Saul Williams’ trek through the midwest between shows sparked some musings on Twitter.

Driving from Denver to Kansas City. My mind travels at a faster pace than my body. I mark my way with words. If the newest technology enhances transparancy then this is an ideal time to share your process. Share how your mind works. How do you think?

Do u associate w/negative thoughts and ideas? Are u cynical? What do u profess? What would u proclaim? Are you more concerned with like-minded agreement? Are you a naysayer? Perhaps, like me, you raise questions…

But who am I fooling? is this viral voice my voice or a thumbprint personae? Is it really that deep? Maybe its just a simple way of posting ur whereabouts incase loved ones need to find you. Maybe its a reflection of the human mind…. Each tweet a thought yearning to be acknowledged. Where does the quest for attention begin…and how does it beget survival?

I have passing thoughts all day. Thoughts that I ignore. Thoughts I don’t associate with. Then, there are thoughts that I do identify with. These are the thoughts that I voice and take ownership of by saying ‘I’ or simply pursuing them. For everything I say, there’s a million thoughts I did not say. Some because they came from weak or narrow-minded places. Some because it would leave me too vulnerable.

The mind, like this stretch between Denver and Kansas City, is an open field. All of this farm land! What will I harvest? Fields of patience; rows and rows of clarity. But most importantly, how will I travel? Highways of doubt, winding faithways of fearlessness, step by step…. …and here is a train. What does it symbolize? Expedience. Decision making. And the blood, sweat, and tears of those who laid the tracks.

This is my train of thought as I type into this digital rock and ponder thumb pianos…. Kononolingus…

Twitter asks us “What are you doing?”. But if everyone actually answered that, it’d be a wasteland.

Luckily, Saul managed to make a stop in Portland on the Oddity Fair tour. I’d highly recommend checking it out (plus, you’ll get to see Les Paul’s sick bass playing skills).

Oh yea…

After the show, Saul jumped the fence to get a chance to meet the fans up close. It was suggested that I go say hi, but what do you say in those situations? Saige (friend at ENTP) did go introduce herself, and apparently mentioned that her shy coworker was a huge fan. She pointed me out, so Saul grabbed my shoulder and said hi. It was a cool, awkward moment… and I couldn’t think of anything more profound to say than “Oh hey, awesome show – I’m a huge fan blah blah”.

Background

It looks like I’m not the only one who plays in IRB a lot. My previous IRB post got some attention from Clinton Nixon at Viget labs. His post on IRB has my earlier tips, as well as some other ones.

If you didn’t get a chance to read my first post, here’s the code

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def ls
   %x{ls}.split("\n")
end

def fl(file_name)
   file_name += '.rb' unless file_name =~ /\.rb/
   @@recent = file_name 
   load "#{file_name}"
end
 
def rl
  fl(@@recent)
end

Basically, instead of having to type ‘load “foo.rb”’ every time you change a file, you can first type ‘fl “foo.rb”’ and then type “rl” each time thereafter.

This has been working great for me, and these methods have gotten a lot of use.

New tip

However, one thing that bugs me is that I end up doing this a lot:

1) Typing code in vim
2) Typing rl in irb
3) Pressing up twice to get my last history item
4) pressing enter to try out the method again

For example, if I had a syntax error or something and I want to try calling a method again, I have to do 5 steps.

Here’s my simple solution to this:

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def rt
        rl
        eval(choose_last_command)
end

# prevent 'rt' itself from recursing. 
def choose_last_command
        real_last = Readline::HISTORY.to_a[-2]
        real_last == 'rt' ? @@saved_last :  (@@saved_last = real_last)
end

This lets me both reload the file and retry the code in just one step. Very useful.