Archive for November, 2011

I love the track “Heroes” off of Bowie’s album “Heroes.” Bowie was at an interesting inflection point here in his career having burned through two (three?) identities. The iconic cover makes me think of Japanese Noh theatre, perhaps a hint of Bowie’s impending directional shift, but nevertheless falls, rightly, into the designation as being part of “the Berlin Trilogy.” It was a great run of work with Bowie and Brian Eno collaborating in West Berlin and harnessing the city’s schizophrenic energy to paint the beautiful story of the title track “Heroes.”

I, I can remember (I remember) Standing, by the wall (by the wall) And the guns, shot above our heads (over our heads) And we kissed, as though nothing could fall (nothing could fall) And the shame, was on the other side Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever Then we could be heroes, just for one day

Somehow the photography of the iconic album fits perfectly.

And, of course, the video: complete with late 70’s laser lights and fog effects:


David Bowie - Heroes by hushhush112

There’s such a unified “feel” to this collection of media, it was fascinating to hear about an alternative take. Retronaut recently posted this series of other cover candidates, and they’re all marvelous.

Practical Metaprogramming Video Now Available

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

As mentioned previously, I gave a talk at Rubyconf XI in New Orleans a few months back. The video is now available. If you want to see me talking about some of the finer details of the Ruby programming language while wearing a shirt from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, here’s your chance.

“Practical Metaprogramming” hosted by Confreaks

It may be a bit of a “no duh” observation to point out that joining a consulting firm has a very different work flow versus working in corporate. A few numbers:

  • Number of days when pairing occurred: 5
  • Number of hours spent pairing: ~37
  • Number of stand-ups: 5
  • Time spent in stand ups (week): ~ 50 minutes
  • Brown Bag Lunch: 90 minutes
  • Emails received within project team: 3
  • Emails received from client: 1
  • Skills Worked On: HTML5, CSS3, Rails, Backbone.JS
  • Times astounded by my pair’s refactoring skills: 2
  • Times astounded by my peer teams’ approaches to managing complexity elegantly: 2