I can understand people’s hesitation to do volunteer work like phone banking or door knocking. It can be intimidating to have that direct contact with strangers, especially when you’re feeling like you’re intruding on those precious few moments they have to relax and spend time with their families. And it’s true, you are being an intrusion. But, based on my experiences last night, simply acknowledging that can make a difference. I didn’t run into any particularly hostile people, but I did bump up against a few very convicted conservatives and people who just didn’t want to talk. In those cases, I simply apologized for bothering them, said thanks for their time, and ended the call. You let it roll off your back, and instead take pleasure in the couple of people you get through to who already support what you’re doing, or, in those rare instances, discover for the first time that they support what you’re doing. A job like this is partially about voter persuasion, and it’s good to keep that in mind. I often imagined I was explaining the issues to a good friend, and tried to keep the conversation chatty when the person on the other line seemed encouraging of it.

I’ve been reading Get Out The Vote by Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, and there are some experiments documented in that book that really influenced my thinking about how to run a voter contact campaign. For example, volunteer phone banks are often more successful than commercial/professional phone banks, but only if you have volunteers who are enthused about the campaign and willing to engage with the people they’re contacting. The script actually matters little; it seems that making the contacts feel like their opinion is important and that someone is listening is what really matters. Additionally, good volunteer phone bankers can create one vote out of every 20 completed calls, which is among the best conversion rates of all the various voter contact methods tested (such as leaflet drops, TV ads, election day festivals, etc), not to mention it is perhaps the cheapest and most efficient. And, from my perspective, quite a good use of a Tuesday night.

Luckily, I’ve already gotten one down, though it was a bit of a cheat: Michael Pollan’s Food Rules. Surprisingly, I’ve yet to read any of his other books, though after the documentaries of his I’ve seen, the articles of his I’ve read, and now this book, I’d just be filling in the details and the science behind his recommendations. The book was a quick read and full of bite-sized advice, and if you’re honestly looking to change your eating patterns in the New Year, this seems to be as good a place as any to start.

The rest of my list is a collection of works of politics, education, biography and fiction. I’m a few pages into The Speaker of the House by Matthew N. Green. It seems like it’ll be a good overview of various Speaker’s methods and time in office, which, as part of my effort to better understand the Legislative branch of government, should prove quite insightful. I’ve also briefly skimmed through How to Win Every Argument by Madsen Pirie, though only enough to know that it’s going to be a great introductory course in logic. The last book in my stack that I’ve started to read is Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, considered one of the foundational books of feminist thought. I had borrowed it from the library early last year, but couldn’t get through it in the three weeks the library allowed me. I’ll probably start it fresh, but I’m really excited to wrap it up.

Of the books I haven’t started yet, there are two works of fiction: A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron and The Magicians by Lev Grossman. The first has really great reviews on Amazon, though I know very little about it, and the second came recommended via Boing Boing. Also in the fiction vein is Classic Myths to Read Aloud by William F. Russell. Ali, like many kids, is really into the Greek and Roman myths, so I’m looking forward to enjoying these stories with her.

To round out my list, I’ve got Aung San Suu Kyi’s The Voice of Hope, C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and E. D. Hirsch Jr’s The Making of Americans and What Your Third Grader Needs to Know. Aung San Suu Kyi is an amazing and inspirational writer, C. S. Lewis is a classic, and the E. D. Hirsch books look to be full of practical educational information.

All in all, I think I’ve got an excellent selection of books on hand. And even with all of those in front of me, I can’t even really dive into them until I finish Atlas Shrugged (which I’m 650 pages into of 1070) and The Myth of a Christian Nation (which is the only thing I have out from the library right now). Here’s to a new year of reading!

Since I decided to get a G1, I’ve been really getting into Android development. All forays into new programming languages necessitate good reference materials, and I’ve been attached to The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development by Mark Murphy. The book is really well written, with lots of good examples and source code, and in the few email chats I’ve had with him, Mark seems to be a really great guy who knows his stuff.

One other thing I like about this book, and Mark’s company, CommonsWare, is the business model behind the book. In addition to a regular dead-tree version, they publish PDF and Kindle versions, free of DRM. These versions are available via their “Warescription”, which, for $35 per year, gives you access to all of the updates to the book (as well as any other books they release) throughout the year. They also offer a bug-bounty program, which allows you to extend your subscription for 6 months for every bug you find.

If you’re looking to get into Android development, definitely check out this book. I highly recommend it.

First of all, I really need to not be sick. I was sick, and then I got better, and then, literally a day later, I started feeling like crap again. Fricken winter and it’s dry air. I thought I was done, I thought my winter cold was complete… but no. I hope this ends soon, because I feel it moving into my ears and I do not want to spend the next week in a congested fog.

Secondly, I have a book sitting on my shelf, just begging to be finished. I stole Tanya’s copy of As Aventuras de Ngunga, because it was little and in Portuguese and I really need to practice reading real Portuguese sentences. I’m halfway through, and even though it’s small, I’m proud of the fact that I burned through the first half in such a short amount of time, because IT’S NOT IN ENGLISH. Granted, I looked up every 10th word in the dictionary, but I still consider that an achievement. Only 80 pages left… just waiting for me to read them. I need to get on that.

My hobbies are pretty cyclic.

I find that I get really obsessed with one thing, go crazy on it for a month or two, then jump to something else. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s a pretty consistent cycle, though, so I can probalby start to anticipate when I’m getting bored and start picking up the next thing… let’s see:

Comic Books > Illustration > Interface Design > Operating Systems > Dynamic Languages > Real Time Communications (Instant Messaging) > Web Design > Movies > Comic Books

Now, I could have started with anything, but comics seemed like as good a place as any. And, speaking of comics, buy Demo. It’s simply amazing. It’s hands-down one of the best new-ish comics I read in a few years. (Oh, and Heroes totally ripped off the Demo story “Emmy” with this comic… jerks.)

The basic premise of the book is that television culture has destroyed the way that we hold and think about public discourse. In the 1800s, text was our only medium. Before the advent of photography, it was very rare to know what public figures looked like. Thus, the way that we knew about famous individuals was via the things they wrote, and the things written about them. Because of this, a premium was placed on the ability to express oneself eloquently and intelligently.

With television, image became the most important element. TV moved discourse and debate away from thoughtful conversation and into the realm of showmanship. It became about telling a story, or rather showing a story. It’s hard to have discussions on TV, since people tend to do a lot of thinking while in discussion, and pointing a camera towards someone in the act of thinking doesn’t make for an exciting visual.

The most interesting thing for me about this book is that, since it was written in the early 80s, I’m constantly re-examining the author’s arguments in the context of the Internet Age. The Internet is a strange medium, since it’s still predominantly textual. It’s a strange kind of text, though, in that it, like television, is mostly throw-away. In the 19th century, text was expensive. It was printed, and distributed, and required special equipment. Now, most of the email traffic on the internet is spam — worthless information. It’s temporary and throw-away. Instant messaging more so. So, while the internet is mostly text, we’ve definitely not returned to the “golden age” of the printing press. We have a text world, but with the bias of a television generation.

More and more we’re running away from text on the Internet, too. As someone who works in advertising, you don’t know how many times I hear (and say), “we need less text”, “no one reads on the Internet”, “we need to show it, not tell it.” The quick cuts of TV and the desire for instant gratification have effectively killed our attention spans. People wait less than 4 seconds for a page to load. “Movies” on the Internet rarely exceed 5 minutes. Some commercial spots are down to 5 seconds. AJAX is huge right now because we can refresh part of the page, rather than the whole thing, thus cutting down reload time.

The evidence is everywhere. The Internet isn’t making is more intelligent — it’s making us less patient.

We are addicted to instant information. More so, we are addicted to instant entertainment. Whether you get off on sports scores, new gadgets, Hollywood gossip, Wikipedia entries, song lyrics, or videos of kids playing with light sabers, it’s all just entertainment. Welcome to our Brave New World.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to pray.

Just found out today, in doing a search to help inspire Aline, that the full text to the wonderful book “Letters to a Young Poet” is available online. I love the internet.

The Warrior of the Light sometimes behaves like water, flowing around the obstacles he encounters.

Occasionally, resistance might mean destruction, and so he adapts to the circumstances. He accepts, without complaint, that the stones in his path hinder his way through the mountains.

Therein lies the strength of water: It cannot be touched by a hammer or ripped to shreds by a knife. The strongest sword in the world cannot scar its surface.

The river adapts itself to whatever route proves possible, but the river never forgets its one objective: the sea. So fragile at its source, it gradually gathers the strength of the other rivers it encounters.

And, after a certain point, its power is absolute.