Mike's Mathom Collection

Not all who wander are lost …

Why bother creating this website? Why not? I like hacking around on computers (the original definition of tinkering with them, not the modern cracking that usurped the proper meaning) and wanted to create something for my own pleasure. If no one else on the planet ever sees this, I really and truly don't care.

First, I wanted to see if my little $40 (at the time) Beaglebone Black single-board computer could cut it as an always-on server, and the short answer is that it worked very well. For more information about the computers that run this web site, visit the servers page.

The second reason for this website's existence is to display all the genealogical information I have found about my family tree. I am grateful to the many online sources that have freely shared data; they have helped me fill in a significant number of holes. I hope that putting all the information I've collected back online will help others benefit while doing their own research.

The third reason is to give us an excuse to show off our dogs. We currently have one Flat-Coated Retriever (often two) and one Greater Swiss Mountain Dog — plus three cats — so this site gives us a chance to do our own “Brags & Wags”. The dogs have their own website: https://flatcoats.duckdns.org. Please click on the link or on the picture of Will (our first flat-coat, right) to go there.

There is also a vague fourth reason: in the modern era of the World Wide Web that is dominated by large ecosystems like Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, the fruity company that shall not be named, etc., the original purpose of the Web has been lost—to link and share information. This website is deliberately anachronistic so as to protest the “walled gardens” of the Web. I suppose that they all serve some useful purpose (and definitely a lot more not-so-useful ones), but the original point of the Web was “Hey, go over there to look at their cool things”, not “Stay here for our cool things (so we get more hits on our advertising links)”.

Why “illuminated”? I love looking at illuminated manuscripts. Though I am unlikely to ever own one of my own, I can traipse over to the Huntington Library to get my fix. My website background picture is a photograph I took of a Middle English psalter (Richard Maydestone, d. 1396, mss. likely early 15th century, HM 142 (Bement)) at the Huntington. An official version of the photograph is at the Huntington Digital Library, but I like mine a little better :-) — the gold leaf is more reflective.

	All graphics files (JPEG or PNG) on this site are my own except where credited and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you would like to use something, just ask!
	All other files (.html, .pdf, etc.) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

To contact me, you must do some work to prove you are a human in order to find my email address. Copy the code in the box below, follow this link to get to an interactive language shell, paste the code into the Program Code box, type “<” into the Input box, then press the Run button. The address will appear in the Output box.

>>,<<+++[>++++[>++++<-]<-]>>+.[>+>+<<-]>>[<<+>>-]<----.++.------.<<<<+++[>++++
[>++++<-]<-]>>--.>[>>+>+<<<-]>>>[<<<+>>>-]<+++++.<.>+..<<-.>.>-.>++++[>++++
[>++++<-]<-]>>.<<<--.++.<<+++.>>++.<<.-.-.>----.<----.+++.<.>>++.<+++.--.