Icculus / Andrew Cowan

Icculus is Andrew Cowan, specifically, it is his nickname in the field of MUDs. Andrew grew up in New York and Connecticut, attending RHS and hraduating from there in 1987. See Andrew's Website for additional information.

Guitar Playing:

Andrew fell in love with music at an early age and it became a large influence in his life. He began playing acoustic/classical and electric guitar at the age of 12, and still plays often. Andrew plays a Martin JC-16Aura, a custom Fender Strat, a Dean 5-string bass, a Brian iGuitar and toys around with a GR-33 Guitar Synthesizer and BR1200 Digital Recorder. He began composing songs after the birth of his two children, many are available on his personal webpage.

Musical Interests:

In 1986 Andrew was introduced to the Grateful Dead and quickly became a fan, travelling to numerous shows before the untimely death of Jerry Garcia in 1995. In addition to the Dead, Andrew enjoys listening to Pink Gloyd, The Allman Brothers Band, Elliott Smith, Radiohead, Gomez, Rush, The Beatles, Doves and Elbow.

Education:

In 1987 Andrew attended college at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he tried a variety of majors before deciding to pursue a BA in Economics with a minor in Computer-Science. At the time of graduation in 1991 Andrew decided to continue with Computer Science and enrolled in the graduate program at UNCG. It was during his first year in grad school when Andrew first discovered MUDs. Andrew was invited to teach as part of his assistantship in 1993, he taught intermediate and college algebra for 2 years while he completed his Master's Thesis on Genetic Algorithms applied to curve fitting and other applications. Andrew has built Actionscript3 Flash apps that create GAs to find a linear and non-linear equations that best fits random data w/ optional noise added. You can play with them here [ linear ga | non-linear ga | trigonometric ga]

Muds and Mudding:

Andrew began spending large amounts of time exploring MUDs in 1992, particularly Hidden Worlds, JediMUD and Burning Dikumud. Having been an AD&D player for much of his teenage years Andrew preferred playing and later building/coding/admining in Dikumuds. After Burning went down in 1994 Andrew discovered Diku II (later renamed to Valhalla and quickly rose through the mortal and then immortal ranks to eventually become co-administrator with his future GlobalMedia Design partner, Brian Clark.

Career: GlobalMedia Design, Inc.:

In 1994 Andrew met Brian Clark, another player on Diku II, and in a matter of months both of them would become co-administrators to help Michael Seifert run the mud while he completed his graduate work. Shortly after Andrew was invited by Brian to join in the founding of a new company that he was forming with Tammy Kearns called GlobalMedia Design, Inc., frequently referred to as GMD. The World-Wide Web was just beginning to take off and it proved an ideal time to enter the industry as webpage designers. Andrew's background in computer programming allowed him to bring numerous possibilities with CGI, which was one of the only ways to create web-based applications at the time. Over a decade later GMD is still growing and finding new ways to help companies make use of the web.

Family Life:

Andrew met his future wife, Suzanne, in 1987 shortly after he arrived at UNCG. They are now married and living near the east coast of the USA with their two children, Abby and Zach, nearly a dozen cats, 16 chickens and 5 ducks.