canada, where I currently am. I came here to speak at a conference, something that I understand many people do frequently; I was doing it basically for the first time. When you go up on stage they clip a wireless mike on you and give you a little gadget that you click to advance your Powerpoint slides, and which doubles as a laser pointer. It’s like being a cyborg. Then hundreds of people look at you and are forced to listen to what you say for an hour, without interrupting, so it’s basically like being a cyborg dictator. Which is pretty fun after the first 15 minutes, which is how long it takes me to get over my crippling stage fright.
I was going on after Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, who is very smart and has probably done this 90,000 times. I did not look so slick following him. (Also, it turned out my Powerpoint clicker was not a true remote, it just turned on a light that signaled the guy in the AV booth that it was time to advance my slides. Disappointing.)
I mostly talked about memes and how they behave online. Basically I showed them the trailer for Star Wreck, then I explained what lolcats and Rickrolling are, told them all to go to 4chan, which is just about the most fertile breeding ground for memes that there is anywhere, and bolted for the airport. If they go to 4chan they’ll definitely learn something.
Though maybe not about memes.