Brad McConahay

“Contact” has always been one of my three favorite movies, and now I’m finally getting around to reading the book. I just ran across this paragraph…

“Beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, on the other side of the sky, is a universe teeming with radio emission. By studying radio waves you can learn about planets and stars and galaxies, about the composition of great clouds of organic molecules that drift between the stars, about the origin and evolution and fate of the universe. But all these radio emissions are natural-caused by physical processes, electrons spiraling in the galactic magnetic field, or interstellar molecules colliding with one another, or the remote echoes of the Big Bang red-shifted from gamma rays at the origin of the universe to the tame and chill radio waves that fill all of space in our epoch.” – (Carl Sagan, “Contact,” [1985], Pocket Books: New York NY, 1986, reprint, p.41)

While this is just one paragraph that leads to a larger idea within the context of the story, I think it stands on its own as pure poetry.

The company I work for recently discovered a product called BaseCamp, and the company that built it, called 37signals. We were simply in search of a project management solution and ended up finding somewhat of a philosophy (as well as a project management solution). This philosophy is outlined in the book Getting Real.

Now, I’m skeptical about almost everything. I don’t generally buy into anything without considerable time and thought. But by the time I’d read through the free sample chapters, I realized that they were saying many things I’d been thinking for years. Things I’d already learned from experience on my own. Things I thought were just me being lazy. Many things that our company already does inherently, but often fights against because they seem to go against conventional wisdom. This ended up being true all the way through the book.

Admittedly, so far, this kinda sounds like the rebellious outcast kid who finds comfort and refuge in a cult leader who finally identifies with him, who “speaks her language”, who “knows exactly what he’s thinking”. That’s okay; I’m wearing the black Nikes and purple shroud for now.

I’m certain their philosophy doesn’t apply directly to every situation, but their business is close enough in concept to our’s that I think it’s just about dead on. The only glaring difference I see is that 37signals often has a lot of public attitude about knowing what’s best for the customer, and not letting a product stray from it in anyway. While I do believe in that idea, the owner of our company has had a lot of business success with a more cordial approach to customers. I’m betting the same steadfast ideas can be done without being thrown so directly in customers’ faces.

By sheer coincidence, I’d recently been looking into some kind of new programming framework to standardize our tools on. Ruby on Rails has been making a lot of noise, but I had seen recent articles comparing Ruby to perl, and bought into the idea that Ruby is becoming popular simply because it has better-than-average marketing for an open source product. Since perl has been our environment of choice for 10 years, my first reaction was to try one of several perl frameworks that seem to be popular at the moment. After a couple hours wrestling with a large number of perl module installations and still not having anything to show for it, I decided to move on.

Ruby on Rails was the next test. Several tutorials on Ruby made it seem like a good enough language. Strong regular expression support? Check. Object oriented approach? Check. Easy code to read and learn? Check. Then I ran across a video demo of a “15 minute blog” done in Rails. Very impressive. Even without understanding every little detail, it was clear why the approach was fast and good. I figured installing Ruby and Rails would probably be a bear, but it went surprisingly smoothly and quickly. Not long after, I had the RadRails IDE installed and was working through the “Ruby on Rails: Up and Running” book. I simply didn’t encounter any of the usual “stoppers” that one runs into during this sort of thing.

It was about this time that I discovered Rails was created by 37signals partner David Heinemeier Hansson, and that it’s the framework for all their products. Wow, this just all seems to be coming together at the same time.

Certainly the verdict is still out on whether it will eventually become practical to make a full switch to Ruby on Rails for our products, but I’m very encouraged by what I’ve experienced so far.

I only hope that there’s not an alien ruler named Xenu at the end of this philosophy…

Wow, I don’t have enough good things to say about the new Porcupine Tree DVD, Arriving Somewhere. From the tight musicianship to the crisp cinematography, this is just a well done concert DVD. I ordered a limited edition numbered advance copy of this DVD a few months ago from Burning Shed, and then promptly forgot about it. A week ago from today, it showed up in the mail. For the next two hours I was totally mesmerized.

The main things that draw me to PT are drummer Gavin Harrison, and the heavier, more progressive parts of the music. Before now, I’d never really given the older or mellower material much of a chance. I really only listen to four songs on In Absentia, and most of Deadwing. Thanks to this DVD, I’m finding some older songs I enjoy, like “Even Less”, “Hatesong”, “Don’t Hate Me”, and the ultra-mellow “Heartattack in Lay By” – I would never have discovered the cool vocal arrangement at the end of that song otherwise. “Trains” is another song that somehow eluded me before.

My wife has always liked “The Sound of Muzak” and “Blackest Eyes”, but she never really cared to explore PT beyond that. She’s now discovering the songs I knew she’d like if only she would give them a chance, mostly from Deadwing. She loves “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here”, “Lazarus”, “Heartattack in a Lay By”, “The Start of Something Beautiful”, and “Halo”. The only other time we’ve bonded on any progressive music was Rush‘s Counterparts. She was a big fan of the Moody Blues and Pink Floyd in high school, so I had a feeling she’d like Steven Wilson‘s vocal sensibilities. British. Very British. In layers and layers.

Some notable things:

• Compared to the rest of the package, the DVD menus seem really cheap, like something you’d make with an off-the-shelf DVD authoring program. This isn’t a bad thing, though. One of my main complaints with DVDs is the silly menus you’re forced to wade through and wait on.
• Colin Edwin (bass) always looks like he just heard a good dirty joke, as though he’s just on the verge of busting out laughing. Or maybe he has a secret that he’s not going to tell you. The wife says he looks like he just “eeked one out.” Oh yeah, he’s also a kick-ass musician.
• The background vocals seem like they’re mixed a little too loudly on “The Sound of Muzak”. And Wilson’s lead vocals sound like maybe they’re a little low in many spots on the DVD. But if this is my only complaint, who cares.
• I could write many paragraphs on why I think Gavin Harrison transcends even the best prog and jazz drummers that I admire, but I’ll hold off.

The Porcupine Tree Official Website is at http://www.porcupinetree.com.