╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ Simon Shine's Pages ║
║ ├─ github.com/sshine ║
║ ├─ datamatik.blog ║
║ ├─ dev.to/sshine ║
║ └─ nix.tools ║
║ ║
║ April 2025 ║
║ ║
║ I'm a computer programmer from Copenhagen, Denmark. I grew up on the island of Amager, ║
║ and I studied Computer Science at DIKU in the period 2008-2017. I have been coding since ║
║ 1997, but the code that survived from my childhood is from 2003 and later, TCL and Perl. ║
║ ║
║ This page has been around since 2004 as shine.eu.org, and since 2014 as simonshine.dk. ║
║ ║
║ I believed then that having a .eu.org domain would insure me against losing the domain ║
║ because it was free, so I couldn't forget to pay. But when GratisDNS was sold in 2020, ║
║ I was unable to change the nameserver, because EU.org had stopped responding, and my ║
║ contact information had changed since. Turns out free internet services don't last. ║
║ ║
║ Most of the time it has just been a collection of hyperlinks to stuff found elsewhere. ║
║ Some of that stuff is gone. And some of the stuff I saved here is gone, too. But thanks ║
║ to The Amazing Internet Archive, I have re-rendered my website's content from the last ║
║ 22 years in ASCII-art, preserving the content, occasionally linking to the archive. ║
║ ║
║ ║
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║ [web.archive.org 2005-12-23] ║
║ ║
║ █ ║
║ █ Simon Shine's Home Page ║
║ ███ ║
║ ║
║ "In George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy, Jedi Knights were expected to make their own light ║
║ sabers. The message was clear: a warrior confronted by a powerful empire bent on total- ║
║ itarian control must be self-reliant. As we face a real threat of a ban on the distrib- ║
║ ution of strong cryptography, in the United States and possibly world-wide, we should ║
║ emulate the Jedi masters by learning how to build strong cryptography programs all by ║
║ ourselves. If this can be done, strong cryptography will become impossible to suppress."║
║ ║
║ -- Arnold Reinhold on the CipherSaber cryptography page. ║
║ ║
║ Ingsoc Condition Alert ║
║ System ║
║ Current condition: ║
║ Good ║
║ ║
║ · My identity ║
║ · Getting in contact with me ║
║ · My public key (0x7BAEDE28) ║
║ · My geekcode ║
║ · Labels ║
║ · Technicalities ║
║ · Broken links? ║
║ · OpenBSD on the Dell Inspiron 8600 (not so updated) ║
║ · Vim syntax file for the TCL language (syntax/tcl.vim), improved greatly ║
║ · My Vim configuration file (.vimrc) ║
║ · Danish dict-file, assembled from speling.org, run through some filters. ║
║ · The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout ║
║ · Programming ║
║ · Eggdrop/Irssi scripts ║
║ · Things I do ║
║ · The Anarchist Debate Forum is a Danish web forum for enthusiast anarchists and ║
║ local misinterpreted do-gooders. ║
║ · Indymedia is a medium open to the minorities as they are being suppressed by ║
║ governmental forces. There is an Indymedia.dk. ║
║ · Something I said when I was four in Danish. ║
║ · On occasion, I make cheese omelettes. ║
║ · Library ║
║ · Philosophical Poker ║
║ · My favourite lesbian sci-fi erotic short story (found on nifty.org). ║
║ · My favourite picture of Marilyn Manson ║
║ · Q for QUAKE - my absolute favourite game of all time. ║
║ ║
║ ## My identity ║
║ ║
║ ### Getting in contact with me ║
║ ║
║ You can get ahold of me in a number of ways: ║
║ · Email: Simon Shine <simon shine.eu.org> ║
║ · IRC: simon on irc.indymedia.org ║
║ ║
║ ### My public key ║
║ ║
║ My public key is an OpenPGP key which you can find as the file http://shine.eu.org/simonpub.asc
║ or on various keyservers in the pgp.net keyserver network. It holds the ID 0x7BAEDE28 ║
║ and the fingerprint 86FE E8A6 A980 CBF7 DC75 44F9 FF64 CCC4 7BAE DE28, which I also have║
║ been announcing in my email signature. You can find various announcements made by me on ║
║ mailinglists and in personal emails where these repeat. You can also contact me through ║
║ other means for further verification. ║
║ ║
║ If you don't know what a public key is, and what it is good for, here is a brief intro- ║
║ duction: Public-key cryptography is a model of security that has already been applied to ║
║ most of the existent Internet protocols. One of its applications is to deliver emails ║
║ safely and unreadable by third parties, without a prior exchange of encryption passwords.║
║ The theory might be a bit hard to understand - especially mathematically - but it is ║
║ quite easy to use. Write me an email if you wish to get started, but don't know exactly ║
║ how. I do not yet feature a practical introduction, and have been unable to find ones to ║
║ link to. ║
║ ║
║ ## Labels ║
║ ║
║ ### Vegetarianism ║
║ ║
║ I'm an ethical vegetarian because animals can think and feel. ║
║ ║
║ ### Atheism ║
║ ║
║ God is an imaginary friend for grownups. — Walter Crewes (Morgan Freeman, The Big Bounce)║
║ ║
║ Support religious diversity. ║
║ ║
║ The word atheism consists of the prefix a-, meaning without, and theos, meaning god. ║
║ Another definition is the disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. ║
║ Choosing not to believe in something is, as you may agree, more significant than simply ║
║ ignoring it (nontheism) or even considering the possibility (agnosticism). Why would you ║
║ want to call yourself an atheist? We don't make up titles suggesting that we deny other ║
║ irrelevant things, and if religion and God didn't mean much to an atheist, he could ║
║ simply skip mentioning them. I believe we cannot achieve more knowledge about the world ║
║ than what we can actually perceive, and that perceiving God is not possible. We can only ║
║ think our way to a god, and feel the presence of one, if such is possible. ║
║ ║
║ For some atheists, it is that they can't accept the idea of an invisible God. It just ║
║ raises too many questions, from the metaphysical to the historical: If God created the ║
║ universe, who or what created God? If God "just exists," then why can't the universe ║
║ just exist? Of the thousands and thousands of different gods that have been claimed to ║
║ exist throughout human history, what are the odds that it's one particular God? Isn't it ║
║ more likely that gods were invented to explain the mysteries of the world before we dev- ║
║ eloped rational methods of looking at it? And considering the gods people have made up ║
║ throughout history, isn't it peculiar that we continue to make new ways of making it ║
║ possible for a god to exist, rather than adjusting to new ways of thinking? ║
║ ║
║ <!-- The fact that people disagree as to exactly how God is like is not an argument ║
║ against the existence of one, but interestingly enough, the aspects of the religions ║
║ devoted to these gods often include approaches to humanitarian ways of thinking – ║
║ unfortunately, some of these are a bit outdated. --> ║
║ ║
║ ### Anarchism ║
║ ║
║ Recent studies have led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science - ║
║ "Governmentium." It has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons and 111 ║
║ assistant deputy neutrons for an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held ║
║ together by forces called morons that are further surrounded by vast quantities of ║
║ lepton-like sub particles called peons. Governmentium has no electrons and is therefore ║
║ inert. It can be detected, however, since it impedes every reaction it comes into contact║
║ with. A tiny amount of Governmentium can take a reaction that normally occurs in seconds ║
║ and slow it to the point where it take days. ║
║ ║
║ Governmentium has a normal half life of three years. It doesn't decay but "re-organizes",║
║ a process where assistant deputy neutrons and deputy neutrons change places. This process║
║ actually causes it to grow as in the confusion some morons become neutrons, thereby ║
║ forming isodopes. This phenomenon of "moron promotion" has led to some speculation that ║
║ Governmentium forms whenever sufficient morons meet in concentration forming critical ║
║ morass. Researchers believe that in Governmentium, the more you re-organize, the morass ║
║ you cover. ║
║ ║
║ ## Things I do ║
║ ║
║ ## Technicalities ║
║ ║
║ ### Broken links? ║
║ ║
║ If you run into a broken link, internal or external, on any of the sites: ║
║ simon.eggheads.org, shine.eu.org or irssi.dk, please send me an email and tell me of ║
║ this. Do this especially if you wish to retrieve whatever it was that the link was ║
║ pointing to. You may try your luck at Archive.org (or the Google cache - they are ║
║ terribly slow at updating at times). I am terribly sorry for any inconvenience, as I only║
║ started thinking of link preservation recently. ║
║ ║
║ Additionally, on the subject of links, I have a policy: The text associated with a link ║
║ should be self-contained and tell exactly what the page it links to is going to be like. ║
║ If it links to any files that are either very big (for example a film clip) or simply ║
║ assume a protocol that isn't transparent in the estimated user interface of the user ║
║ (for example FTP or IRC), also make a note of that. Links containing only the words ║
║ "this" and "click here" are useless and require the reader to read the entire context ║
║ before understaning what the link actually does. Related to this policy, it is prefer- ║
║ rable if links can actually be read by human beings. ║
║ ║
║ ### The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout ║
║ ║
║ I use Dvorak, by the way. It is a keyboard layout designed with optimization in mind, ║
║ unlike QWERTY. In spite of my nationality, I use the default US Dvorak keyboard that you ║
║ find in Windows and most Unices because the "special characters" (alternate function of ║
║ the top number row) haven't been tampered with as they have with mostly all European ║
║ QWERTY layouts and, unfortunately, mostly all non-default Dvorak layouts as well ║
║ (including the Swedish and the Norwegian layouts that have gained some fame.) Instead I ║
║ have special Meta (Alt) bindings, whenever possible, to simulate letters in my own ║
║ alphabet. ║
║ ║
║ You can find a ton of information about how the Dvorak keyboard looks like, why you ║
║ should learn Dvorak, and how to learn to write Dvorak. I personally recommend The Curse ║
║ of Qwerty for good reading and possible personal persuasion. Another humourous reading ║
║ is The Dvorak Zine, an educational comic. My own reasons for changing to Dvorak were ║
║ basically that I had nothing better to do and that I wanted to experiment with my ║
║ thoughts as I usually do. Having learned Dvorak once gives me not only a superior typing ║
║ speed (an increase of 25%!), but also, by continuing to learn things as I learned Dvorak,║
║ I keep my mind fresh and actually learn to learn better. ║
║ ║
║ ### Programming ║
║ ║
║ (Found on an earlier edition of my website) I write scripts for people on request, given ║
║ there is a challenge in it for me. If there isn't, I may be persuaded in return of a ║
║ favour; exchange of services. ║
║ ║
║ I have a fascination with esoteric programming languages. These are hard to specify, but ║
║ if a language was not designed to be practical, that is, if a language features paradigms║
║ unusual and impractical to the programmer, it is likely to be considered esoteric. ║
║ ║
║ Often esoteric programming languages exist to outlive an outer extreme within programming║
║ and its paradigms. For instance, Brainfuck exists in an attempt to provide the smallest ║
║ compiler and still stay Turing-complete. Unlambda is a purely functional programming ║
║ language, and by that, I mean revolting! ║
║ ║
║ On another note, as of August 2005, I currently attend a class of Programming C. ║
║ C does unfortunately not denote the programming language, but the level of education on a║
║ scale set by the educational system in Denmark. Our first of four assignments during this║
║ school year has been to make a slot machine in PHP (essentially: pull three pseudo-random║
║ values and compare them). Our second assignment will be solving a quadratic equation ║
║ (essentially: pull three numbers and put them into an equation). Our third assignment ║
║ will be text analysis through I/O. Our fourth and last assignments will be at our own ║
║ option. And you go to school for this! ║
║ ║
║ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ║
║ ║
║ This page is currently hosted by a friend of mine. He is running a console site (meaning ║
║ a site that discusses computer games and utilities for the architectures that you link ║
║ up with a television), and this is my tiny tribute and thanks, giving him a better page ║
║ rank: console.dk ║
║ ║
║ This page isn't copyrighted. ║
║ ║
║ Rid the world of miserable failures. ║
║ ║
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║ [web.archive.org 2004-12-13] ║
║ ║
║ When the Sun shines into your eyes, you are seeing light that left it eight minutes ago. ║
║ On a clear night, look at the bright star Rigel in the constellation of Orion, the ║
║ hunter, and your eyeballs are receiving light that left this giant star 800 years ago. ║
║ ║
║ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ║
║ ║
║ Table of Contents ║
║ ║
║ · Simon Shine <
> [public key, geekcode, .vimrc] ║
║ · Linux/FreeBSD on the Dell Inspiron 8600 ║
║ · Eggdrop/Irssi scripts ║
║ · Some files ║
║ · syntax/tcl.vim (improved greatly.) ║
║ · Danish dict-file (assembled from speling.org, run through some filters but not ║
║ nearly enough.) ║
║ ║
║ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ║
║ ║
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