TechCrunch, the popular technology blog, hosts a conference every year called TechCrunch50 where they select 50 start-ups to launch there companies at the event.

I really want to go to this event but the tickets are very expensive—$2,995. Luckily, they are holding a contest, where users are asked to append the hastag #techcrunch50 to tweets about startups and technology to be entered to win a ticket to the event. There is a winner each day and so a total of 45 winners.

I tried many times to win and I gave up for a while. Then, I decided I would give it one more shot and so I wrote another tweet with the hashtag. Much to my surprise, I won!

Tweet declaring me the winner!

The tweet that won me the ticket!

However, there is still a problem. I can’t go alone. I can’t drive and I certainly don’t want to stay in a hotel alone. So, my dad needs to get a ticket.

We have a few options, I could buy a student ticket for $200 and my dad could use the ticket I won. I have asked Alex Miller (the guy winners are instructed to contact) if this is okay, but he hasn’t responded yet.

But, most likely, my dad will have to get his own ticket on his own. He could try entering to win just like I did. Or, he could ask around and see if any VC’s are willing to give him a ticket.

Anyone willing to hook us up with another ticket???

Update: My dad now has his ticket!

It’s hard to realize how isolated your life can be, how different you are than the rest of the world, until you experience what it’s like to live on the other side. It’s nearly impossible to deny that I live, breathe and experience cutting edge technology in my every days life.

Sure. We all know it. The Silicon Valley, the place I call home, is an incredibly atypical community. It’s the home to some of the largest and most influential technology companies in the world. It’s not surprising that people’s lives in this area are vastly different than those of people in the rest of the world.

After spending 12 days away from technology while at Hidden Villa summer camp I have discovered just how fun it can be to live without relying so much on technology in my daily life. There is a whole world out there, waiting to be explored. There are thousands and thousands of species of trees and plants and animals that don’t use an ounce of electricity. There are even people out there that don’t own a computer and their lives seem to be going great.

Inside the bubble, life is so predictable. So boring. So ordinary. So planned. So stressful. I feel pressured to tweet about what I’m doing at all times. I feel obligated to stay up to date and read TechCrunch, Mashable, Engadget, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, The Apple Blog, 9 to 5 Mac… (the list goes on and on.) I feel like my friendships are defined by Facebook. I feel like knowledge of startups and new gadgets equates to importance in life. I feel pressured to always buy the newest things when they come out. I sometimes mistake the internet for the universe and I can’t possibly imagine life without access to the internet.

I have internet wherever I go. I am never disconnected. If I ever have something that I feel like sharing, then, by all means, I can and will share it at that instant. I have internet at my house of course. But, I also have internet on my phone. And I have a 3G connection on my laptop. When I’m connected, I feel like I am inside of a bubble. No matter where I am, no matter what I am doing, everything and everyone that I care about is at my fingertips. It doesn’t matter if I’m sitting at home at my desk or out and about doing my thing. If something happens, I am notified immediately. When Michael Jackson died, I was out at lunch but I knew immediately because I had my iPhone with me. When Billy Mays died, I was in the Grand Cayman on vacation. When Facebook bought FriendFeed I was waiting for my lunch.

When I get up in the morning I go on the internet and read TechCrunch, update my Twitter status and go on Facebook. Whereas, in much of the world, people spend their mornings milking a cow or enjoying breakfast with their family. During school, I continue to update Twitter often discussing what I felt about a test or sharing random thoughts that popped into my head during class. I then will text my friends to find them and meet for lunch. At lunch, I usually scan TechCrunch, go on Facebook and read people tweets.

I feel like I have been living a life that is defined by connectivity. I get the feeling that there is nothing to do when Comcast goes down or AT&T fails once again. I feel like I have to be connected at all times or else…

It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without the kind of constant connections I rely on today. While I most definitely can’t fathom what it would be like to live in an era before the internet, I can’t even picture what it would be like to not have access to your email whenever you need it. For me, knowing stuff makes me tick. I am the kind of person who would say something like “have you heard of Brizzly” and have no one answer me with a yes.

When I was getting ready for camp, I was thinking about how hard it would probably be for me to survive without an internet connection. At first, I couldn’t believe what I had gotten myself into. But then, I realized that I had to make it through the twelve days, it’s not like I was going to literally die because I couldn’t read TechCrunch or update Twitter. So with that attitude I went to camp where I did things like make french fries from potatoes which we picked and I even walked a goat through the woods. All of this without an internet connect.

It turned out okay. Actually, it tuned out amazing. I couldn’t believe that I had done it. I am now back at home where I have the internet once again. But now, I don’t find the internet as amazing as I did before. When I first got home I went strait to my room and grabbed my laptop. I thought there would be so much for me to do. After all, 12 days without internet means a whole lot of Facebook notifications and TechCrunch articles to catchup on. Sure, I was right. A lot had built up while I was gone but I just didn’t care. What I really wanted to do was go outside and have fun in the real world.

Now, when I find myself glued to my computer reading each and every TechCrunch article, I think about how fun it would be to be taking a goat for a walk. I now know just how fun the world that mother nature has created for us can be. The world is filled with billions of people who are living their every day lives just like those 12 days I spent at camp. Billions of people who don’t give a $#!+ that Facebook bought FriendFeed.

So, perhaps the best way to live is in the middle. Technology is something that I am passionate about. There is no use ditching it. I just don’t need to be so addicted. So, next time I see the Fail Whale or AT&T goes down, I don’t have to feel like the world is coming to an end. Maybe it’s just a sign.

As Dr. Carl Sagan once said…

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

I just noticed that I can’t login to Twitter. When I click the login button on their homepage a JSON (Javascript Object Notation) file is downloaded to my computer.

This is new, I have never seen something like this happen before. Probably just a temporary issue. I wonder if it is related to the DDoS.

Update 1: After publishing this post, I seem to be able to use my Twitter account again!

Update 2: It looks like the downloaded file was data about the last page I was visiting in JSON format.

If you knew me well, you would know that I hate big companies like Comcast and AT&T taking too much control over their products and services. It’s just so hard to find a way to connect to the internet freely. Whether it be AT&T’s dictation over what you can and cannot do with your “unlimited” data plan, or Comcast give you an email account when all you want is a fast internet connection, I am not pleased. Not one bit!

Anyway, it looks like Comcast has chosen to do something even more stupid than ever: DNS Redirection. Basically, when you type in a URL that doesn’t exist, the display a ad-supported search page instead of letting your browser return an error page.

Comcast Search Page

This is instead of returning an error page like Safari (or any other browser) would normally do if it couldn’t find a server to match the domain.

Standard Safari Error

Sure, you might think that this isn’t a big deal. It’s not like your missing out on anything. A non-existent URL is a non-existent URL, it doesn’t matter what you are shown. While that might be true, it’s not a good thing in the bigger picture. I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to go on the internet without having to worry about anything like who my service provider is. I also want the internet to be consistent, regardless of what service provider you have.

This is exactly why I don’t think Comcast shouldn’t do anything except give you internet. That is their job. They make their money by charging you a monthly service fee. Their relationship with you should end there. You don’t need them to provide you email because you can get free email very easily, anywhere. And so you don’t need them to provide you this search feature because, if you wanted it, you could set it up within your browser. Bottom line, they shouldn’t tamper with the internet before it gets to your computer.

And yes, they do let you opt-out of this new service, but they don’t make it that easy. You are required to provide the MAC address of your router, a task that should never have to be done by someone who just wants to surf the web.

I just hope that someday, the internet is as free as electricity and isn’t controlled by corporations like Comcast or AT&T. Imagine if your electricity provider decided to start cutting your electricity off if they think you have been using to much.

Update: Per @Static_Safe’s suggestion, I am not testing out OpenDNS, a service that let’s you use different (and arguably faster) DNS servers than those provided by Comcast. The service also provides you greater control over things like spelling corrector and error pages. You can enable a similar error page like the one Comcast provides and even upload your own logo. You can also disable the error search pages in a much easier way than with Comcast. It’s work a try for anyone who doesn’t want to give their ISP so much control. I will let you know what I think after I test it out for a while.

I just noticed that Twitter has updated their homepage.  It’s a really big improvement, especially for people who just want to explore Twitter and check out the Trending Topics.

It functions similar to sites like Digg or TweetMeme by offering overview content on the homepage.  Not only is this a good place to show off content to perspective users, it also appears to be the first place that trending topics are broken down into more specific time increments—current, today, this week.

Check out this new website for tea drinkers.  It’s called Steepster and I like it!

Steepster.com

Sure, not everyone drinks tea so this website isn’t really for everyone.  But, I think it demonstrates a really cool concept.  It is a great central community of people with a passion for something and a collection of great reviews and tips.

There really aren’t any good sites for reviewing food items.  I think someone needs to build a service like this for groceries and random products.

I’d love to see a place to compare things like salsa, ice cream, popcorn or chocolate bars.  It would be really cool to have an iPhone application with a barcode scanner to scan products while and the grocery store and make sure to get the best ones.

[cb type=product]Steepster[/cb]

Many people have said that Twitter will ultimately replace RSS as the standard for content syndication.  It’s even more simple than “really simple syndication” for which RSS is an acronym.  However, you can probably agree, that, while Twitter offers a great platform for sharing content with followers, there is currently no good way to view your followers tweets with emphasis on the shared links.

Enter TweetMixx, a new service from Mixx.com that closely resembles Tweetmeme but with more attention on content that is shared with you—posted by your followers.  I don’t think TweetMixx will replace Tweetmeme as far as retweeting goes, but it certainly offers potential in that it provides a great way for you to read your tweets.

More and more websites and blogs are posting to Twitter as an alternative to RSS feeds.  When you subscribe to one of these websites, you will most likely get frequent tweets containing the title and a shortened link to the full article.  This is an awesome way to easily stay up to date on all the latest news.  However, it isn’t really the best way to skim through your “stream” to get news quickly.  You will probably be distracted by your other followers who aren’t sharing anything.  Also, not everyone includes the title along with their link so TweetMixx can be very helpful.

Tweets from TechCrunch, NYTimes and ABC News as shown on Twitter.com

What TweetMixx does is scan through the tweets and look for links which it then analyzes.  It displays a stream of shared links that can function like an RSS feed.  It ends up looking a lot like Tweetmeme.  But, the difference is the fact that the links are coming from sources that you have subscribed to.

Another cool feature is the ability to view links from trending topics.  For me, Twitter’s trending topics have become a great source of news.  I actual found out about Michael Jackson’s death because of a trending topic.  So, the “Hot Topics” section on TweetMixx aims to build on this concept.

For example, AT&T is a trending topic because of their recent (and stupid) decision to block 4chan.org.

AT&T in TweetMixx

Anyway, they still have some bugs to work out but it’s already looking like a pretty cool product.

[cb]Mixx[/cb]