People love Base classes! They have tons of methods waiting to be used. Just check out ActiveRecord::Base's method list: >> ActiveRecord::Base.methods.length => 530 But why stop there? Why not have even more methods? In fact, let's put EVERY METHOD on one Base class! So I did. It's called Base. Just subclass it and feel free to directly reference any class method, instance method, or constant defined on any module or class in the system. Like this: class Cantaloupe < Base def embiggen encode64(deflate(SEPARATOR)) end end >> Cantaloupe.new.embiggen => "eJzTBwAAMAAw\n" See that `embiggen` method calling encode64 and deflate methods? Those come from the `Base64` and `Zlib` modules. And the `SEPARATOR` constant is defined in `File`. Base don't care where it's defined! Base will call it! By the way, remember those 530 ActiveRecord methods? That's amateur stuff. Check out Base loaded inside a Rails app: >> Base.new.methods.count => 6947 It's so badass that it takes FIVE SECONDS just to answer that question!