Vincent “VM” Mercator
The person behind the eight-pointed star
My online name is Vincent Mercator, but I prefer to just go by my initials. I’m a professional computer engineer and hobbyist mathematician from the United States. Scientific computing is my forte: I do research with microcontrollers, logic chips, analog components, and mathematical models. In my free time, I like to make music, play board games and video games, and solve puzzles like Rubik’s Cubes. I’m an avid collector of old textbooks (mainly because I like looking at the diagrams and pictures). I’ve been drawing numbers since I was two, using computers since I was three, and practicing music since I was four. Unsurprisingly, I still do all of these things today in some shape or form.
- Locale Code:
🇺🇸 en-US - Natural Languages: English & French; re-learning Spanish
- Pronouns:
- English: they/them/theirs
- French: il/le/lui
- Favorite Shape: ✴️ octagram (eight-pointed star)
- Favorite Color: 🟩 Green
- Favorite Numbers: 11, 13, 17, and 70
- Favorite Video Game Genres: 2D/3D Platformer, Puzzle, Rhythm, Casual
My favorite things to do as a kid were browsing the internet with Netscape on my iMac G3, playing computer games, building things with Snap Circuits, and trying to get my hands on any hand-me-down computer my parents were done with. I didn’t start making my own programs and electronics until I was introduced to Processing sketchbooks and Arduino development boards at a middle school summer camp. Since then, I’ve been putting my inventive and creative skills to the test by getting my hands (metaphorically) dirty with learning about topics that interest me so that I can make cool things.
My favorite super-genre of music is jazz. I’m well-versed in jazz theory, I can play several instruments, and I’ve been in several school bands. However, I’ve been slowly falling into the rabbit hole of lower-level electronic music like modular synthesis and guitar stomp boxes (which pairs really well with my engineering background).
I like to play racket sports like tennis and squash, and I also like riding my bike. If I can, I try to snowboard every winter. I prefer playing sports and going places to strict regimens and stationary machines because they help distract me from the fact that I’m exercising.
Things I Like
- Computers, Electronics, & Programming
- Composing & Playing Music
- Board, Video, & Role-Playing Games
- Designing & Solving Puzzles
- Books
- Cryptography
- Journaling
- Biking
- Snowboarding
- Racket Sports
- Chocolate
- 3D Printers
- Public Transportation
- Standards
Things I Don’t Like
- Cryptocurrency
- JavaScript
- R (programming language)
- Mobile App Development
- Cloud Computing
- Weight Training
- Jogging
- Peanut Butter
Here’s my Geek Code. If it looks like gibberish to you, that’s kind of expected – you can view it decoded instead.
---BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK---
Version 3.12
GE/CS/MU d(++) s-:- a- C++$ UL$ P L++>+++ E-- W++ N+ !o K- w- O? M- V? PS++
PE-- Y+(++) PGP+ t(+) 5? X? R+ !tv b+>++ DI-- !D G- e+++>++++ z?
---END GEEK CODE BLOCK---Behind the Site’s Name
My website’s namesake is the numbers station, a type of shortwave radio station that repeatedly broadcasts audio of numbers (either spoken aloud or encoded in some format). It’s possible that they are used by intelligence agencies to send messages to secret agents in the field, encrypted with a cipher like the one-time pad. Numbers stations were first used in World War I; their enigmatic transmissions have captivated the minds of amateur radio enthusiasts since then.
Since a large part of my website’s content is about math, cryptography, and numbers, you could consider its name a pun: it’s more of a “station about numbers” than a “numbers station”. Don’t expect to find any intentional cryptic combinations of numbers on my website just yet.
If you want more information about how this site was made, check out the relevant section on my Tools/Uses page.
Buttons
Fanlistings
Disambiguation
If you’re looking for the fictional character from Robert Sobel’s alternate history “For Want of a Nail” that I accidentally named myself after, you might want to check out that article on the Sobel Wiki.