lxpk
lxpk
Personal Ideas
| My Idea | Idea Group | Category | Details | Edit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| empower thyself | empower thyself | Belief | I believe in empowerment and I coined the phrase "empower thyself" to embody the philosophy of self-empowerment I'd like to spread far and wide starting with myself. | |
| Stop the North American Union! | North American Union | Belief | I'm concerned about the proposed North American Union that would merge significant aspects of Canada, the United States and Mexico into one continental federation. Having lived in Canada and the United States before, I feel there are pros and cons of each nation and I think it would be a mistake to try to combine them politically. Canadians, Americans and Mexicans want different things and they have a right to vote for their own governments and policies to reflect their needs. We shouldn't all be smooshed together into one undemocratic superunion just because a lot of rich business people think it will make their corporations more profitable. | |
| Leave No Trace | Leave No Trace | Belief | I try to clean as I go and make no mess. My father always says, "Leave everything better than you found it." | |
| Think For Yourself | Think For Yourself | Belief | I think for myself in everything I do, which is to say that I carefully select and vet the memes of other people who I allow to think for me. | |
| Consciousness Raising | Consciousness Raising | Belief | It seems to me that a good number of important things need to be made more widely known and understood and it is up to us to master the art of consciousness raising so that we can spread the word and lead the way forward in humanity's evolution. The women's rights and civil rights movements showed the way forward for big important truths to find acceptance and justice for all. It may begin with people teaching their friends to use reusable shopping bags and CFL bulbs but those could build confidence and sharing abilities to the point that we can tackle much larger matters. | |
| Wear Message Shirts Every Day | Wear Message Shirts Every Day | Belief | I happen to think wearing message shirts every day is awesome. Now that I have a bunch of empowerthyself.com t-shirts, I wear them and whenver someone asks me the inevitable "What do you do" I just point at my shirt and say "I run this." Now all I need to do is put the one sentence explanation on the back of the shirts: "Find what you believe in, how to do something, what you need to do it, how to communicate it and who you want to do it with. Ideas, skills, tools, media and people." | |
| Boycotting | Boycotting | Belief | I think if people develop ethical consumption practices both individidually and organizationally on a whole new level, boycotting could become the strongest and perhaps the only weapon citizens or "consumers" still have to influence megacorporations and tyrranical governments. | |
| Examplopedia | Examplopedia | Belief | I think we should implement this Examplopedia system to store the real-world examples of how all the pieces are put together to get something done. All of the mediums in the mediapedia have a right-hand column called "EXAMPLES" that emphasizes just such examples, but it would be even better to have those databased with automated ways of adding to them links to the various resources they exemplify. Good thinking man! | |
| New Environments, getting offworld so humanity survives | New Environments | Belief | I'm pro-humanity and ensuring humanity survives is priority #1. Most of our efforts should be focused on staying alive on planet Earth through peace and technology, but we should also prepare for Earth-shattering events by getting sustainable off-world colonies started. | |
| Evolution | Evolution | Belief | I'm convinced that emergent complexity and evolutionary natural selection explains the origins of life and consciousness in the universe. Evolution accounts for how we got here and why we are the way that we are. I'm opposed to the teaching of supernatural creationism in schools. I sympathize with those who do not understand evolution or whose religion discourages them from understanding it. I encourage everyone to learn more about evolution to better understand and appreciate the amazing and wonderful splendor that has evolved and how fortunate we are to be alive. Thank goodness! | |
| Good and virtue | Good | Belief | Asking "How do you define good?" is not a good reason not to believe in good or to do the best you can to do good. You might say I believe in doing one's best to do good. I like the way Benjamin Franklin set about to achieve perfection of character by listing his virtues and tracking his performance in a table. I think we can do something like this in an Empowerment database with Personal Ideas. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/franklin-virtue.html | |
| Pronoia | Pronoia | Belief | I am constantly amazed at all the excellent synchronicities in my life between my activities and those of others. It is as though we are all in a secret society which conspires to help each and every one of us out behind our back. The technological advancements I dream about get developed in short order. The Drupal modules I want to develop are just a google search away from already having been developed by someone else for me. The future is full of proconspirators. When I find out about something coming to someone, I like telling them to expect an awesome surprise "sometime today" to put them in doubleplus unfear until one of our Smile Police agents strikes. | |
| Purpose In Life | Purpose In Life | Belief | Since I was very young I have always felt a strong sense of purpose in life. I wake up every day knowing that I have a mission to empower myself and promote unversal empowerment for all. I don't know how to solve all the world's problems, but I believe that humanity will figure things out and the more empowered we become the faster we can get things done. I grew up with a world messed up by the last generation looking to my generation to save them. I want to see things change in my own lifetime. I want to leave our children with a great world that inspires them to improve it rather than a fearful one that forces them to save it. | |
| Everyone Can Do Something | Everyone Can Do Something | Belief | I don't know if I read the same stories growing up as everyone else, but I kind of got the impression that we were supposed to emulate our favorite heroes by actually trying to save the real world, not idolize them by obsessing over their fictional universes which were invented solely to inspire us to deal with ours. | |
| Big Problems Demand Comprehensive Solutions | Big Challenges Demand Comprehensive Solutions | Belief | Empower Thyself is such a comprehensive approach to tackling so many different angles of the apathy problem that it can seem a little overwhelmingly complicated at first. I am working hard to make things clearer and simpler to understand and contribute to, because comprehensive solutions needn't be overwhelming. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something, and we can contribute to little pieces of the puzzle that ties into the pieces other people are working on and add up to a larger purpose. Working on all these components in an integrated fashion ensures that we can achieve much more than isolated projects can do on their own.
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| Rules To Live By | rules to live by | Belief | My top three rules to live by: 1. THE RULE: My next choice influences every choice I will ever make, so in a choice between doing the strong thing for great justice epic win or doing the weak thing made of fail, I must always choose strength. 2. TRUTH AND GOOD ABOVE ALL: I will always seek the truth and do the greatest good that I can. 3. Safety third! | |
| You Decide Your Level of Involvement | You Decide Your Level of Involvement, Start Simple and Progress Rapidly | Belief | Everyone can begin empowering themselves instantly and easily and anyone can take their empowerment as far as they wish. Empowerment has no barriers to entry and no glass ceiling to advancement. | |
| Universal Empowerment Creates Common Ground | Universal Empowerment Creates Common Ground | Belief | Just as Dr. King said that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", apathy anywhere is a threat to empowerment everywhere. Making universal empowerment available to all people of the world is the surest way I know of to create urgently needed common ground between people who are presently locked into ideological and political trench warfare or mired in isolated lethargy. | |
| Dune | Dune | Belief | I love Dune. The ideas of Dune inspire me to no end and I regard Frank Herbert as an amazing genius. Just think of all those ideas! And a compelling story too! I recommend everyone read his first book, Dune. | |
| Empower Thyself Manifesto | Empowerment Introduction | Belief | I intend to evolve and grow empowerment philosophy into a very powerful set of ideas that transcends the use of the empower thyself web site. Some day we will get our own paragraph in Wikipedia's philosophy article. | |
| Philosophy | Philosophy | Belief | I love wisdom. Philosophy makes me happy. I <3 having philosophical conversations. | |
| Existentialism | Existentialism | Belief | I am the author of my own purpose in life. I value the feeling of existential angst when I perceive myself to be off the path I have chosen. I like knowing that I can always be finding ways to be more fully alive and aligned with the mission I set for myself. I wouldn't trade the awareness of getting off-track for all the blissful contentment in the world because it is the momentary pain that awakens me from apathetic slumber into my real world of heightened awareness so that my life can mean something and my actions can ramify into the future forever. | |
| DIY (whenever efficient) | DIY | Belief | I love doing things myself whenever it makes sense. Often times a DIY solution is much cheaper and faster and more fun than buying a solution. But sometimes DIY is a waste of time compared to buying what I need when I have the money to do it. So I DIY unless I buy. DIY should never be an obstacle to solving problems quickly and moving on to Get Things Done, which is the most important thing. | |
| Safety Third: Risk Smart | Safety Third: Risk Smart | Belief | Burning Man 2006. I stood in front of a sea of flaming coals fifty feet across, an inferno so hot it belched fire tornadoes. The crowd circled, a hundred thousand thronging faces aglow in firelight. Some of the revelers seperated from the orbiting masses and gathered at either end of the burn, looking intently into the flames. One by one they mustered the courage to to cross the hellish fires, braving what looked like deadly peril to emerge on the other side with an ecstatic, exhilirated sense of accomplishment in their faces. I felt drawn to crossing and the rush of adrenaline thrilled me until suddenly it happened: Just as I was about to brave the burning gauntlet, a man crossed with recklessly clumsy haste. He lurched halfway across before he tripped and pitched forwards into the flames, dissapearing into a shower of sparks. Firemen suited like astronauts leapt forwards to carry his melted body towards a medivac helicopter and I know not if he lived or died or which would be worse in his condition. Should this man's gruesome example dissuade me from trying it? Or was there an opposite lesson? I looked at the charred but unmelted shoes of those who had crossed already and realized that the heat however great was as nothing compared to the danger of painicking and making a rashly fatal misstep. Crossing was safe, fearing was deadly. I calmed myself, gave up the thrilling pleasure to be had in scaring myself, and walked calmly across. I ignored the alarm of my heat blasted skin and recrossed to return to where I stood, unharmed. | |
| Inner Peace | Inner Peace | Belief | I used to have a terrible monkey mind full of doubt and negativity, then I struggled to regain centered consciousness, then I ceased struggling because my inner peace had become a habit. Now any time I feel disturbed I know it is probably just hunger making me chemically unbalanced. | |
| Sort Yourself Out | Sort Yourself Out | Belief | Most of the time, we already know what we should do, we just ask other people so that they will tell us to do it. I'm pretty good at sorting myself out. | |
| The Empowered Symbol | The Empowered Symbol | Belief | I came up with the empowered symbol after many, many attempts to capture the essence of the idea of empowering yourself. I have notebooks filled with variation after variation on this theme, and when I came up with the human power symbol, I just knew this was the one. I tested the idea out and found that people liked it and got it. At first I wondered if it was too geeky to make sense to mainstream people but almost everyone recognizes it nowadays and the meaning of a power switch within the human mind is intuitive. I think it's a winner! | |
| You Decide Your Agenda, Empowerment Just Helps | You Decide Your Agenda, Empowerment Just Helps | Belief | I love talking to people about their interests and ideas because it sets my mind in motion thinking of ways to help empower them. Each person has their own unique point of view and set of priorities, and I want Empowerment to usefully enable everyone to be who they are and to do what they dream of doing. | |
| Cyberpunk | Cyberpunk | Belief | To me, a cyberpunk is someone who makes themself. I self-identify as a cyberpunk, and I often find myself explaining it so that people remember and describe me as a cyberpunk too.
The 'cybernetics' part of cyberpunk is important. Cybernetics means making intelligent learning systems with control mechanisms that "steer", guide, organize and adapt themselves to achieve equilibrium in complex environments. Mastering technology is merely a means for cyberpunks to master themselves and shape the future before it shapes them. | |
| Anti-Celebrity | Anti-Endorsement | Belief | I feel that most "celebrities" aren't worth celebrating. I think that celebrity worship manifests as an unhealthy obsession with the personal lives of famous people as though their personal lives were significant to the extent that detracts from people's own real lives. I have some ideas on how to counteract the interest in worshipping celebrities. There's a brilliant parody that actually created The Church of Celebritology(awesome pictures) to proclaim celebrities as the new gods. They even have a myspace. It turns out that there's a Washington Post blog called Celebritology that feeds this obsession. A Secret Weapon
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Personal Skills
| My Skill | Skill Group | Category | Details | Edit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazilian Jiu Jitsu | Brazilian Jiu Jitsu | Learning | I need to learn Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and I'm considering my options. I may enroll in Paragon BJJ Santa Barbara and teach what I learn there to my friends at the Infoshop. I'm presently very busy with Empowerment work and I would love to start by learning directly from another student of BJJ who could teach me or point me to some DIY starting steps. When I have more time I could enroll at Paragon and get more out of the membership cost. My friend Nicholas is teaching me basic BJJ and I need to spend more time with him to learn more. | |
| Dellintoshing | Hackintoshing | Learning | I'm learning Dellintoshing from Justus. | |
| iPhone Tethering | iPhone Tethering | Learning | I really really want to get tethering to work so that I can have a full computer Internet connection wherever I find myself cut off from WiFi. About half of the time that I would like WiFi to be there, it is not. I completed a tethering tutorial but I must have done something wrong because I was unsuccessful. I will try again soon and ensure that I set the iPhone autolock to Never so that it doesn't shut off, initiate an EDGE connection through iPhone Safari to the test site first to ensure DNS information is present, and disable IPV6 on the Mac's airport. I have yet to master this skill but I will not give up! | |
| Drupal Module Development | Drupal Module Development | Learning | My first project is called icons module and it embeds 16 pixel CSS icons into specified link paths both in Drupal menus and through Drupal content input filtering which can be turned on and off and supressed using the "noicon" class. | |
| Source Engine Development | Source Engine Development | Learning | I'm learning Source to begin developing a Top Secret Game Project with Yasutaka! | |
| C++ | C++ | Learning | I have to relearn C++ in order to do Source engine development. (Grumble grumble). | |
| Math | Math | Learning | I need to relearn a lot of my mathematics to be skilled enough to do 3D game programming again. I want to gather the resources I can learn from here and develop some quizes and missions so that anyone can master math whenever they want to, especially high-school students who want to get ahead of the curve. | |
| Jumping | Jumping | Learning | RiZen is teaching me jumping and I'm going to start joining the Civil Chaos Santa Barbara Free Runners to learn even more advanced acrobatics. | |
| Backup Discipline | Backup Discipline | Learning | I've been in charge of backups as an IT manager of major companies, but somehow I haven't been able to get Apple's Time Machine backups working for myself. I need to get all my data backups in order like I intended to when I bought my last external hard drive. | |
| iPhone Development | iPhone Development | Learning | I hav started learning the iPhone SDK. I made a tabbed app and discovered from a documentation search that I had to add images to the Resources folder for them to show up. Now I need to learn Objective C and further explore the docs. I won't be doing most of the iPhone coding, but I want to learn how to do this anyways. | |
| Objective-C | Objective-C | Learning | I'm learning Objective-C and Cocoa to develop iPhone apps. | |
| Cooking | Cooking | Learning | I may not know how to cook many things but I am learning to cook high delicious to dollar ratio food for large groups on a budget such as Indian curries, burritos and the like | |
| Letter Coding | Letter Coding | Learning | I'm memorizing these. | |
| Using Missionpedia | Using Missionpedia | Learning | I'm learning how to use Missionpedia for getting things done as we develop its capabilities to serve our needs better. I hope to see it replace OmniFocus as my sole GTD system completely some day soon. | |
| Surviving | Surviving | Learning | I have spent a lot of time in woods and deserts and I am still learning survival skills. Once I learn how to gather food I will engage in a week-long survival challenge to test my skills before I consider myself ready to actually survive. | |
| Skateboard Designing | Skateboard Designing | Learning | I'm learning how to design custom skateboards for empowerment. I guess now I have to learn how to skate so as to show it off in public. | |
| Excessive sweating allergy | Jumping | Past Skill | Could you help me. Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. Help me! I can not find sites on the: Excessive sweating allergy. I found only this - excessive Sweating between legs. If you are suffering from hyperhidrosis, then perhaps, the excessive sweating causes might really interest you. Underarm sweating excessive sweating. Thanks :rolleyes:. Kiana from Bulgaria. | |
| Acting | Acting | Skill | I recently began acting. In the upcoming movie Harrison Bergeron based on a Kurt Vonnegut story, I played point man in the Handicapper General enforcement strike team. I directed my team in weapon handling and tactical maneuvers and helped choreograph the home invasion fight scene in which six of us struggle to arrest the titular character. I'm going to be in a theater piece called Snow White and the Seven Sirens on New Years' Eve. I can see myself doing more acting in the future as I quite enjoy working with my friends in the industry. | |
| Conserving | Conserving | Skill | I try not to waste things. I save money by buying only that which I really need for myself and for DOSPEC testing. I've begun using reusable shopping bags as a first step towards reducing my packaging waste. | |
| Prepositioning | Prepositioning | Skill | I find there is a substantial amount of effort and lag between needing something, thinking about getting it and actually obtaining it. This often leaves me lacking in necessities. It applies to everyday tasks like laundry, groceries and above all toilet paper. It involves buying more than just what I need for right now and it involves setting a trigger level at which I resupply rather than waiting to run out entirely. | |
| Music Producing | Music Producing | Skill | I'm a composer of electronic music. For software I use Reason, Logic and Live. For hardware I use a Novation Remote SL 61 USB MIDI keyboard and a Firestudio Project 12 port firewire preamp for recording via a Røde NT1A mic. I sing vocals and play keyboards and some electric guitar. My music falls between the genres of industrial EBM, electro dance and soundtracks. I intend all my music to promote The Empowerment and my lyrics express useful ideas to help inspire those who are empowering themselves. You can hear a few of my tracks in progress on my band's myspace. I am open to collaborating and learning from other musicians to improve my art. | |
| Driving Manual | Driving Manual | Skill | I need to learn how to drive my new Toyota Corolla's manual transmission urgently and Dave is going to teach RiZen and myself how tonight as we embark on our Barcamp LA 5 road trip. UPDATE: Dave took me out to a parking lot near city college and I got the hang of it in about an hour. Then it was onto the freeway and zoom I learned the ins and outs of driving stick. I'm still bewildered by the experience but I've basically got the hang of it. | |
| Recruiting | Recruiting: Help People Start | Skill | I find myself recruiting people to all kinds of things all the time. I am passionate about a great many things, chiefly Empowerment, and it is a great pleasure to share things I love with people who I think might appreciate them too. I am also very actively involved in recruiting team members to contribute to Empowerment. I am getting better at this all the time and as the team grows and the Missionpedia collaboration process evolves our ability to recruit great people does too. | |
| Event Organizing | Event Organizing | Skill | I have some experience with event organizing. Putting on gatherings is difficult but rewarding! | |
| Comics | Comics | Skill | I'm making a web comic with empowerment-related subject matter like toilet paper donuts and Das Bunkbed. It's still irregularly updated but I want to eventually provide a Penny Arcade-like humorous commentary on all things empowering. | |
| Drupal Theming | Drupal Theming | Skill | A lot of the work I have done on empowerthyself.com has been theme modification using CSS and PHP. | |
| Drupal Development | Drupal Development | Skill | I've been developing Drupal sites for a couple years now since I began working on empowerthyself.com and now I use it for virtually every web site I work on. I love the power of well-integrated Drupal modules and I am excited to finally begin developing new modules. | |
| CSS | CSS | Skill | I use CSS constantly in theming Drupal. I'm not building whole site layouts using pure CSS yet but I'm good at styling layout elements. | |
| Writing | Writing | Skill | Writing has always been a big part of who I am. A voracious reader, I wanted to tell the kinds of stories I enjoyed reading. I tried to write my first fantasy novel in fourth grade. My interest in role-playing games led me to writing my own RPG game systems. I shifted to nonfiction when I became more interested in philosophy and technology. Most of my own writing focused on exploring ways to use technology to empower people in ways that combined philosophical principles with technological solutions. I began writing EmpowerThyself as a realistic cyberpunk role-playing game book, but I realized that if my real interest in writing an RPG was to tackle real-world issues, I would be better off developing a sort of real-life RPG manual. Empower Thyself is like a Player's Handbook for strengthening your "character" by developing your "skills" and having "adventures". The book became too large a project for me to do on my own so it transformed into the EmpowerThyself web site. I am constantly writing to develop this system. Now I find myself working on the most challenging writing project I've ever had: The core empower thyself manifesto, an introduction to the fundamental philosophy of self-empowerment and overcoming apathy. I am gathering and synthesizing the many ideas that I have written about and discussed verbally over the years. An elegant, persuasive and inspiring explanation of empowerment is long overdue. | |
| Learning | Learning: Learn To Learn | Skill | My most prized skill is my ability to learn. It is the skill and passion that makes all other skills possible. I want to develop the Learning skill guide and Skillpedia system into an incredible learning tool for universal empowerment. | |
| Activism | Activism | Skill | I love doing activism and working together to make things happen and I compulsively spread good ideas to new people. I'm trying to develop empowerthyself so that more and more people can discover and master activism. Not every doer wants to be an activist, but many might and those who do should have the best tools to help them! | |
| Networking | Networking | Skill | I strive to get contact information from interesting people and send them invites to EmpowerThyself. I need to get disciplined about revisiting my contacts and initiating contact with them. For example, I know many Drupal community leaders who I will contact to get long-overdue collaboration going on EmpowerThyself-related Drupal improvements. | |
| Software optimization | Software optimization | Skill | I recently optimized icons module to use a very fast php algorithm to display icons such that it is scalable to an infinitely large arbitrary set of possible icons without slowing down. This made empowerthyself.com much faster and eliminated the use of javascript for icons. I think this both makes the site faster and allows more icons which makes it prettier. | |
| Quoting | Quoting | Skill | Voltaire may be right that "a witty quote proves nothing" but a command of apt quotes can make your points powerfully. I am a heavy, heavy quoter. | |
| Second Lifing | Second Lifing | Skill | I am learning how to use Second Life to promote Empowerment HQ next store to Rant HQ. | |
| Digging | Digging | Skill | I wrote one story called "Leopard Phones Home" that I submitted to Digg.com and I got front page featured and 30,000 hits in one day. In the future, I think I will be able to get more Digg traffic to Empowerment projects when I am ready for the attention. | |
| Talking | Talking | Skill | My top 3 skills are 1. Learning, 2. Doing and 3. Talking. Talking is the ultimate medium. What could I possibly hope to communicate through artificial media messages if I could not better articulate it in person by talking about it with people? And what could I hope to learn from other people unless I talk with them and listen empathically to gain understanding of what they have to say? I find that most of the best ideas for EmpowerThyself have arisen in conversations with people when we ask questions of each other and come up with answers out of the blue as though we already knew what they would be before we even knew what the question was. I think anyone who wants to communicate things in the world through media should first practice talking about their ideas with as many different kinds of people as possible. This is the surest way to improve your communications and learn from responses. | |
| Zineing | Zineing | Skill | I'm in the process of gathering the manifesto and select ideas, skills and tools for the first Empower Thyself Manifesto Zine. The Infoshop has a whole rack of zines and I look forward to adding ours to it. I've self-published before but this will be my first zine. | |
| Timing | Timing | Skill | Timing is synonymous with doing. I must master my time as I master myself. I want to use my time to the fullest and keep all my time commitments to myself and others without fail. | |
| Iconing | Iconing | Skill | I wrote an icons module for Drupal to power the site's icons and I am an icon-making machine but I can't make all the site's icons myself for much longer. If you want to help make 16x16 and larger icons for the site, let me know. | |
| Spelling | spelling | Skill | I strive to perfect my spelling so that my words can offend with substance and not with style. My current nemesis is its/it's. Every time I find I have misspelled a word, I type it out 10 times until I'm sure I've memorized it correctly. I think everyone should strive for nearly perfect spelling because we live in an age of electronic communications where the written word is more important than ever. My practice word list: misspelling, entrepreneur, it's, its, | |
| Easter Egging | Easter Egging | Skill | I thought I invented easter egging as a medium for spreading ideas, but my friend Zach has been doing it as well and I think there must be others doing it already. Easter egging is a lot of fun. | |
| Texturing | Texturing | Skill | I've been doing a lot of texturing for Second Life and the Empowerment SLHQ. It is primitive! The hardest part was lining up seams for pockets on the 511 pants. There has to be a better way to texture SL skins without repeatedly saving and upload previewing. | |
| Teaching | Teaching | Skill | I like teaching because I like helping people learn and I enjoy explaining in a way that makes things easier to understand. I'm largely self-taught in a lot of areas and so I encourage learners to take a lot of initiative in their own learning process. | |
| Calling | Calling | Skill | I have found myself doing mass calling of the group contact list to announce events at the SB Infoshop. It takes patience but it gets results! | |
| Swimming | Swimming | Skill | I'm a strong swimmer and I have proven this to myself in emergency and training situations. | |
| Critical Thinking | Critical Thinking: Seek Truth | Skill | I seek truth in ideas and I do my best to cultivate critical thinking skills. I do my best to evaluate ideas and discuss with others in a constructive, logical and honest way. I try to think and question everything with an open and skeptical mind. | |
| Firespinning | Firespinning | Skill | I've been firespinning staff since Burning Man and now I enjoy sharing spinning with others. | |
| Nonviolent Communication | Nonviolent Communication | Skill | I watched an instructional film by Marshall Rosenberg about nonviolent communication and I was amazed at how well his silly Giraffe and Jackal puppet theatre communicated the principles of compassionate sharing. I strive to communicate compassionately and I would like to refresh my NVC skills so as to be able to teach it in the future. | |
| Typing | Typing | Skill | I can type 90 words per minute. I love typing. Handwriting things feels so slow and primitive. I once almost failed a typing class because I finished typing all the assignments in the first few minutes of class and the teacher resented me for being a better typist than he was. | |
| Tabling: Set Up | Tabling: Set Up & Talk | Skill | I've been actively tabling for many years and I wrote our fairly extensive tabling guide and continue to evolve the art of table fu as I learn more about how to it. | |
| Testing | Testing | Skill | I try to ask people to help test things like this empowerthyself.com site, flyer designs, Second Life object scripting and so on to make sure they actually work and it is an ongoing battle to ensure that things work as intended. Anyone who wants to help report bugs in this site can send a bug report or feature request by submitting a mission. | |
| Copiloting | Copiloting | Skill | I frequently engage in complex trips in target-rich environments where a competent copilot is invaluable. I make a point of briefing my shotgun riding passenger what is expected of them so that our mission will not be made of fail. I also try to be a good copilot when riding with another driver. My iPhone comes in handy because I can get maps from anywhere to anywhere and look things up on the Net. | |
| Music | Music | Skill | I'm working on my first electroindustrial futurepop album, World In Progress. It is one of the most rewarding and challenging artistic projects I have ever undertaken. I have 17 songs in progress and I can't wait for the ones that make the cut to be finished so I can release and perform. | |
| Skill | Facebook may be the most powerful method ever devised for friends to share almost anything with each other and I'm developing Empowerthyself's whole system to link into our Facebook social networks. Most anything worth doing is worth sharing with your friends. | |||
| Evolutionary Biology | Evolutionary Biology | Skill | I am not an academic biologist by any stretch of the imagination but I follow evolutionary biology books and developments closely to gain insight into who we are and how we evolved to be this way. Understanding the biologically genetic and culturally memetic evolutionary forces that shape us is helpful in empowering the better side of human nature. | |
| Naming | Naming | Skill | I'm good at coming up with names and naming conventions for things. It may take me a while to find the right name for things, but I stick with it till I have something apt and memorable. | |
| Communicating: Share Ideas | Communicating: Share Ideas | Skill | Communication is one of the most important skills. I believe that humanity's future relies upon capable communicators. To that end, I'm trying to master and teach communications skills. I talk a lot. I like communicating with people. I like to talk to people to bounce ideas off of one another not only to get across my point of view but also to learn by listening. The more we become confident and eloquent in expressing ourselves, the more we can both share our ideas and learn more from others. And the more that good ideas spread, the better the world becomes. | |
| DJing | DJing | Skill | I DJ digitally using Traktor. I've never touched vynil turntables but I want to try my hand with a Serano scratch setup. I mix equal parts mean and fun into electro-industrial dance floor-packing mixes with my MacBook Pro. I have a special place in my heart for music with empowering lyrics. I'm also a musician and I spin my own band The Empowerment's songs along with my favorite electronic body movers. I am new to DJing and I'm always looking to learn from anyone willing to share the methods to their madness. I've got about 100GB of music and I'm always looking for new recommendations and requests so if you have or want music you think I should get or play, comment or email me. | |
| SQL | SQL | Skill | The single largest PHP project I ever wrote was a Views Module-like SQL/HTML interactive data API that generated interactive tables with dynamically editable data like a spreadsheet or form and handled record editing, creation and deletion plus sorting and hierarchy. Although I wrote it not because I loved SQL but to avoid writing it, I learned a lot in the process. | |
| Flagging | Flagging | Skill | I have a penchant for theatrical flag waving. Now I am working on producing Empowerment, Steel and Rant flags. | |
| COMMS Assurance | COMMS Assurance | Skill | I value being reachable and responsive in myself and others and I research methods people can use for comms assurance. An undelivered message can be a matter of opportunity or loss and life or death. | |
| COMSEC: Get Security | COMSEC: Get Security | Skill |
I have some experience with communications security having been a corporate IT manager, activist security geek and web application programmer. I've | |
| Game Development | Game Development | Skill | I am a game developer working on several games for Empowerment including Word Fu and the Afternow RPG. | |
| Steganography | Steganography | Skill | I've cracked steganography to complete the Defcamp challenge at BarCamp San Diego for two years running so I'm familiar with the most common stego apps. | |
| Image Sprites | CSS Image Sprites | Skill | I'm about to implement icon spriting to speed up this site a lot. I need to auto-generate the icon composite sprite from the smaller icon fils which are 16x16 though, which will be tricky. Anyone know of a tool for this? | |
| Making Industrial Music | Making Industrial Music | Skill | I release my own projects and works in progress as LXPK and I have an electroindustrial futurepop band called Empower with an album in the works. I am constantly learning and hungrily devouring new songwriting techniques and industry contacts so if you have any ideas or input for me let me know. | |
| Sanitizing | Sanitizing | Skill | I sanitize as much gear as I Can. Clothes and gear I cover with empowerment patches. MacBooks I enhance the glowing Apple with a glowing Empowerment sticker. White bits I blacken with markers. Gear doesn't feel like it is mine till I make it so. | |
| Safe Passwords | Safe Passwords | Skill | Never use the same password for different accounts, never use dictionary words, never use a password without numbers in it, always write your passwords down in a keychain somewhere physically secure so you can't forget them. | |
| Meditation | Meditation | Skill | Visiting my meditating friends may be the greatest gift of the whole Rantiversary trip. I've paid lip and thought service to GTD(getting things done), but something elusive always got in the way of my productivity and lead me to procrastination. Talking with these wise women, something they said clicked. Their words inspired me to be a better human being first and allow myself to be a better human doing second. I've become self-aware of my unawareness and wedged a toehold of meditative intent between the doorway of stimulus and the slamming shut of response. I "knew" how to meditate. Now I am actually doing it. It may be a clouding conceit to begin a practice of meditation with a specific application in mind, but I need help becoming mindful of The Rule if I'm to have a chance to apply it and I think meditation is a panacea for this. What is The Rule? If you think The Rule applies, it does. In a choice between doing hard good and easy wrong, do the right thing from beginning to end without fail so that your future will be a cascade of The Rule's strengthening rammifications rather than a slippery slope of regrets. The Rule is like the opposite of The Game where if you remember it you lose until next time you forget and remember the game and lose again. If you remember The Rule and follow it, you keep following it and winning forever. I am converting "umms" into "ohms", allowing meditation to fill the spaces between right thoughts and right actions. Meditative pauses now take the place of the mental equivelant of placeholding verbal tics. By becoming comfortable with moments of quiet silence and physical stillness, I can allow myself the time to wait for something right rather than passing the time with something wrong. Mental tics are thoughts people think between right thoughts to pass the time, often leading to neurotic spirals of negativity. Active tics are actions people do between right actions to pass the time, often leading to addictive spirals of procrastination. Between the stimulus of "What do I do now" and the response of "I'll do this" lies the opportunity to meditate silently as I strengthen my inner detachment from stimuli and my ability to choose my own response. I believe that active daily meditation can prove to be my secret weapon against procrastination and bring a myriad of benefits besides. A big part of why meditation means so much to me right now is that I feel I have a great necessity for it. Nietzsche said, "Given a big enough why, one can figure out any how." I feel that I've had a huge why all my life working on Empowerment and meditation seems like a missing how in my life. If I can meditate on finding stillness in my day and breathing through confusions or uncreative moods, I can give myself the breathing room to figure out all the other hows. | |
| Antivirus Protection | Antivirus Protection | Skill | I just ran into a Mac trojan called MacAccess and realized that I needed to use Antivurs on all computers, not just Windows. Now I'm taking precautions with VirusBarrier. | |
| Fire Staff Spinning | Fire Staff Spinning | Skill | Fire staff is my fiery meditation love and although I haven't got many advanced tricks yet I throw some wicked fast and high spins and I have a couple signature moves I made up. | |
| GPG Encryption | GPG Encryption | Skill | I've built a guide to GPG encryption to help people implement this basic privacy precaution against invasive snooping. | |
| Studying | Studying | Skill | I am learning how to study and apply myself to learning in my self-taught study of drawing. I'm actually going book by book and page by page doing the exercises to get better at the technical skills of drawing and I'm drawing every day in a disciplined way. | |
| Sewing | Sewing | Skill | UPDATED 2009-07-23: I have learned precision garment sewing. I patterned and produced heavy-duty tactical corsets from 1000 denier Cordura, steel boning and ballistic nylon MOLLE webbing. I win at sewing. Now to roll out the line and learn advanced sewing techniques as I build out my tactical gear manufacturing shop. I want to become an expert at this so I can teach my teammates. ORIGINALLY LEARNING: I have some basic sewing skills but I want to get proficient at using a machine and doing more serious DIY projects like making tactical gear and corsets. | |
| Postering | Postering | Skill To Teach | I have done postering for various causes and recently began producing the first EmpowerThyself poster. Poster Zero was raised Iwo Jima-style over Barcamp LA and SD unschedules for our first anniversary presentation cake and wine parties. It hangs in Empowerment HQ over my desk and inspires my efforts. Now I have to arrange a large print run for $1000 or so. | |
| Sneaking | Sneaking | Skill To Teach | Sneaking is something I got into as a part of airsofting. Now I find myself automatically ninja walking at all times, instinctively making as little sound as possible. Stealth is my forte in airsoft and I have earned a reputation as a ghost. | |
| Doing | Doing: Get Things Done | Skill To Teach | Doing is the ultimate factor. Nothing can influence the outcome of that which you have already done. This is the ultimate field of study which I find myself drawn to. All other phenomenon are mere influences. | |
| Gaming | Gaming | Skill To Teach | I am both a gamer and a game developer. Now that I have a MacBook Pro Intel that runs Windows games, I'm getting back into it, obtaining a pro gamer mouse Razer Lachesis and some as-yet unchosen surround headphones. I'm also developing the gaming skill group to gather what I'm learning as part of building up the gamer culture side of Hack Sabbath. I used to be somewhat competitive in Starcraft and won a Stanford tournament and the intra-university tournament against the other schools' champions. I don't want to spend a lot of my valuable time gaming addictively, but I do want to stay on the cutting edge of gaming and potentially spearhead the development of a gamer "clan" of some kind to represent Empowerment at gaming events. Gamers are our kind of people. And eventually we will produce a game of unmitigated glory such that puts wings on angels and causes parents to recommend that gaming youngsters spend more time indoors "learning a thing or two". | |
| PHP Programming | PHP Programming | Skill To Teach | I've been programming PHP professionally for 3 years now. I began coding proprietary code for www.Iparq.com and www.SlingTechnologies.com. Over a year ago I found Drupal which uses PHP and launched the new EmpowerThyself.com site with it and now I focus all my programming energy on Drupal-based solutions. If you have PHP programming skills, contact me and add PHP Programming to your personal skills so I know who you are. With your skills you could help in a major way with this site. | |
| Kit Line Organizing | Kit Line Organizing | Skill To Teach | I learned kit line organizing from Patrolling With Sean Kennedy Season One and MILSIM airsofting. I benefit from kit line organizing every day with all my tools ready at hand when and where I need them most. Now I am not only organizing my own kit lines but also I am developing the entire Toolpedia system with kit line organizing in mind. | |
| Using EmpowerThyself | Using EmpowerThyself | Skill To Teach | I built this site so I know how to use it well enough to know that there are lots of ways to make it easier to use. We'll be improving the user experience greatly over the next few weeks and months. For those brave enough to learn as we go, we thank you for your willingness to be space monkeys. | |
| Web Development | Web Development | Skill To Teach | I am a professional web developer and I enjoy teaching my friends how to become develoeprs themselves for their own projects and to help with EmpowerThyself.com. | |
| GTD: Getting Things Done | GTD: Getting Things Done | Skill To Teach | I recently adopted the GTD methadology of task management. I've been teaching all my friends how to do GTD using moleskines and OmniFocus. Empowerthyself's Missionpedia will be evolved into a truly epic global collaborative GTD system that scales from personal errands and grocery lists all the way up to enterprises and collaborative projects. I'm using the Mac OmniFocus app and I can't wait for the OmniFocus for iPhone.
| |
| Emotional Intelligence | Emotional Intelligence | Skill To Teach | I'm happy about being good at being happy. I once believed I was prone to mood swings until I discovered that it was due to low blood sugar. Ever since then I've kept myself well fed and found my mood to be quite optimistic and positive, even in the face of things that depress other people. Taking care of my brain worked for me, and ever since then I've found rational solutions to emotional negativity. I don't do this by ignoring problems. I do my best not to get angry or upset but instead to focus on solutions and things I can do instead of worrying about things I can't control. I firmly believe that emotional intelligence is a learnable skill because it took time for me to learn how to sort myself out. If many people can do it, anyone can do it. All you have to do is start by changing your question from "Why can't I be happy" (which will make you think of reasons to stay unhappy) to "How can I make myslf happier" (which will lead to doable steps). The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. | |
| HTML | HTML | Skill To Teach | I learned HTML when Mosaic came out and most of my work is web dev. I advocate the use of HTML above arbitrary "simplified" markup languages like MediaWiki syntax because I think they needlessly complicate web content in a world where people use Google Docs HTML for even their word processing and where WYSIWYG editors make HTML a beginner's friend and an expert's tool. Whenever a friend wants to learn programming, I start them with HTML and then work up to PHP. | |
| First Aid | First Aid | Want To Learn | I want to get proper medical training so that I can buy a medkit and know how to use it. | |
| DVORAK Typing | DVORAK Typing | Want To Learn | I tried DVORAK for about a month but I never got anywhere near as fast as my 100WPM QWERTY skills so I abandoned it. I would still like to learn some day so that I can type even faster with less effort and mistakes. | |
| French | Languages | Want To Learn | I learned high-school French when I grew up in Canada, but I never gained fluency enough to travel and use the language. I want to relearn the fundamentals and practical french such that I can travel French countries and read French philosophers. | |
| Melodyne | Melodyne | Want To Learn | The new Melodyne 2 looks simply amazing and I can't wait to get it and learn how to use it. | |
| Python | Python | Want To Learn |
I want to learn Python because some of the smartest programmers I know at big companies like Google are advocating it.
| |
| Inventorying | Inventorying | Want To Learn | I want to organize my inventory and help others do the same so that the stuff we own doesn't own us. | |
| Foraging | Foraging | Want To Learn | I want to learn what plants to eat in my area. I took a short workshop at LIB2008 but the only food plant I learned tasted too bitter to eat after a few mouthfulls. I want to learn more and do a 24 or 48 hour practice stint on wild food alone. | |
| Prisoner Support | Prisoner Support | Want To Learn | Some of my friends have gone to jail and I want to know how to support them and help them out in any way I can. | |
| Open Source Development | Open Source Development | Want To Learn | I am developing a number of software projects such as Drupal modules that I want to open up as open source. I also want to be a more active contributor to open source I am using such as Drupal. | |
| Facebook Development | Facebook Development | Want To Learn | I need to master facebook app development. I participated as a Ruby on Rails coder in Startup Weekend LA to create Frenemies, but I was learning RoR on the spot at breakneck pace so I need to learn everything from scratch and I want to learn how to integrate it with the Drupal Facebook Module. | |
| Second Life Podcasting | Second Life Podcasting | Want To Learn | I need to get a well-tested setup for recording impromptu SL conversations for podcasting use. I need to get it working not only for Mac but also for Windows and Linux. Anyone have any ideas to help get this working? They key is to record a mix of mic input and the system or at least Scond Life's audio output. | |
| Capitalization | Capitalization | Want To Learn | I thought I knew how to do this but I got 66 right and 14 wrong answers on a quiz so I need to study this more. | |
| Privacy | Privacy | Want To Learn | As someone standing up for something I inevitably put myself in the spotlight and I want to learn how to keep a balance between personal privacy and professional transparency. | |
| Labeling | Labeling | Want To Learn | I've labeled things extensively as a corporate IT manager but until I won't be ready to leave the monastary until I actually sit down and properly label everything. | |
| Scrum Development | Scrum Development | Want To Learn | I'm learning about Scrum from Amanda and Scrum Club so that I can manage projects better and get big things done in groups. I might even use a scrum-like cycle for all my personal work in combination with GTD. | |
| Notebook Skinning | Notebook Skinning | Want To Learn | I'm learning how to make notebook skins so I can produce high-quality Empowerment macbook skins. |
Personal Tools Wishlist
| # | Wishlist Wanted Tools | Tech Group | Cost (US$) | Supplier | Location | Description | Edit | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vibram Fivefingers Flow Sandals | Vibram Fivefingers Flows | I need a pair of $90 Vibram Fivefingers Flows to review that fit my 12.5" feet for freerunning and climbing and general ninja stealth. I also want to get a pair of the camo kind and spray the gray tops CADPAT. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2009-05-15 20:45 | |||
| 20 | Retractable Utility Reel | Retractable Utility Reel | I want an order of these to sell with every pair of 5.11s. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2009-03-23 06:18 | |||
| 1 | Retractable Extension Cord | Retractable Extension Cord | I need a few 5' retractable power cables for my bag and to supply others. I got a clunky regular cord that I'm probably going to return as as to get these. I'm going to carry some in our store too. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2009-03-16 01:46 | |||
| 1 | ModBook Pro | ModBook Pro | I NEED A MODBOOK PRO! Seriously, if anyone wants to support Empowerment and help me with doing artwork for Empowerment comics, buy me a Modbook Pro! This is the ultimate creative tool. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2009-03-13 23:52 | |||
| 1 | 60" Fold-In-Half Round Table | 60" Fold-In-Half Round Table | I saw these at a school and they're the perfect size for the ideal configuration of the Empowerment Round Table configuration for workspace and meetings. They're also versatile because they can go in half to accomodate tabling at events or fitting into a small space along a wall. I must have one. I'd take several! | Data does not contain node_edit | 2009-02-05 10:19 | |||
| 100 | Empowerment Patches | Empowerment Patches | I would like to obtain a quantity of Empowerment patches so that I can give and sell them to anyone who wants them. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-12-26 05:57 | |||
| 1 | Waterproof Pants | Waterproof Pants | I need a pair to stow inside my evolution jacket since I switched from my trench coat to the lighter garment. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-12-15 16:41 | |||
| 1 | Waterproof Bag Cover | Waterproof Bag Cover | I need a cover for my bag so that I'll be properly waterproof. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-12-15 06:04 | |||
| 1 | Carried Office Kit | Carried Office Kit | I need an office kit in my bag. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-11-30 20:35 | |||
| 1 | Watch-ET Watch Protector | Watch-ET Watch Protector | I want one of these to cuff out my t-watch. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-11-29 11:17 | |||
| 1 or 2 EmpowerCamp Projectors needed | We need projectors for presentations. If anyone has access to some projectors we need some | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-10-11 19:26 | |||||
| LCD 1400x900+ for Ben buy, craigslist or trade for it | Ben needs a high-res flat panel monitor for his desk to replace his CRT. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-10-01 15:01 | |||||
| 1 | Shoe Goo | Shoe Goo | I need shoe goe to repair my boots. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-20 13:53 | |||
| 1 | Free Weights | Free Weights | I need free weights now that we have space for a gym in the basement. We can do Fit Club without leaving the house! | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-14 03:07 | |||
| 1 | MICH Helmet | MICH Helmet | 22.00 | I'm getting a black MICH helmet for Dr. Steel/Burning Man/Safety Third and a CADPAT helmet cover for MILSIM. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-12 10:05 | ||
| Book shelf fitting into 35.5" l x 13" w x57" h | We need a bookshelf to make the kitchen basement entrance safe underneath the cabinet that tends to gouge people. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-10 15:04 | |||||
| 1 | 5.11 HRT Boots | 5.11 HRT Boots | I need new waterproof boots. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-08 16:19 | |||
| 1 | Cordura | Cordura | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-06 21:46 | ||||
| 1 | Webbing | Webbing | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-06 21:46 | ||||
| 1 | Shipping Containers | Shipping Containers | I need a 20' shipping container to start experimenting with containerized systems and to set up for Burning Man 2009. Is there anyone who knows a good price on these? In Indianapolis area? Comment. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-09-06 18:47 | |||
| 2 | Multifunction Color Printer/Scanner/Fax | We need a document center for the office. One for each house would be even better. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-08-23 02:49 | ||||
| 1 | Green Screen | Green Screen | We need a green screen for shooting video projects. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-08-04 02:50 | |||
| 1 | Okidata 6300 Cartridge | iPod | 65.00 | We need a toner cartridge for one of our four Oki 6300 printers. Here's one for cheap off of eBay. http://shop.greenresort.org/item/120285809544_oki-b6300-toner-cart.htm
| Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-07-22 18:37 | ||
| 1 | Moleskine Notepad | Moleskine Cahier Notebook | Borders | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-06-17 16:42 | |||
| 2 | Steadycam | Steadycam | I need to get one of these steadycams to shoot good video and making a DIY video out of building a second one while using the first would be great. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-05-27 23:20 | |||
| 1 | Rug | Rug | The Infoshop needs a great rug to tie the room together. Is there anyone who has one to donate? | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-05-27 13:27 | |||
| 1 | NVC Puppets | NVC Puppets | 25.00 | I want some giraffe and jackal (wolf is a good substitute) puppets to help teach NVC. I hope someone can help me do some DIY puppets and document the process. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-05-12 04:59 | ||
| 1 | Duct Tape | Duct Tape | I always need more duct tape. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-05-11 17:40 | |||
| 1 | Studio Headphones | Studio Headphones | 130.00 | Sweetwater.com | I need a good pair of studio headphons like the Sony MDR-V700DJs to mix my music properly. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-04-23 09:28 | |
| 1 | Bandaids | Bandaids | Every year I pack a full medkit for Burning Man and every year I get back with almost nothing left. I need to restock my medical kit with various bandaids and I really need a full-sized medkit and training in how to use it all. | Data does not contain node_edit | 2008-04-05 17:15 |
Posts
| Post Type | Post Title | Description | Updated | Replies | Edit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Idea | 2 yr nursing degree | Good afternoon. Hello, very nice site. Good luck. Help me! Please help find sites for: 2 yr nursing degree. I found only this - <a href="http://openpa | 2010-01-30 10:43 | 0 | |
| Skill | Mentat | Mentat study is an exploration of brain training skills inspired by the writing of Frank Herbert | 2009-12-02 01:27 | 0 | |
| Book page | Mentat Handbook | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-12-02 01:06 | 0 | |
| Book page | Brain Training Handbook | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-11-23 19:42 | 0 | |
| Skill | Brain Training | Brain training involves building mental habits and thinking skills | 2009-11-23 19:42 | 0 | |
| News Story | Spacepunk.org site launches | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-09-22 19:01 | 5 | |
| Idea | Spacepunk | Boldy going with attitude | 2009-07-23 22:45 | 0 | |
| Material | Medical billing courses | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-07-11 03:13 | 0 | |
| Skill | Secrecy | 2009-07-06 02:06 | 0 | ||
| Group | CodeCorps | CodeCorps: Code the change you wish to see in the world. | 2009-06-09 16:07 | 0 | |
| Page | The Empowerment | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-28 20:52 | 0 | |
| Blog entry | Baby bedding | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-26 11:04 | 1 | |
| Tool | Mac Apps | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-25 23:11 | 0 | |
| Group | Hack Sabbath | Join people around the world for a Sunday of socializing, music, hacking, gaming, presenting, laptops, internet, activism, show-and-tell.. | 2009-05-22 18:36 | 0 | |
| Tool | Tactical Corset | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-22 17:32 | 1 | |
| Book page | Empowerment Stores Handbook | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-19 16:36 | 0 | |
| Group | Empowerment Stores | Empowerment's retail stores providing tactical tools for practical doers | 2009-05-19 16:36 | 0 | |
| Tool | Vibram Fivefingers Flows | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-15 20:48 | 0 | |
| News Story | Coders Without Borders & Code Aid | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-15 19:59 | 1 | |
| Book page | Code Corps Handbook | Data does not contain og_description | 2009-05-15 02:56 | 0 |
My Blog
I awake from a dream
blog posted by lxpk Sat, 2009-05-09 16:50 Tags:This morning I awake from the most vivid rabbit hole. Have I awoken?
The bee flies free from Alex Peake on Vimeo.
In the dream I'm an actor on a vast soundstage of familiar scenes remembered and imagined. I walk into the position masked out with tape.
"Roll sound! Speed. Roll camera! Rolling."
Slate crashes down.
"Frame! Action!"
I play myself in a movie about my life. But it is not my life as it has already happened, it is my life as I see it happening next. I don't re-enact retraced steps, I pre-enact steps towards what I trust in my heart must be done.
Mind you, I've acted in Hollywood science fiction films before, but this one is different. This is science factual. It has the smell of things that will come to pass. If the movie had a poster, the title would be "The Empowerment" and the "subtitle would be, "The future won't be denied."
My future flashes before my eyes. There are so many things invented in the name of Mother Necessity and somehow it all starts at a barbeque. I finish the film and when the images slow down like the needle of the Wheel of Fortune I stand in a huge office that seems strangely familiar and before me on my desk sit two envelopes.
I sit down and looked inside.
The first contains a check. It is payment for completing the first half of the film, every mission I've ever accomplished and every job I've ever done. All the cast and crew, my co-creative coworkers, are there with me celebrating a wrap on Act One.
I am paid 32 thousand dollars for 500 hours of my future. How apt. This is the last 32 thousand of my own money I had just invested and spent. Here's my personal seed money back again to start the next phase fresh.
I open the second envelope. It's about my entry in a world-changing idea contest. It seems I've won.
I've won 32 million! I leap to my feet, feeling my event horizon recede into the distance as the thought of what I can now do with the resources in my hands.
But then I read the fine print. I've won just half the battle: I actually won just 16 hundred dollars for qualifying. I'm qualified as a finalist for a chance at developing my idea with the 16 hundred to win first place and the whole 32 million. The contests are held in categories named after greek alphabet letters. I'ved entered my idea under Ω: the omega.
I show the letter to my brother Ziggy and he smiles and says:
"With an idea like this one, 32 million is just seed money. Set your sights on the 320 million you'll need to finish the fight. Everything is a geometric progression from one level to the next and you have to take this one all the way."
Then I wake up. I breathe deeply for a few meditative moments. There is no 32 million. Yet.
I receive a notification that Kris Buffington has followed me on twitter.
http://twitter.com/kbuffington
I click through to see his latest tweet:
"RT @ifekt: Impressive — http://bit.ly/OsiXi"
I follow the white rabbit and it linked to a last.fm page for a song called "Alice" on a free album called Wonderland by Pogo sampled almost entirely from Alice in Wonderland.
I watch it with the otherworldly apprehension of someone through the looking glass eating a mushroom and bracing to learn its effects.
I download Wonderland and listened to the second song, Lost.
http://www.last.fm/music/Pogo/_/Lost
There is Alice's voice in the song:
"When I get home, I shall write a book about this place!" —Alice
The words of a fellow traveller still inside a rabbit hole. She speaks for the dream, for the future, about what it means to live a possibility so vividly and wake from that dream and long to make it real. First you laugh about it. Then you write about it. Then you do something about it. Then you win.
And I know what I'm doing today. I have to show up on set. As it happens next I must go to this barbeque in LA today to begin walking this dream with Eden (symbolic?) and Cassandra (prophetic?). I haven't seen the final cut, but I think we're producing one hell of a picture.
And just as I write these words I receive a text message from @acoolong asking if I'm going to LA. I reply:
"I'm coming to a barbeque today, a barbeque I foresaw in a dream last night, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream, and the start of something I've dreamt long enough. The sleeper must awaken. Sup?"
"I'm going to a BBQ too" she texts back.
"Which one?" I ask. It couldn't be the same. Could it?
"Cassandra invited me."
We have lost cabin pressure. So now I'm going to a time travelling barbeque singularity that has apparently invited the cast of a new season of Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex.
And as I get ready to go I listen to the lyrics of a song called Time For Evolution:
"When people find the power,
to change comes from inside,
There'll be no room for apathy,
the future can't be denied
Before every revolution.
it is impossible they say.
After every evolution.
it was the inevitable way.
What is meant by evolution?
It's the choice species have got.
Extinction or adaptation.
Survive's an option. Change is not."
A gigantic bee flies in through the window and buzzes futilely against glass, uncomprehending the invisible barrier between it and sunlight. I watch it pound its wings furiously against a brick wall it cannot see freezing its bright future that ought to be rushing closer with each exertion.
It can't understand in its fragile eggshell mind what the barrier is, let alone how to fly around it. It flies and buzzes and sweats and then collapses intermittently to recover for another bout of window bashing. If only it could fly a little faster and straighter, it could break through the looking glass.
Is it the bee's fate to flail bravely against that which it doesn't understand? That may be the bee's place, but mine is to avert fate. Compassion will hinder the inevitable if it may.
I catch it in a cup. I carry it outside and fling it free into the air.
A liberated bee flies to freedom no wiser about glass barriers but no less determined to fly on triumphantly.
Today apparently has scripts waiting for us. We walk along the mirror's edge of a looking glass.
But first I free run.
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Event Report: 2013: What Comes Next with Daniel Pinchbeck and Friends
blog posted by lxpk Tue, 2009-04-28 14:48
I attended 2013: What Comes Next with Daniel Pinchbeck (author of 2012 and Breaking Open The Head) and a panel of mostly excellent speakers.
Cooper joined me and did his first Cimmerian duty shoot a brief interview I did with Daniel Pinchbeck. I asked him an important question.
Video coming soon.
Also, need to get Daniel copy of The Diamond Age.
Idea I'm working on: One-man army book clubbing. Get 5 of your favorite important book and circulate it amongst everyone you know who needs it.
Must talk to Graham about rebooting Mind Bombs!
Talking like Rorschach. Wow.
Great event and they launched a new social network for transformation called evolver.net. Check it out!
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Empowerment Bandcamp is launched
blog posted by lxpk Mon, 2009-04-27 18:04 Tags:Bandcamp is barcamp for musicians and we're not the first to think of it.
Bandcamp is an idea some other people from Caroline Collective coworking space have already begun in their own way.
http://carolinecollective.cc/
http://barcamp.org/BandCamp
Here's their intro:
What is BandCamp About? Music, Musicians, Artists, Bands, marketing and promoting your band, booking a tour, dos and don'ts, selling your music online/offline, old guard vs new guard, etc.
There are several goals to Bandcamp. First, to deliver tools to Houston musical artists that will allow them to more effectively practice their craft. Second, to open lines of communication between all members and levels of the Houston Music Community. Finally, it is our goal to cohere and direct the Houston music community towards a path that will allow us to gain national recognition for the talent and expertise of the musicians and genres sprouting up and fostered in Houston.
We hope to accomplish these goals through an open forum and discussion about the music scene in Houston occurring between musicians, artists, the people who service them, booking agents, club owners, recording studios, and the press which writes about the music scene. We additionally plan to hold how-to sessions for artists and members of the Houston music industry to bring us all up to a level of shared knowledge in such skills as booking, recording, merchandising, online/offline promotion, touring, management and licensing.
So What the Heck Is Coworking?
Coworking starts with community.
The coworking movement strives to combine the relaxed working environment of the home office with a dynamic social atmosphere.
The coworking model encourages the free flow of projects and ideas and is founded on the belief that working together is working smarter.
Who Is Coworking For?
Coworking is cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers, independents and anyone looking for a space to conduct their work in an environment alternative to the traditional working office.
As the global marketplace continues to free the worker from his/her physical location, more and more young professionals work as either “digital nomads” or as home-office based independents.
About Caroline Collective
Long overdue in Houston, Caroline Collective was created to positively impact the cultural landscape of Houston by fostering community, collaboration and creativity across all artistic and technological disciplines.
A unique combination of private workspace, public art space, and open collaborative desk space, Caroline Collective provides a place where citizens can work in collaboration or privately, with a conference room and individual desks. Furniture, ample power outlets, secure broadband internet access and the general amenities of an office environment will be provided according to need.
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2009 Birthday State of the Empowerment: Announcing Stores & Comics
blog posted by lxpk Thu, 2009-04-02 13:34 Tags:
2009 Birthday State of the Empowerment: Announcing Stores & Comics
March 18, Pescadrome, Santa Barbara: Alex gave his first Birthday State of the Empowerment talk to announce Empowerment's first retail stores, preview upcoming comics and explain the spacepunk movement behind it all. Then he wrote a blog post about himself in the third person and this fourth wall-shattering sentence.
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A question of branding
blog posted by lxpk Sat, 2009-03-14 18:16My mind is perpetually processing permutations of possible nonmenclatures for Empowerment. I have so many concepts to develop with so many potential naming conventions that I need to blog about it to keep it all straight.
Thyself is problematic
Empower Thyself is problematic because it sounds cultish and pushy. Thyself has to go. It can remain a slogan, like Apathy Is Obsolete and Empower Humanity.
Fearful Symmetry
One aspect of the logo I want to preserve is symmetry.
BeEmpowered is symmetrical with the Ω O in the middle of the word which I like, but there is already taken by a christian ministry with sweet graphics. http://beempowered.com/
I think the core name has to be just Empower, Empowered or Empowerment.
The non-profit wil be called Empower Humanity.
The for-profit will be called Empower, Inc..
Domain Names
The trouble is that most of the domains I want are taken.
I think I should switch to empowerment.tv for the main domain name until such time as I can get empowerment.com from the squatter who has it. That will take luck or money.
Empowerpedia.com is squatted.
But Empowerpedia.org is not! Got it.
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