Cryptonomicon

by Neal Stephenson

memome is the set of all memes that define the physical reality of a carbon-based RIST. Memes can be divided into two broad categories: genetic and semantic. Genetic memes are simply genes (DNA) and are propagated through normal biological reproduction. Semantic memes are ideas (ideologies, religions, fads, etc.) and are propagated by communications.

#!/usr/bin/perl -s $f = $d?-1 :1 ;$D = pack(‘C*’ .33. .86) ;$p=shift: $p=~y/a-z/A-Z/ ; $U= ’ $D=~s/ (. *) U$/U$1/: $D=~s/U(.)/$1U/;’; ($V=$U)=~s/U/V/g: $p=~s/[A-Z]/$k=ord($&)-64, &e/eg: $k=0: while(< >) {y/a-z/A-Z/;y/A-Z//dc;$o.=$_}$o. = ‘X’ while length ($o)%5&&!$d: $o=~s/./chr(($f*&e+ord($&)-13)%26+65)/eg: $o=~s/X*$// if $d:$o=~s/.5/$&/g: print “$o”;sub v{$v=ord(substr($D, $_[0])) -32: $v>53?53: $v} sub w{$D=~s/ ( . $_[0] ) ( .*)(.)/$2$1$3/} sub e{eval “$U$V$V”; $D=˜s/(.*) ([UV].*[UV])(.*)/$3$2$1/; &w(&v(53)):$k?(&w($k)):($c=&v(&v(0)).$c>52?&e:$c)}

“Well the short answer is that we won because the Germans worshipped Ares and we worshipped Athena.”