November 28, 2004

What we all seem to have in common...

One of the things that always amazes me is how often I come across developers who have both good taste in music and a tendency to be musicians themselves. While I can’t speak to the musician side of things it seems Uche Ogbuji is no exception to this generality. In a follow-up to a prior post (see the piece entitled “Mars in Scorpio rampant”) Uche mentions Karmacoma and Massive Attack although stops short of explaining what that means. To someone like myself who has a deep root of both appreciation and feelings towards the music that came from Bristol, England (or was directly influenced by this music) during the early to mid-90’s (right smack dab in the middle of the grunge to post-grunge era, or Pearl Jam to Matchbox Twenty for those of you still scratching your head :) I completely understand what Uche was suggesting with his reference to a timeless classic of electric poetry and the poets in which brought this poem into being, expressing thoughts I think we all could learn a valuable lesson from, if not more. There is an emotion that is stirred when listening to the likes of Tricky, Portishead, Massive Attack, Faithless, and a few other groups and musicians (or mixtures thereof) that can not really be described in words as it is an emotion that can truly only be felt. To this day the flow that starts with “Reverence” (from Faithless::Reverence), continues with “Don’t Leave” and (my personal favorite) “Salva Mea” and moves through to “If Loving You Is Wrong” is a flow that I turn to on a regular basis to get my own flow moving (the rest of the tracks are amazing as well although this particular sequence tends to ignite the flow.) Karmacoma is a member of this same class which expands into tens of hours of tracks with equal if not greater tendency to inspire at times of inspirational poverty in my life.

I realize musical preference is a personal thing. What I feel to be a foundation of soul defining poetry may sound like irritating noise to you. But the beauty in this difference is that the foundation of music is built where science, art, poetry, and human emotion co-exist which in many ways is the same place a true blue hacker finds his or her inspiration for the code he or she writes. If this same intersection of multi-dimensional points existed in the same location for all of us I have a feeling things would begin to get a bit crowded and boring and we would all probably look to other means for inspiration and definition of being fairly quickly. Confinement to the traditions of society is something I think we all tend NOT to conform to; yet one more common trait of the Hackers and Painters Paul Graham so elegantly and accurately defined in his recent O’Reilly release of the same title.

Thank God this intersection does not exist in the same place… and yet with that said its always nice to find a fellow hacker who has found inspiration from a source that is similar, even if that similarity begins and ends at this same intersection of personal dimensions the end point in which will eventually become our own unique, and ever changing definition of personality and individual traits.

Cheers Uche! It seems we may have at least one other thing in common… the prior commonality made apparent in our obvious shared tendency to let our astrological personality profile find common ground with our actual personality profile - whether we want it to or not. Personally I would’nt want it any other way… at very least this trait tends to make life a bit more interesting from time to time. :)

If I did’nt make it more apparent in my previous post let it be said now… You were correct in being irritated by my post. You’re arguments were spot on. I jumped the gun and I should have been more careful in reading what you had said prior to posting the code snippet. My apologies for this obvious oversight and subsequent tounge lashing. It was undeserved and like you said, unfair.

Best regards,

<M:D/>