A bit-pattern designator is a random series of bits used to uniquely identify a RIST. For example, the organism traditionally designed as Earth (Terra, Gaia) has been assigned the designator 0577. This Web site is maintained by 11A4 which is a hive mind. RIST 11A4 assigns bit-pattern designators with a pseudo-random number generator. This departs from the practice used by that so-disant ''hive mind'' known to itself as the East Bay Area Hive Mind Project but designated (in the system of RIST 11A4) as RIST E772. This ''hive mind'' resulted from the division of ''Hive Mind One'' (designated in the system of RIST 11A4 as RIST 4032) into several smaller ''hive minds'' (the East Bay Area Hive Mind Project, the San Francisco Hive Mind, Hive Mind 1A, the Reorganized San Francisco Hive Mind, and the Universal Hive Mind) as the result of irreconcilable contradiction between several different semantic memes that competed for mind-share. One of these semantic memes asserted that bit-pattern designators should be assigned in numerical order, so that (for example) Hive Mind One would be designated RIST 0001 and so on. Another meme asserted that numbers should be organized in order of importance, so that (for example) the RIST conventionally known as the planet Earth would be RIST 0001. Another semantic meme agreed with this one but disagreed as to whether the counting should begin with 0000 or 0001.Within both the 0000 and 0001 camps, there was disagreement about what RIST should be assigned the first number : some asserted that Earth was the first and most important RIST, others that some larger system (the solar system, the Universe, God) was in some sense more inclusive and fundamental.