Soren Spies
(Follow the link to see what used to be here...an improvement, no?)
Check out my vi hacks page. Get spellcheck,
> quoting, and instant formatting.
Yet another semi-useful thing on my page(?!):The
Phonetic Alphabet.
I have been writing shell scripts for too long
now...
Other stuff (not including scripts)
If you want to see my other web pages which highlight other portions of my
personality, check out my techhouse
web page or my CS web page.
Friends (with web pages):
- Lana; someone special I
met at Apple this summer ('99).
- Dan lived with
me summer '98 when we both worked in Providence and is a good
friend from Techhouse.
He loves his band Stinter. :)
- Jeremy's home page is
actually organized and includes a really funny piece (for Mac programmers
only) under the writing link. He's written more since I made this
page. I'm in a footnote in one piece.
- Elaine...
- Jesse Chan-Norris has an
interesting page and his
quotes page includes lots of funny things said in the sun lab here
at Brown.
- Liz is an old
friend all the way back to seventh grade. She has a
picture
of me on her page from when our orchestra went to Europe. :)
I was hired by the engineering department here at Brown to help with
system administration. Ideally, I would be a liaison between students
and the people in charge of the lab, but things usually take a while
and sometimes the best I can do is say "yeah, I know, we're working on
it." I think the key to making things "better" around here is
communication with everyone. So visit my system
issues page to see what I have been working on and to send me
feedback and service requests (eg. "boy, if only we had ???.") I am
still learning the system myself so please fill me in as best you
can.
Links I didn't _want_ to add but couldn't resist:
- GSOTD: Too
many of these were things that I wanted on my page...:).
- The "Hello
World" Page rocks my house. Where else are you going to find hello world
in Commodore 64 assembly?? Makes a "great reference."
- Related to the above site: 99 Bottles of
Beer. It sounds bad, but like the above, it is a sort-of crash
course in over a 100 programming languages...
Me
A few things to say about myself... As of second semester, freshman
year (1997): I'm taking CS, Engin, English, and math. This is the same
as first semester except that I have been cured of my desire to be a
history major. I work for the English Department as their student
computer consultant. There I work with Macs. I am a Mac kinda guy. I
think they are better for most people. On the opposite
end of the ease of use spectrum, I was a unix system administrator for
my high school's science department. I come from what I believe to be
the best public high school in the world:
Evanston Township High School.
There, I was involved in cool things like
the Evanstonian (I am
not and never was responsible for the web portion) (school newspaper)
and Math Team. A program at ETHS called
Chem-Phys (this site is often
down) rocked my world and has made my math/science experience here at
Brown very managable.
I was a TA for CS004. I'm took
CS16, Math 42, English 34, and CS22 last semester. I am still an
engineer; don't worry, Tim. I just tricked them into not having to
take EN4. I like the CS people because I can talk unix (now and then I
have a need) to them and they understand. I like the Engin people
because I would the happiest guy in the world if Prince Lab was my
basement. I also love this radio station 88.2 (they say they are 88.1)
because they play songs all night without ANY
commercials. Most of the songs are good, too.
I'm did this python
thing instead of the C portion of EN3. It was more work that I
didn't really understand, but I tried hard.
Books I'm reading at the moment:
- first you have to row a little boat
- Made In America, by Bill Bryson
Books I've read recently:
- Outsider, by Richard Wright
- Outsider is a grim look into the politics of race and communism early
in the 20th century. This book forced me to look at contradictions and
wonder about what I would do if forced into a situation in which I was
discriminated against and given a way out which had troubles of its own.
I'm also curious how I'd do watching the preparations for my
funeral.
- To the Wedding, by John Berger
- I found this book heart-warming and heart-wrenching at the same time. I
may not be a parent just yet, but the plight and dedication of the loving
parent moved me nearly to tears. Not to mention that I am approaching
the age that the two lovers began their affair in an age with all the
dangers they faced. To the Wedding is technically about a wedding
but really about the timeless and powerful qualities of love.
- Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut (he is the man!)
- This book was funny but sad. By suggesting that all our troubles
are the result of our big brains (he's right, isn't he?), Vonnegut takes
evolution a step farther down the path of imagination without leaving much
hope for mankind in its current state.
If you need to reach me (years ago):
- In general - my then-brown.edu email
- as an engineer - my thenaddress within engineering
- about Techhouse or if you want me to get it quickly -
soren at techhouse brown edu
- about English Department stuff or if you are in CIS -
my then-ets.cis address