Simon Spero - A Homepage
One of the downsides to having been on the web as long as I have is
that my homepage often goes for several years without being updated. As
a new millenium dawns, and as I run out of alternate avoidance behaviour,
the time has come again for me to drag my home page kicking and screaming
into whatever century this happens to be. Welcome to that century.
Personal
Name: Simon Spero
Nationality: English
Age: 29a
Email: ses@unc.edu
Nickname: Simon Spero - The Internet Hero (Imagine a blasted
LA-born Jewish American princess imitating Dick Van Dyk in Mary Poppins.
No wonder the name stuck).
Pictures:
Here are some great
pictures of me taken by my friend Kelly-Jo
Garner.
When Kelly-Jo has time she does contract work - if you need some portrait
shots, she can work wonders.
Music
I like most sorts of dance music, though
my favourite genre at the moment is Progressive Trance (in their hearts,
all Englishmen want to be Sasha). I'm also partial to a little bit of Gothic/Industrial
(all Englishmen also want to be Robert Smith too). I was thinking of combining
the two and forming a band called The Ravers Of Mercy, but was forced to
stop after the first chorus of "Hug A Russian".
To distract me when I'm telecommuting, I have a Roland
JP-8000 and a Yamaha
RM1x , together with a wonderful software synth called Reaktor. I also
have a pair of Pioneer CDJ-100s
and a DJM-300, which my turntabilist friends mock me for until
I point out that the whole rig weights about 45lbs with enough music to
last a week. I still occasionally have fits of Technics envy
Exercise/Diet
I try to work out three or four times a week to fight the onset of IT butt.
When I'm gaining I eat a regular diet - when I'm cutting I follow a lowcarb
Cyclic
Ketogenic Diet. This basically means that I avoid carbohydrates
Monday-Friday, then load up on cartbs over the weekend. This usually means
that by Friday I'm ready to kill for a couple of slices of toast, but their's
no better way to lose bodyfat without losing muscle.
Work and Research
I am currently work for the University of
North Carolina as the Emergency Geek for ATN. Basically that means
I get to do my own thing until things getting completely messed up, at
which point I get sent in to try and sort things out. When disasters aren't
happening, I get to do my own thing - this is best thing about working
for the University. Before that, I was one of the original employees on
the Sunsite project (now metalab),
which was the third web site in the United States, and the first site ever
to offer hosting.
My main research interest is in the design and implementation of highly
scalable internet protocols like HTTP-NG
; Once my green card arriives I hope to get a start-up going based on some
some of this work, If things work out, it could change the entire way the
Web works. You might want to start shorting Yahoo now :-)