I’ll Tell You What…

I have Yahoo! 360 invites if anyone wants one. Just leave a reply…

Here’s another one that is used every once in a while on the net. The word grok appears in the Robert Heinlein book, Stranger in a Strange Land and is part of the Martian language. One of the characters in the book explains it this way:

‘Grok’ means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed - to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science - and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.

If you say you grok something, for example, a programming language, you imply that you fully and completely understand it.

I saw this word used somewhere today and thought it was a strange one. The context in which it was used escapes me at the moment but I think it was used to describe something, eg, that is a meme. Anyway, I looked up the definition and it’s really quite cool.

WordNet over at princeton defines it this way:

meme — (a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation); “memes are the cultural counterpart of genes”)

How cool is that?

Some other noteworthy definitions floating around the internet:

• Nanotechnology Now
  

  Meme: An idea that replicates through a society as it is propagated through person-to-person interaction, both direct and indirect. Memetics is a field of study that focuses on memes’ role in the evolution of a culture.

• Levity.com
  

  A term coined by Richard Dawkins, who defines it as “a unit of cultural inheritance, hypothesized as analogous to the particulate gene and as naturally selected by virtue of its ‘phenotypic’ consequences on its own survival and replication in the cultural environment.”

• Silicon Beach Westnet
  

  As defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene(1976): “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.” “Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” In this sense, chain letter components are memes.

• Access eGovernment
  

  Contagious ideas. Term is used to explain viral marketing.

Here are a few web sites that allow you to search for the best gasoline prices in your area. These free services could save you big bucks!

• GasBuddy.com
• GasPriceWatch.com

Personally, I prefer GasBuddy.com. There appears to more people participating and an increased amount of information available.

Courtesy of Concerned Women for America:

When you visit your congressman, be cordial, polite, dress appropriately and thank him for taking time to visit with you.

Be sure to thank him for any pro-family votes, and express your disappointment about any votes with which you disagreed. Then let your representative know about future legislation that is important to you as a voter.

Give simple, concise requests and explain that it matters to you which way they vote.

At the conclusion of the meeting, thank your congressman. Let him know that you are praying for him and that you believe he performs a valuable and important service to you and your country.

Also, request a meeting with him during the next recess.

Ever wonder where Flag Day came from? I did and looked around and found the following write-up at USFlag.org.

The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America’s birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as ’Flag Birthday’. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as ’Flag Birthday’, or ’Flag Day’…

On June 14, 1889, George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York City, planned appropriate ceremonies for the children of his school, and his idea of observing Flag Day was later adopted by the State Board of Education of New York. On June 14, 1891, the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia held a Flag Day celebration, and on June 14 of the following year, the New York Society of the Sons of the Revolution, celebrated Flag Day.

Following the suggestion of Colonel J Granville Leach (at the time historian of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution), the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America on April 25, 1893 adopted a resolution requesting the mayor of Philadelphia and all others in authority and all private citizens to display the Flag on June 14th. Leach went on to recommend that thereafter the day be known as ’Flag Day’, and on that day, school children be assembled for appropriate exercises, with each child being given a small Flag.

Two weeks later on May 8th, the Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution unanimously endorsed the action of the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames. As a result of the resolution, Dr. Edward Brooks, then Superintendent of Public Schools of Philadelphia, directed that Flag Day exercises be held on June 14, 1893 in Independence Square. School children were assembled, each carrying a small Flag, and patriotic songs were sung and addresses delivered.

In 1894, the governor of New York directed that on June 14 the Flag be displayed on all public buildings. With BJ Cigrand and Leroy Van Horn as the moving spirits, the Illinois organization, known as the American Flag Day Association, was organized for the purpose of promoting the holding of Flag Day exercises. On June 14th, 1894, under the auspices of this association, the first general public school children’s celebration of Flag Day in Chicago was held in Douglas, Garfield, Humboldt, Lincoln, and Washington Parks, with more than 300,000 children participating.

Adults, too, participated in patriotic programs. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, delivered a 1914 Flag Day address in which he repeated words he said the flag had spoken to him that morning: “I am what you make me; nothing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself.”

Inspired by these three decades of state and local celebrations, Flag Day - the anniversary of the Flag Resolution of 1777 - was officially established by the Proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson on May 30th, 1916. While Flag Day was celebrated in various communities for years after Wilson’s proclamation, it was not until August 3rd, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day.

This and lots of other interesting US Flag facts can be found at USFlag.org.

Did you know that ZIP, as in zip code, is an acronym? It stands for Zone Improvement Plan.

I’ve been thinking a lot about taking a vacation but I haven’t figured out how long it should be, what I should do, or even where I should go! So, this month’s poll is asking you how long your vacation usually is. Be honest, too. Please put your actual time spent on vacation and not how much time you wish you could take.

When you sign up for membership, remember to finish the registration by clicking on the link provided in the email that’s automatically sent to you. This step is critical.

The registration email expires after 24 hours so if you signed up and didn’t click the link in the email within that time frame, you will probably have to do it again.