Memepark

I put together a set of slides last night about Clean Room Design for my presentation at the SFLC Legal Summit. Clean Room Design involves a small, dedicated group of obsessive personality types - usually men - who sequester themselves away from the rest of the community and engage in intensive, secretive projects with the intent to disrupt established monopolies. They follow a strict protocol designed to document the legitimacy of their activity. They also have very strict policies about who can join their group, and once inside every member must remain committed to the project.

The image above was just too perfect a fit for me not to fire up the GIMP and put it together. I was surprised by how easy it was to create.

The first rule of Clean Room is: you don't talk about Clean Room. Meaning, no communication with parties outside the Clean Room about the original implementation. All information about the original technology is passed through a strict filter that removes all copyrightable material.

One rule of Clean Room design that isn't immediately obvious is the requirement that clean-room code cannot pass outside the clean room until the project is finished. This ensures that no feedback loop is set up whereby parties outside the clean room influence the course of development in response to premature code releases. Thus, the second rule of Clean Room is: you do not talk about Clean Room.

Twice in the last two weeks, I've gotten embarrassing mid-80s easy-listening classics stuck in my head after accidental exposure over the speaker system at some retail outlet or deli. Right now, it's George Michael's 1984 solo outing "Careless Whispers", which has been bouncing around my cortex for over 24 hours. Last week, it was Lionel Richie's "Hello" (also 1984), which occupied a significant chunk of my conscious experience for at least 2 days.

Have you ever seen the video for "Hello"? The plotline (it's one of those 80s music videos with the song interwoven with dialogue) involves a theater professor who's in love with his student. His blind student. This creepy dynamic really underscores the lines, "I can see it in your eyes... Is it me you're looking for?" (Here's a hint, Romeo: she's not looking for anything. She's blind.) Of course, the wish-fulfillment ending has the student -- for real now -- sculpting a bust of Lionel Richie and showing it to him for his approval. This should, perhaps, be unsuprising coming from the decade that told us that "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all". But the celebration of narcissism is still staggering.



Sheesh. This creepy shit is why I don't listen to music anymore.

(Also: what is with me and cheesy pop ballads from 1984? Freud could probably tell me some interesting stuff about what happened to me at age 7 to trigger my susceptibility to these particular tunes.)