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November 21, 2003
Dream Blogs
Occasionally -- well, okay, often -- I have an idea that is so great, it turns out someone already thought of it. The problem I had with halfbakery.com is that they felt all compelled to point out all the time when your ideas were old hat or, as they annoyingly put it, "baked." For instance, when I posted my idea about a foot peddle remote control, I was put down because they already existed. I think the whole point of that site is that they think it's funny to put down ideas that are stupid, which I think is dumb because the whole point to me is that dumb ideas are fun ideas. My impression was that halfbakery was run by the kind of guy who delights in pointing out that you meant "turquoise" when you said "azure" or that the Start Trek reference you made should have been to season 4 not 3, etc. etc. Plus, they're mostly British.
So I created this site in part to avoid that kind of thing. I do have to admit, though, that an inventor or creator of any kind who tries to "invent" what already exists is defeating the whole idea that we somehow advance through a social rather than an individual process -- if we indeed do advance, blah blah blah.
My idea for today was actually on behalf of my friend Melissa. (Aren't you glad you read my blog now? Melissa?) I think she needs her own blog: www.melissasdreams.com, which is actually available and I think she should do it. Think of the merchandizing possibilities, at least! Anyway, she needs a forum to tell her dreams to the world because I know she has a lot of dreams, and would, I think, enjoy a forum to put them up.
So other people have dream blogs, naturally.
But then I thought, what if there were a blog where everyone posted his or her dreams collectively? Turns out that a collective dream blog exists already, too. But it's divided up by individuals. What would be neat is to see what everyone dreamed on a particular day -- say Thanksgiving, or Sept. 11th. It could function as a kind of gauge of the collective unconscious. Turns out, someone thought of that as well. This doesn't seem to be time based, however, and the historian in me wants to see things arranged chronologically. In the meantime, I thought, what about www.collectiveunconscious.com? Turns out a guy named Michael Wiener owns that -- and collectiveunconscious.org and .net and who knows what else. I'm sure he'll do something really cool with that cool domain name soon. Or would be happy to sell it to me.
In the meantime, Network Solutions suggested some alternatives to collectiveunconscious.com, including:
corporateunconscious.com
corporate-unconscious.com
collectivecold.com
collectivecolder.com
collectivecoldest.com
collective-unconscious.org
corporateunconscious.org
corporate-unconscious.org
collectivecold.org
collectivecolder.org
I have to admit, I'm sorely tempted by corporateunconscious.com. I could do a lot with that. Not as tempted as Melissa should be by Melissasdreams.com.
Chris told me about some blogging function, that I don't fully understand, that has to do with the thing that says "syndicate this site" which somehow allows you to subscribe to a bunch of blogs all at once. Apparently, this would allow you to, for instance, subscribe to a bunch of different dream blogs. So that could recreate my idea about the collective unconscious by each day delivering me the text from a bunch of different blogs.
However, the truth is, I don't actually want to read a bunch of other people's dreams, unless they are illustrated by Jesse Reklaw, or Melissa's.
Posted by mary at November 21, 2003 05:02 PM
Comments
wow, i'm so flattered that you want to hear my dreams. i certainly love to tell everybody about them.
recently i dreamed that i had a toy car (like a matchbox car) and i convinced amy g. that it was a cell phone.
Posted by: Anonymous at November 28, 2003 07:00 PM
Maybe you could just submit your dreams to my blog. I could set up a little "Melissa's Dreams" subsection and give you blogging rights.
-- Mary
Posted by: Mary at December 1, 2003 01:38 PM
Yah there are a bunch of weird blog accouterments like "Syndicate This!" and back track and what not. They're all geared towards being able to dynamically link blogs up, just like you mentioned. There are a few others that will let you know when people link to you or talk about you or somesuch. I forgot what they were and can't really help. And that is why I post!
Sasha
Posted by: Sasha at December 1, 2003 08:53 PM
Reality TV Ideas:
-Homeless Makeovers (Changing the lives of homeless people)
-Trailer Life. (Life on a trailer park)
-Mountain Life. (Life in the mountains)
-Subculture. (Every episode explore different subcultures in the world)
-Carnie Life. (Life in traveling carnivals)
-Porn Star. (Life in an average porn star)
-Redneck. (Average life in a redneck's life)
-Adult Kids that still live with parents.
-Midgets. (Life as a midget)
-KKK. (Average day in the life of a KKK member)
Posted by: Jason at November 14, 2004 09:06 PM