User:Phlaximus

Phlaximus, or Phlax, is a Wikipedia contributor from Niwot, Colorado. He is also me. Hello! My real name is Jack Ryan (not that Jack Ryan). I like learning new things! I have a BA in English and not much in the way of continued formal education, but over the years I've learned a fair amount about archaeology, Ancient Greece and Rome, astronomy and mathematics. I'm only recently starting to understand more about classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, but there's a lot to learn and it's all new to me.

Etymology
Phlaximus comes from a portmanteau of Phlax and Imus. Phlax is a playful misspelling of Flax which came about while playing RuneScape and spinning flax fiber into cloth. -Imus is an archetypal suffix for any gladiator name, and I'd wager it comes from Maximus more than anything else.

History
Phlax was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1993. Nothing else of note from 1993 - 1999. In 1999, he moved to Niwot, Colorado. He attended Niwot High School from 2012-2016 and Kenyon College from 2012-2016. From 2016 to 2018, he worked god knows where, including Amazon warehouses and the Peppercorn on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder. In 2018, he learned how to program in the JavaScript programming language, and it has been mostly downhill from there. He has recently taken up learning mathematics and physics, and it's going mostly well so far.

A General Understanding of what Happens to be on my Desk Right Now

 * A Doctor Pepper can, aluminum. Unopened.
 * A coffee cup, styrofoam. Refilled 4x.
 * A notebook branded by Silicon Valley Bank. Unused.
 * A notebook from Five Star, graph-ruled. Heavily used for linear algebra.
 * An iPhone. Case by Urban Armor Gear. Moderate usage.
 * Ray-Ban glasses. Long-since broken, repaired with fishing line. Heavy usage.
 * A monstrous planter with some species of epiphytic succulent in it. Plant was thought to be fake for many months. Recent developments indicate it is dying.
 * A small bronze replica of the owl of Athena. The Greek for Athens has been printed along the bottom of it, though it was purchased (ironically) in the Peloponnese.
 * A Tide Pen
 * Several Expo Markers
 * A Mikami Soy Sauce packet, unused.
 * A receipt from the Wheel House, a bar and bicycle shop in Niwot, Colorado.
 * A sticker for the Great Southern Café in Seaside, Florida. Unused.
 * A list of RegEx helpers. Grudgingly referred to.
 * A water bottle with the flag of Colorado printed on it.
 * A coffee mug from the Denver Zoo. Smells of mulled wine; cannot be used for coffee owing to smell.
 * A large LG monitor; unused.
 * A single page of practice with Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors.

A General Understanding of what Happens to be on my Wall Right Now

 * A whiteboard with additional Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors practice on it.
 * A copy of George Mueller's memo to NASA staff documenting his emphasis on All-Up Testing for the Saturn V.
 * A rewritten version of the Zen of Python, catered to JavaScript. Custom made and very silly.
 * A picture of a bust of Socrates. It happens to be the same as the thumbnail for the page, actually.
 * A list of common SQL syntax helpers.
 * Some of my coworker's child's art, unclear why
 * A photo of a coworker, edited in post.
 * Another whiteboard that is inaccessible due to desk positioning; it carries only a quotation about the software testing approach to the Mercury capsules.

Why I Edit
Way back in high school, I edited the Rueppel's Fox article - I was pretty proud of myself. It was bad high school prose, and the page has since undergone some excellent edits. But for some reason, Rueppel's fox was the beginning and the end for my editing journey.

I've used Wikipedia assiduously for years to research all kinds of things. I particularly enjoy popping down wormholes about history. These treks have led me to Jomon-era Japan, the Siege of Syracuse, the rise (and fall) of Thebes, the Fall of Tenochtitlan... things I'm very passionate about. It never occurred to me in the last 10 years that I could be helping these pages, not just consuming them.

Wikipedia is the best font of knowledge in the internet age. I hope I can help in some small way.

Disclaimer
While I don't have any obvious conflicts of interest that I'm worried would significantly affect any of the pages I'm editing, I will note that I manage to check every single criterion for the average Wikipedia user. I do hope that I can keep any biases I might have off of Wikipedia and contribute in a way that is constructive for everyone. If you come across anything I've done that you find biased or problematic, please let me know!

Project History

 * 2023-01-28 Starting in on a history of North America binge to see what cool stuff is down here

Some Pages I Fancy

 * Pythagoreanism
 * Chief Niwot
 * Introduction to Quantum Mechanics