Lucid dreaming refers to the act of being conscious while in a dream state—you’re in the dream, but you know it. With practice, proponents say, you can harness that awareness to manipulate your surroundings. Think Inception without the corporate espionage, or Neo’s trips to the Matrix after he downed the blue pill.

Even after re-reading the article, I can’t help but ask if this is real. I’m a really skeptical person, on the other hand I want to think there is something to this.

I’ve definitely had experiences where I feel like I’m skirting the line between sleeping and consciousness. Any former roommates can probably attest that the majority of these experiences have involved me waking up and then thinking I’m still in some sort of dream. I often wake up really, really disoriented and confused about where I am (especially when I wake up while it’s dark outside). I think this is the exact opposite of lucid dreaming, but it gives me hope.

What do you all think? Is this for real? Anyone want to try it?

• The State of Startups (No, It’s Not A Bubble) – From Henry Blodget, Business Insider CEO
• Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Why We’re Definitely in a Bubble – Rick Webb, Beta Beat Columnist

My take? Beginning of boom times, only time will tell if it turns into a bubble. It could easily go bad if people suddenly start making really bad decisions. Initial news of the Facebook IPO being under subscribed is probably a good sign for there not being a bubble. What do you think?

“Life is either daring adventure or northing at all.” – Helen Keller

“Buy the ticket, take the ride.” – Hunter S. Thompson

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough” – Mae West

“Above all, try something.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“I never worry about the future, it comes soon enough.” -Albert Einstein

“One who makes no mistakes, makes nothing at all.” -Giacomo Casanova

“Do one thing everyday that scares you.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

“In the end it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” -Abraham Lincoln

“If I’d followed all the rules, I’d never have gotten anywhere.” -Marilyn Monroe

“Action expresses priorities.” – Gandhi

Check out the video here.

I just don’t see how this is even feasible. How is a technology journalist going to go without the Internet? I can see how it will allow him to be really impartial about the topics he covers, but is his impartiality going to border on becoming out of touch?

At one point I remember reading an interview with Mark Zuckerberg where he claimed he did not have internet access at his apartment. His reasoning was that when he went home he wanted to unplug completely and be able to relax away from work. I understand his mentality and have been recently wondering if I could do the same. I don’t really think it would be possible for me to pull off.

What do you think? Could you go an entire year without internet?

• The Newspaper That Almost Seized the Future
• A Transparent Attempt to Explain the Economics Behind Running a Pop-Culture Website and the Need to Run Intrusive Advertising
• Six degrees of aggregation

If you’re at all interested in this subject, I suggest reading the above articles. Personally I find thinking about the different economic models along to be fascinating.

Without getting into too much detail, the answer is certainly yes. The caveat is that it definitely isn’t easy money. A lot of people assume that this means the opposite must be true, but evidence says otherwise. So what’s the solution? How is there money to make in publishing free content? Very creative business models. Hopefully in the coming months I’ll have one to show off to everyone.

It’s great to see someone embracing the idea that people want to hide behind a curtain of anonymity, a key component of what makes the internet fun. It will be interesting to watch this play out.

Update: blog gets about 2x traffic than my tumblr for the curious

Fast forward a few years later. Rumors (hopefully unfounded) coming out of Iran say that the country is considering shutting down the internet. How can a country allow it’s citizens access (albeit restricted) to something like the internet only to shut it down. Sounds like asking for another Arab spring if you ask me. The messed up part of all of this is that all I can picture in my head is some random kid calling up Ahmadinejad* and hearing laughter followed by “your internet?” and then being hung up on.

*random side story – I had a professor in college who randomly put spelling this guy’s name on a quiz after telling us spelling wasn’t important.

It’s already getting a ton of press
The San Francisco Chronicle, BuzzFeed and Business Insider have all already written stories about the game. Exposure from these sites alone is going to make it really popular.

You have very little to lose
The worse that will happen is that every day you have one extra random person saying stupid stuff. Chances are, you probably already follow a few of these people.

You have everything to gain
Like any lottery, your chances to win are low, but at least in this one you can influence your odds. Once this thing really takes off though, you might wake up one day with tens of thousands of new followers.

It’s fun
I always think it is fun to follow these sorts of things. I always try to do things that are fun and so should you.

Twitter already approved it
There is no chance of it getting shut down. Twitter gave the game their blessing.

It’s already leaving you behind
In the time it took me to write this, the pool of followers grew from 400 to 550.

You can Play Fame here.