Matt Sparks: The Life and Times

Matt Sparks received his first dose of artificial light in a hospital in Marion, Illinois in early 1986. He lived in Marion until age five, when he made the journey to his so-called hometown of Charleston, Illinois (home of EIU). Matt spent his elementary years in Charleston. Partly into the freshman year at Charleston High School, he moved to his current residence in Chatham, Illinois. The 'village' of Chatham is a rapidly growing residential community about five miles south of Springfield. Matt finished off his high school career in Chatham at Glenwood High School with the class of 2004. He is currently a senior undergraduate in Computer Science in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

• Operating System: Mac OS X, GNU/Linux
• Shell: zsh
• IRC client: irssi
• IM: BitlBee
• Mail reader: mutt
• News reader: mutt
• Editor: Vim + Emacs (mixed keybindings)
• Window manager: xmonad, Xfce, fluxbox
• Language (interpreted): Python, Perl
• Language (compiled): C/C++
• Version control: Git

• Rush
• Black Sabbath
• Metallica
• Pink Floyd
• Tool

See my last.fm profile for more.

open source, freedom, knowledge, intelligence, optimal algorithms, mathematics, theory, controversial topics, atheism, libertarianism, IRC, logic, debates, logical debates, technology, security, encryption, XMPP, teetotalism, LaTeX, efficiency, organization, automation, …

… in no particular order.

Refer to the fork() system call in Unix for an explanation. See also: man 2 fork.