Ejaad-Nama 0x0F: Memes are a language
Ejaad-Nama (Urdu: Letters of Invention). A fortnightly newsletter about Science, Electronics, Makers, DIY, and everything technical. We talk about lemons, acid batteries, and anything in between.
First things first: Did you notice it? We have got ourselves a logo! Huge thanks to a regular reader and contributor Syed Rizwan Tariq for the idea. I am not sure, but I think the newsletter somehow reminds him too much of Cartoon Network. I will take it though. His Instagram profile “1% of art” is full of more creative DIY artwork which you can check out.
If you are wondering: Ejaad-Nama is the word from the Urdu language which means Letters of Invention. If you have not subscribed yet, here is your chance: (This email may end up in your Promotion or Update tab. If you see that happening, take an appropriate action)
Listen, there's something you should know about me... about inception. An idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagious. The smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define or destroy you. - Leonardo Di Caprio as Cobb (Inception - 2010)
This is what came to my mind when I started thinking about Memes. They are everywhere. Your digital life is incomplete without it. Memes have been like white walkers on the internet. Each day thousands of them are archived and thousands are made. Brace yourself…
I did not have to make the meme. You imagined Ned Stark already.
In the movie inception, Dom Cobb infiltrates into the subconscious and plants an idea. A meme is not really too different from Dom Cobb. Actually, it is not at all different from inception. They are the pictures with millions of words. In my mind, Meme is a language which is mastered by many on the internet. It’s the language that cavemen used in the early days of humanity. And the Egyptians carried it forward to the modern age (Conspiracy Theory Alert!). It has become a primary language for satire, political dissent, motivational communication, or just plain simple conversation on Facebook/WhatsApp.
The idea of memes actually comes from a biologist Richard Dawkins who thought a meme is “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.” While Dawkins was talking about a cultural entity that follows the evolutionary practices as an example of Darwinian principles beyond the realm of genes: the best ones survive and replicate while the bad ones die out. This is pretty accurate about the Internet meme culture as well. Each country has seen a different meme culture, with many memes always adapting to stay relevant. They adjust to the audiences to do the inception they are supposed to. As an example, in the age of disinformation, there is one meme that I am fond of because it’s funny, intelligent, and provides a lot of mental fodder.
This meme provides the same idea but has been adapted to different audiences. It should not come as a surprise that most internet memes (60% of the time) on the internet are about politics.
It is not just the memes, there have been other forms of media that have had similar cultural or global revolution. Emojis have become a basic need for textual forms of communication. There is a difference between saying “OK” and “OK :)” to your wife/girlfriend. GIFs have become a permanent feature in most text messaging apps. Snapchat introduced 10-second stories that have provided tons of revenue to social media influencers. Tiktok, the lip-syncing app, started to become an expression of political disapproval in the UK. The app has already seen the bans in countries such as India, Pakistan, and the US.
A GIF Viewer - An Inception Device
This is why last week I decided to dust up a very old raspberry pi and a 7-inch LCD. I decided to make a quick GIF Viewer. The device is going to be mounted on my office space and will display custom gifs. I wrote a quick code using python with Pillow (python imaging library) and TkInter (the GUI package) to loop all the GIFs from the plugged USB device. The public GIF Viewer could inject some humor into our office work but also an outlet for creative ideas in the office. I have yet to see how this evolves. Below is a picture of the gif viewer looping all the gifs about the success of finishing the gif viewer. That’s a gif-ception.
Right to Repair - 2: How repairs can save a lot of money by Aqeel ⚒ Arshad
This is a continuation of thoughts on the Right to Repair discussed in the last Issue of Ejaad-Nama. Read here if you have not already.
Here’s an equation: + = 🍎
I have never been a fan of the iPhone for two reasons, they are expensive and they are difficult to repair. But, I do admire the hardware of Macbooks. They also lie at the very bottom of the repairability score by "ifixit.com". Recently, I bought a used Macbook pro with a broken display. Even though it was broken, it nevertheless cost me about 30 % of the price of a new one. After looking at the internet, I found two options.
Buy a copy of the display from china and live with a less quality display
Get another broken MacBook pro with a working display
So I bought another MacBook Pro with a broken motherboard. I followed this guide at ifixit.com to replace the screen from one to another. Eventually, I saved one of the MacBook :), the other one will have to wait as I would need to dig deeper into the motherboard to fix it. Now with one salvaged MacBook pro laptop, I already saved 50% of the cost that I would be paying for a second-hand similar laptop. As a bonus, I have the spared on the other laptop.
To my surprise, the most tricky to put back was the antenna assembly and I had to try multiple times to fit it properly. So far, it is working, and I really like the touch bar ;)
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