even though i know that it's just another day, the changing from year to year always seems to bring about this nostalgic, introspective mood. 

i've always hated the idea of new year's resolutions, because they seemed more like a joke than a promise to most poeple, but i just can't help myself from judging the state of my life and thinking about decisions and changes--reassessing my hopes and dreams.  

life has this funny way of looking so much different depending on where you are and how you choose to feel about what you see.   

Google's sure got their fingers in a lot of pies these days. I'm sure you've probably already heard about Android (or at least the rumours of a gPhone) but if you haven't, I'll take a moment to share my thoughts.  

A quick runthrough - for months now, there has been gossip that Google was planning to enter the cellphone/mobile data industry.  Bloggers quickly dubbed the ethereal mystery device gPhone, but that's all there were--rumours.  On Guy Fawkes Day of this year, the Android Platform was announced.  

Basically, google's not making a phone of their own, they're coordinating/leading the new Open Handset Alliance to develop what they call the Android Platform.  Android is an open standard (s'posed to be licenced under Apache v2 if I'm not mistaken, though the members of the Open Handset Alliance apparently signed a Non-fragmentation agreement to keep code from forking in non-interoperable ways) for a mobile telecommunications platform.  

Android uses a Linux kernel, a specialized Java virtual machine, and provides a library (with things like a/v codecs, etc.)--they've already released the first version of the SDK, so if you're a code monkey and you've got time to kill, please hit up http://code.google.com/android and then share your thoughts with us.  The libraries support 3d hardware acceleration if you've got the hardware, and each piece of code is designed to be modular and interoperable.  This means that anything within the software stack will be replaceable.  Good times.  

On the whole, this seems like exactly the kind of thing that mobile computing/communications needs.  Open, modular, ubiquitous.  In other words, it sounds good.  

It just kind of makes me nervous that a consortium of corporate superpowers is in charge of this.  There's definite promise here, but keep your eyes open.  It almost sounds too good to be true.  

Some further reading.....

http://code.google.com/android 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28mobile_phone_platform%29

http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html 

http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/13/1348233&from=rss

DocDroppers needs your help.  Yes, you. 

Clearly, you've got access to the interwebs or you couldn't be reading this (unless it gets copied to another media) and you've probably got a reasonable open mind (or else you likely wouldn't be reading this site). 

Recently, much of the hacking history and culture has begun to disappear from Wikipedia.  Rather than fight asshat deletionist wikipedians, a call for help came from the BinRev forums to relocate hacker culture articles to DocDroppers.org before it all disappears.  

DD is a repository of hacking related articles/knowledge, hosted by StankDawg and the DDP.  It's running mediawiki (I know, I know--lx, I can almost hear you wretching now), but implementation aside DocDroppers is a valuable resource (and, like pretty much all DDP projects, shares a lot of the same motivations/goals as the Empowerment community).  

Check it out, and if you've got something to add, we can use your help.  

-cid

http://docdroppers.org

http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34728 

Being a Good Conversationalist

There are few skills that will get you further than becoming a good conversationalist.  Knowing how to talk (and possibly more importantly, knowing how to listen) well can open doors to you, teach you things you'd never otherwise know, gain you friends and allies, spread your ideas out into the rest of the world.  

To a lot of people, the word conversationalist brings to mind pictures of talking.  Talk talk talk.  Good speaking voice, mannerisms, witty reparte, clever retorts, engaging anecdotes, and blah blah blah.  

Thing is, this is only half of a conversation.  

People who are truly skilled in the art of verbal communication are not just good talkers, they're good listeners.  Being a good listener might be more important than being a good talker.  Okay, maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  We can actually take a step back and look at this from a bigger picture--we'll break it into three different aspects which make up a conversation...  

Listening

The reason it's so important to be a good listener to be a good conversationalist is very straightforward.  A conversation is a two way street--you have to be able to absorb information from the person you're talking to in order to gauge success, find better ways of dealing with that person, understand their side of things, etc.  You need to be able to receive data as well as send it.  

Another reason to develop your skills as a listener is that of listening as a means of communication.  When you are actively listening to what someone is saying to you, you're feeding them a stream of complements.  It feels good to know that someone appreciates you, and by having eye contact, nodding, repeating their own words (or paraphrases), and other subtle approaches you can not only better understand what the person is trying to say, but you can often steer a conversation just by how you listen, as well as provide them with a sense of importance/well-being/appreciation.  

Bottom line--listening is IMPORTANT.  

Thinking

This one tends to get people into trouble, both by doing it and not doing it (at the appropriate times).  

Everybody (open for debate, I know) knows that it's usually a good thing to think about what you're going to say before you open your mouth.  In spite of this knowledge, we often lose that filter between our brain and our mouth, frequently producing disastrous results. 

The other trouble thinking can get you into involves thinking of what you're going to say (while the other person is talking).  This is bad because it takes your attention away from the listening part.  

Don't be so afraid of missing an opportunity to make a good point that you stop really listening.  This behaviour shows on your face, and that aside, really does affect your ability to soak up the other side of the conversation.  To be successful, you need to learn to balance your participation in the conversation.   

Speaking

Here's where we get to the actual talking part of talking.  This portion of the show is going to depend largely on what goes on with the other two segments. 

Both the content and presentation (cadence, tone, delivery, mannerisms, etc.) comprising the words that come out of your mouth carry depth and dimension of meaning to your listener(s).  The choices a good conversationalist makes on what to say and how to say it should reflect the situation at hand.  

Someone once told me that you can tell anybody in the world anything you want just so long as you figure out the right way to tell them.  

Deciding what to say and what you allow to be conveyed through nonverbal means, can be influenced by lots of things--what you hope to accomplish through the conversation, what you think the other person wants to accomplish or expects, how well you know the other person, your perception of how the conversation is going, and the list goes on. 

Tying it All Together

The real trick is finding the right balance of everything.  A good conversationalist is good at reading people, thoughtful, and knows when to shut up.  Each conversation, each dialogue, will always have a dynamic all its own, and adjustments will have to be made, but all these skills can be practiced, developed. 

Practice with your friends--work on really listening (read: paying attention) the next time you get into a conversation with your friends.  Don't think about what you're going to say while they're still talking.  Don't say anything until you have something to say.  Ask open ended questions ('open ended question' is just a simple way to say questions which can't be answered with a yes or no (or one word)) to draw them out--people will often surprise you with what they might say.  

One of the great things about conversation skills is that there are people all over the place to practice with (whether they realize they're helping you practice or not).  Store attendents, waiters and bartenders, friends, family, strangers, strangers on the phone or in the internet tubes.  All you have to do is be cognizant of what you're doing.  Pay attention when you talk to people.  

Some Further Resources

http://inspiredgrowth.org/conversationskillstracy.htm

http://www.about-personal-growth.com/conversations.html 

http://www.iamnext.com/people/conversation.html

http://www.matilijapress.com/articles/10stepstoconversation.htm

http://www.fusion101.com/guide/make_good_conversation.htm

Sorry about going silent this past little while.  I may not have exercised my voice here lately, but I've been close by.  I've just been collecting my thoughts (the logout errors were getting pretty bad and I've started a new job) but, rest assured I haven't gone anywhere. 

I see we've had another influx of new names and visitors which is good.  Alex got some more high praise on NewsReal (which I just can't get enough of).  I'm all about the independent/alternative/underground media, so if any of you have some good links, by all means pm me or start a thread or something.  Maybe we'll get some kind of reccomedia stream/thread going strong one of these days.  

-cid 

Tonight some friends and I went to the local (denver) art district to walk the galleries.  The first friday of every month, the galleries on Santa Fe open their doors to the public.  It was a great exchange of culture--there were live bands, dj's,  wine and cheese and other snacks, street performers, and so many different types of art. 

Events like this can be great for gathering inspiration, opening the doors to new art and artists, and can also be a fun way to meet other like minded people in your area.  

I think that communities and strong community ties have become quite underrated by society on the whole.  Festivals like this can be powerful.  If you get a chance, you should experience this sort of thing in your own community.   

It still amazes me how the Internet can reach across the globe and connect people who would have never otherwise met.  I feel fortunate to have found a community like EmpowerThyself.  I know we can do good things here. 

Ideas about the Future

Right now, there are a number of technologies converging on the Internet--xml, p2p, user moderation, gpg, web of trust, page scraping, collaborative computing, onion routing, etc.  A lot of the ideas that have been floating around this site promise to harness these convergences in exciting new ways.   

More and more, people are realizing that they have a voice.  This site has the potential to empower people in two ways--by spreading knowledge (education), and helping people to find their voice (which is encouraging relevant new dialogue).  

Hopefully, we'll be able to provide a flexible new way to link resources and people together from all over.  There is a lot of potential building rapidly at the moment.   If we can successfully combine all the best ideas and resources (without becoming reliant on them) our community will be useful.  

And if we combine this usefulness with fun and ease of use, we will thrive.  

I think the gold stars (userpoints) module is a fantastic idea.  In the future, it might even be possible to expand to different types of stars for different activities.   Who knows?  As simple of a concept as it is, the stars can add a little boost of motivation. 

New ideas about motivation and the reasons we do things have recently begun to congeal.  This is manifested in things like free and open source software, online communities (with volunteer and user moderation), and ideas like gift economies and time-based economies.  The desire for independence and creative expression, combined with a growing unhappiness with our current hyper-consumerist economy has led a lot of people to get into a DIY type of lifestyle, opening many peoples' eyes to new methods for happiness.  

It's cool to share again

Remember when you were a kid and  you were always told to share, sharing is good, sharing makes you feel all warm inside, better to give than receive and all that?  Did you ever get it?  That warm feeling that makes you actually understand what the person was talking about with the Better to Give thing.   

A lot of people are capturing that feeling again.  Communities are coming together both online and in real life, bonding together in ways that haven't existed for decades, and sometimes in completely new ways.  

This has become especially true on the Internet.  Zero-sum isn't always the hard rule of the Internet.  Digital media allows for win-win situations (meaning, you can have your cake and eat it, too).  Volunteering can also allow for win-win--if you enjoy the work you're doing, or you derive satisfaction from it's completion, you win, plus whoever is getting the benefits of your work wins, also.  The people over at Altruists.org have a lot of interesting writing on this sort of thing--and what's more, they're actually working on doing some things about it.  

This, I believe is at least part of what lxpk and I were talking about the other day--acting as glue for the community.  If we can provide support for the people and communities that are already out there doing good, empowering things, and link the benefits and services and people, our effectiveness (and the services/resources being linked) becomes exponentially increased.  

Part of what we need to focus on, I believe, is new ways to interact with the other empowering projects.  If we can do that, there's no telling what we could change.