 Yes, I am Ron Evans, Dead Program. That's my more important identity on Twitter. And I am one of the members of the hybrid group here in Los Angeles. We're web consulting and development. Let's talk about LA for a quick second now. Los Angeles does not get the same attention that other areas of the country located in Northern California might, as far as technology and entrepreneurship, but we've got an amazing community here. We've seen some of our local members here today. Evan and Michael, we've got some other really remarkable people coming up this afternoon. We have a tremendous community here in Los Angeles. I would definitely want to recommend that if you're around on Tuesdays, reliably, we have the Los Angeles Ruby Parade, which is put together by Evan Phoenix and by Shane. We, every week, Thursday, or excuse me, Tuesday for seven to 10 p.m. Just roll out. There is no agenda. It's someone of an anarchist society. We just hang out, talk code. We did some work on KidsRuby there. So definitely come on out. And also, I do want to take a brief moment to mention KidsRuby, which is an actual Ruby intended for kids. Go check it out through website kidsruby.com. It's on GitHub. We look forward to your patches. All right. But I'm not going to talk about KidsRuby yet. I'm going to talk about music. Music is a world within itself with the language that we all understand. At least that's what Stevie Wonder said. And that lyric has always really stayed with me because it seemed to describe programming at the same time. Let's take a look here at the visual representation of music. We have the either absence or presence of sound, which are known as either rests, in the case of the absence of sound or notes if the sound is present. We can combine those together using specific timing doing it. We combine that together into either scales if we played them one after another or into chords if we combine them. We can take those patterns and combine those in the higher order patterns to create measures. We take those and we can create an entire song representing in the visual pattern language that is entirely different than the actual day that itself, which is auditory. So as an example, we can take even one of the most complex pieces of music ever written and we can represent it entirely in a visual format. It's amazing. So that's all we need to know to play music. That's it, we're done. Cool, right? Wait a second. Small problem, right? We need to practice to play music the same way that we need to write code in order to be programmers. You can't be a coder if you don't actually do coding just by reading books on programming, although obviously very good ones. And if you want to code in a group of people, just like a band, you actually need to practice together. You can't do it all on your own. So let's talk about the structure of playing a song and how that might be able to be compared to the process of developing software. First of all, here we have a very high order specification known as a set list and that is the songs that the band is going to play together. One of the rules about jamming is that at least two members of the group need to know a particular song in order to play it, otherwise we can't get started. Then you need to decide on which key of music. Music is a relative relationship between the frequencies of sound and so you could have the exact same song playing two different keys sounds entirely wrong. So you need to synchronize the key signature against signature of vocabulary we use frequently in the technology world. So then we're ready to start the song. We know which song we're gonna play and the drummer comes off the tempo. Keep in mind that the drummer is responsible for how fast or slow the song is and it indicates to the rest of the band that the change is about to come but it's not actually responsible for the rhythm or the groove. That is actually the bass player. The bass player is who establishes the foundation for the song and helps provide the basis that all the rest of it coming on the singer. Many songs have the exact same chord changes. The melody or the words are the thing that distinguish one song from another and also this is what allows the user to connect directly with the interface of the information being transmitted. I mean that person to tell what song is being sung. So then once we've got that foundation established then improvisatory sections can be added onto this differently known as solos. This might be new features that have grown in that add some particular value that wasn't originally planned to the song but ended up making it a lot better, really nice. Now it's time to end the song. We've got to make contact and one thing about music is it's not just auditory. It's the entire spectrum of the sensory experience making eye contact is critical when you're communicating with other people and that is definitely the case when playing music and it's time to end the song. Sometimes it's not enough. You're jamming away and no one's paying any attention. You need to get extreme like, hey, the song is about to end right here, right now. We need to really get people's attention. The trick here is to realize that there's always a center. There's always a focus within any band and it's not necessarily the lead singer. It could be the bass player. The important thing is that there's a foundation for the creation of this particular information set that everybody is looking to this one person to establish this is the locusts, this is the center of control. So let's talk about different styles. This section is actually inspired by John Dahl talk that I heard originally in future Ruby and Canada last year. Excellent conference anyone who made it to that. So let's talk about the evolution of music styles and how that might be able to be compared to the evolution of technology. When we first see music being actually documented in some type of form, it's a highly specialized art form which is restricted to basically a very small segment of the population of our privileged class. Here's an example of some IBM 370 assembler code that's circa early 60s. And here we see this is Hello World in IBM 370 assembler. Somewhere in there is Hello World. You can find it if you look, yeah, somewhere in there. So it takes a lot of specialized knowledge to even do the simplest activities. And this is very similar to the professional priesthood class who basically ran data centers in the early days of vacuum tubes. So music continued to evolve. Now it becomes much more accessible to common people but at the same time requires very sophisticated regimentation. The music itself is very, very strict and still is very structured. Here's an example of Hello World. And as somewhere in there, yes. I bet how many people have ever seen cobalt in this room, more than I thought. So somewhere in there, yes. You see that the structure is getting a little bit simpler. We're seeing a little bit less ornamentation but there's still considerably more form than function. And this is very typical of the kind of hardware that is being used at the time. So then music continues to evolve. The jazzier, the smaller combos it becomes more about improvisatory. Still there is a tremendous high bar of required ability in order to do anything at all. This is very similar to out all that we see in the mini computer revolution. We see a lot more people starting to have access to information technology. But, and we see here a lot less ornamentation now. You can actually recognize the Hello World in the code. The big revolution hits. Who here knows who this band is? That's Sam, that's Sam. This is the Grateful Dead. And the Grateful Dead is probably one of the most significant organizations in the history of information technology. I'm not kidding, I'll tell you why. This guy here, Jerry Garcia, just sort of hanging out in the back there looking sort of casual. He actually was a marketing genius. He basically invented the freemium business model. They would allow anyone to come into their concerts and to record, sell, distribute, do anything they wanted with the music. While the bands of the era that were maybe a little better known like the Rolling Stones were constantly in hoc to their record labels. The Grateful Dead was cashflow positive from day one. Also they created an entire economic ecosystem around their touring. There were people whose livelihoods were literally going around with the band buying and selling merchandise and contributing to the lifestyle of other fans. So what is the personal computer revolution hits and the Hindi language? Listen. But look how interesting this is. We see that for the first time the function actually outweighs the form. You can recognize immediately that this is Hello World. And now we're in the modern re-combined era. The mashup era. Anything goes. Perhaps we are doomed to continue to reinvent the past but we're doing it in new and interesting ways. And of course, the language of the present and the future. This is the only Ruby code in today's presentation. So let's talk about this rotation. Most software development projects have more than one person. There are a few very successful ones like desktop tower defense where one guy in a spare time is able to create something of significance. Michael Harville, obviously being a tremendous example of this. It's a lot more common to find duos. The two sieves. Larry and Sergey. There's new mobile examples of highly successful companies and open source projects that are the result of two people working together. A little less common is the trio. But the power trio has a lot of capacity. Jason Free wrote a blog post I can never seem to find the link to. But he was talking about, in his opinion, three was the ideal number to start, particularly startup. You've got a business guy, a tech guy, and a designer. I can get a real. I'm sorry, I'm getting this getting very odd. I wonder if I can find the blog post. Thank you. So then we have combos, which are a little bit closer to consultancies like maybe the hybrid group is. You have different specialized individuals who collaborate together. Then we have large development organizations. And most of us, when we think about significant development projects, we think about something that's very structured, very regimented, very ordered. But that really is not always the case, right? A marching band, like the extra action marching band here, is a great example of sort of a controlled chaos. And what is a very successful software project that functions in a similar way? How about Linux, right? So it's an idea that individuals can self-organize themselves, that they can figure out what they need to do and they can combine this together. So let's talk about a couple of anti-patterns. You're probably wondering how do musicians know so many songs? The answer is they don't. They use something called a Facebook, which is very much like a pattern directory, which describes in sometimes a very synopsized form, here are the ways to play Louis Louis. Maybe it's just blues and E. And so unfortunately though, being able to read the book of the patterns does not mean we know how to apply them. You still need to actually know the song to play. The idea here is that it's just reminding us. Also, don't try to do everything yourself. You need to know when you need to ask for help. Because it does look a little ridiculous. And very importantly, no one to stop. If it's not working, just stop and walk away. Some combinations just don't really work out well together. And some combinations are just entirely unique and I couldn't compatible with anything else. I mean though is when you collaborate with others, just let them have some space. It's not all just about you. Because when the ego goes to the ultimate extreme, you find suddenly you're all alone on stage and your project is dead in the water replaced by a much cooler project where the people wanna talk and collaborate. So let's say we've talked the theory section. Let's get into some actual practice. This is an amazing thing that I'm gonna ask you to do. Put away your laptops. Put away your computers, your PDAs, your smartphones, anything that you might be distracted by and come on up close to the front. You've got a couple of FTCs. We need to sort of be closer together physically for this. This is a kind of experiment. So bear with me. First time I saw this was actually in Canada done by Misha Gluberman who is a really remarkable guy. So this is what we're going to do as I look for my props. We're going to learn a symbolic musical language together right now. Okay, so this is how we're gonna do it. We're all going to start out with the first musical symbol which is going to be a vocal sound, like an ah or a do, the o, anything that's a vocal type sound. And we're all gonna sing this together on the count of four. So if we one, two, three and then we'll all sing and it can be any kind of vocal sound but the trick is it has to be a vocal. Okay, like a vowel sound. So, in English it's a vowel. All right, so let's do this on the count of four. Are you ready? One, two, three, ah. Beautiful, all right. That's our first symbol in our musical vocabulary. Now let's do our second symbol in our musical vocabulary. It's going to be a clapping sound. The idea here is that it should be like a light clapping, like maybe a golf clap. But you can vary the way it is. Like it could be like this. You could change the sound. The idea is don't be too loud and don't hit anybody right next to you. So it's a little clapping sound as our second musical symbol. Are we ready? We're gonna do this on four. One, two, three and. I'm not there anymore, I'm just gonna stop. Beautiful, all right. That's our second musical symbol. Now our third musical symbol, the third and the last of our basic vocabulary is going to be a cibulant sound. Which if you don't know what that is, it's like a hissing, like a shushing. Like a shh. Or it could be a ss. Or you could, you know, get all grateful dead and shh. You know, whatever you feel like doing. All right, we're gonna do that on four. You ready? One, two, three and. Shhh. And stop. Beautiful. All right, that is our basic musical vocabulary. So now let's use those basic symbols and we're going to use these props. The, let's say that the American flag is gonna be the vocal, the ah, the ho. Let's start that out right here. Thank you. Oh, oh, by the way, everyone stand up please. All right, so now the cibulant will be the pirate flag. And we'll start that right here. You're the pirate. You look kind of pirate to me. And then the last one is the clapping. We're gonna do, clapping is California. So we'll start the ah, ah, not you. You sir. You go up like this up. All right, so now we'll get back up to the front. Now we're, this is how it's going to work, all right. For now, ignore all the flags except for the vocal, okay. You guys hear the other flags, just hang on. Hold up your flag as high as you can. This is going to be the center for the vocal sound. He is going to start the sound and he's gonna pass the flag around. As the flag goes, whoever's right around it and the immediate vicinity make that sound. If you're not in the immediate vicinity, do not make any sound, okay. So move a little closer to your comrades. Thank you. Hold up the flag as high as you can. You're gonna pass it directly back to you to out as soon as you start to sing. And all of the people in the direct vicinity. I wanted people away. Yeah, only one, only directly around. Okay, we're ready to start? Let's do this. One, two, three, and, the person who I gave the pirate flag to, right, you're gonna be doing the, exactly the hissing sound. So only the people right around the vicinity, it's the exact same thing we just did with the vowel sound, but we're gonna do it with a similar sound. Again, only direct vicinity around the flag. I'm gonna start on four, you ready? One, two, exact same thing, except with the last flag, the California flag, and we're gonna do it with the clapping, all right. We know the game, let's do this. One, all right, so now let's go one level deeper. Now what we're gonna do is we're going to play flag game with all three going at once, right. So you're clapping, where's the vowel? Which is the US, US over there, vowel sound. And where is the simulant? All right, so if you're directly around that flag, make the shushing sound. If you're directly around this flag, make the clapping sound. If you're directly around that one, make the vowel sound. All right, and you guys hold those flags up really high so people can see them as you pass them. All right, you guys ready? Can we do this? One, two, three, exact same as the flag, and, except, no flags. All right, so use the number you are. I'll take that. Remember where you are. So now you're supposed to hand out. You guys are gonna close together. Where's the other one? Back there, okay, very good. All right, so the advanced flag, exactly the same as the flag game, but no flags. Now, I used to do this. It's gonna make it a lot easier, believe me. All right, so it's the exact same game, but with no flags with your eyes closed. You guys ready? Let's do this. One, two, vocabulary is where you're going to simulate a con-based game of life. Using each of you as cellular. The rules are simply this. If you are next to two people who are making the exact same sound, let's start making that sound. If everyone around you is making the same sound as you are making now, stop making sound. That's it. You may be wondering, what happens if they collide? I don't know, let's find out. We got to run the simulation a couple times, okay? So, okay, let's, we're gonna have to see the data set a little bit. Okay, so you, sir, are about, are going to be clapping. The shh, all right. So, remember, if, actually, this is gonna be a bad idea. You too, are we gonna do the similar one? We need to make sure we see it with an updated, or else the simulation will die. So, once again, let's close our eyes. We can't trust our senses. We have to concentrate on other parts of the experience. Think about what's happening, which sound are you gonna be making, and let's all begin. Are we ready? One, well, one of the things that happens when you sing, society's, the spiritual or religious practices are associated with singing is because the experience of singing collectively in a group actually does something to the brain causing a peptide called oxytocin to be produced. This particular chemical is known as the love chemical because when we start feeling that sense of belonging collectively in a group, that is the chemical that's actually being produced. And one of the really interesting things about this is that it's also associated with something that's called flow consciousness. Flow was first discovered by the university of Chicago psychologist, Mihe Chiksemiyagi, if I pronounce that right, poor guy. Anyway, a state of flow is that state of consciousness when every problem you encounter seem to have an easy solution, where hours go by like minutes, you're not even aware of the passage of time, and you are having a wonderful experience, you're having a great time doing your work. You ever heard that, I love my work? Well, this is the reason why. What we just did together was we practiced a state of collective flow consciousness, which is the same state of consciousness where we can optimally produce any type of information together as a group, like software development, for example. Because really what we were doing here today is what Dr. John Lilly would call programming and bioprogramming of the human biocomputer. So this type of metaprogramming is something that we want to take with us, and we want to try to experience on a daily basis. So how do we improve our lives? Study theory of the work that we do, understand the reasons why, experience that work together collectively, like reading code on open source projects together, not just alone, but by yourself, and just like a good musician will record their practicing. So you need to document the code that you write, even if you're not sharing with others, you need to not throw away so that you can go back and learn something from it later. And do the same thing collectively in a group. It's not about some impressive performance. It's about having the experience of reaching this shared psychology together, this shared state of consciousness. You can come together in a group with this type of shared flow. You can take a very simple pattern and the merchant phenomenon can result. Some of the greatest music ever made was improvised music. So all I can tell you is please go out and do it. Thank you.