User:Mpnolan

Mutual recursion

See Mike Nolan.

About me

Imagine a vacuum cleaner so powerful that it not only swallows visible debris like bread crumbs and dust, but also the unvisible, like odor-causing bacteria, and SLURPS coffee and Kool-Aid stains right out of the shag. Imagine a vacuum cleaner with enough sucking power to rip your skin off, pull alien spacecrafts out of orbit, or lift a concrete swimming pool straight outta the Earth! Imagine a vacuum cleaner that, when you were done using it, not only left your house looking clean, but also left it smelling like mint and congratulated you on your golf game.

That's what I would be like if I were a vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, I'm a human, and sucking's not a good thing anymore.

I'm Mike Nolan, a member of the Voyager class. I'm interested in programming, math, GNU/Linux and writing. Lately though, I've been feeling a bit dissatisfied with my life and have been trying to vary my interests. When I grow up I want to be a squirrel.

Near the end of the 2004-2005 school year I got heavily into skateboarding again. I got my new Toy Machine board on May 18 and was progressing at unprecedented rates. Ten days later, though, one of the trucks shattered after a 1.5-foot ollie off a dock. Turns out the bastards at Tum Yeto didn't put riser pads on! This is partly my fault and partly theirs, but in any case I am currently without a skateboard. I should have it fixed by the time school starts. If you're a skateboarder, check out the skateboarding guide I wrote.

I'm interested in tunneling and other kinds of urban exploration, though there seems to be very little opportunity for this in Maryville.

I am pretty reclusive. On the reclusiveness scale, where 1 represents Davy Gorham, 9 represents a block of wood, and 10 represents Chad Henderson, I rate at about an 8. Near the end of the year, I began spending a fair amount of time out of my room. One day during this period I spent nearly an entire day away from my CRT (monitor) and allegedly there was speculation that something had happened to me (e.g., I'd been kidnapped). My reclusiveness factor (damn, we need to go through with that Academy MUD idea) will probably decrease next year, because I'm going to be a CL.

Speaking of which, I've been selected to be a Community Leader for Matt Garrett's wing, 3W, next year. I'll be rooming with Matt Colson in 320 (2^6 * 5). If you like mischief, consider moving to our wing.

Music

My musical tastes vary depending on how I'm feeling. I'll categorize them by mood when I get a lot of them together. For now this is just a braindump.

Prodigy, Aphex Twin, Nirvana, A Perfect Circle, Tool, The Beatles, NIN, Adam's Off Ox, The Floating City, Radiohead, Meshuggah, Groupthink, Alkaline Trio, Thrice, Neutral Milk Hotel, NOFX, Kronos String Quartet, Clint Mansell, Opeth, Simon & Garfunkel, Iron & Wine, Ben Folds Five, 311, Weezer, Portishead, Garbage

I've found lately that I really like feminine (which is only a subset of female) vocalists. I also find that happy music is good for my disposition, and I want to balance the scales a little, as most of what I have above is pretty damn depressing music or feeling sorry for yourself music. Suggestions welcome!

After MASMC

Some places I'm considering going after the Academy are (roughly in order of preference): Carnegie Mellon, UW-Madison, Gatech, Berkeley, Rose-Hulman, Tulsa, SWMSU, Rolla. I don't know how many of these places will accept me and then, after that, how many can be paid for with a combination of financial aid and loans. I haven't done any research because, well, it's boring. I haven't taken any of the standardized tests either. I'm hoping having this section here will either 1.) Remind me and make me start "takin' care of business (and workin' overtime)" or 2.) Cause me to commit suicide in anguish, thus solving the problem. There's more than one way to skin a cat! (Incidentally, my friend claims that there are exactly 5 ways to skin a cat, which really simplifies a lot of things!)

Whatever happens, I'll probably be majoring in CS. Also considering something astronomy-related.

Contact info

• Jabber: mpnolan@jabber.org
• AIM: Fountain of Rust
• E-mail: mpnolan [at] gmail [dot] com (No longer codified, since I realized today that people might need to contact me while I'm not logged into an IM service--for example, when my Internet connection is down.)
• Physical location: Cooper 315

External links

• My website - it contains a wiki on which I write whatever comes to my mind.
• My Xanga - A combination of technical stuff about programming and Xanga itself, nonsense/humor (they're the same for me), and inquisition to the audience.