[rboyd]

Looking at this it appears the github large avatar for the-laughing-monkey user doesn't match the thumbnail image. Maybe it was recently changed. The large version is an illustration, but the small version gets hits on TinEye for Dan Jeffries (the author of the book mentioned as inspiration).

A search for Dan Jeffries cicada turns up some related material. Seems strange that the link to the book on the iamcicada page doesn't explicitly spell out the author's relationship to the project.

Maybe somewhere along the way, he decided to go pseudonymous? I'm sure he's an HNer, maybe he'll weigh in.

FWIW, I like most of the ideas here.