Personal Information

6 I got my alligator boots. I wear my pants skin tight.
I wear my dark sunglasses in the middle of the night.
And when I look in the mirror, oh it's such an awesome sight.
It makes me want to kneel down and pray.
I'm so adorable and charming.
I'm sure that you can see.
And everybody's always tryin' to hang around with me.
They tell me I'm the greatest, and it's hard to disagree.
'Cause I'm so perfect in every way.
And I'm so cute,
I can hardly stand it.
And I'm so handsome, honey, I could just die.
I know you'll never be as wonderful as me,
But at least you can try.
Baby, are you in the mood for a little romance?
Well, for starters I could pour some chocolate pudding down your pants.
And then attach electrodes to your brain, and watch you dance.
Well, golly, wouldn't that be fun?
Oh, and then I might decide to tie you up with dental floss.
I'll make you wear a harness, and I'll show ya who's the boss.
Of course, if you refuse, well honey, it's your loss.
I mean, I don't do this with just anyone.
So baby, how can you say its all over?
So how can ya tell me goodbye?
So now you tell me that you're leavin' me for good,
And all I wanna know is why?

-- "Weird Al" Yankovic

Who the Heck Am I, Anyway

In 1978, the first test-tube baby was born. The first cellular telephone was made commercially available. The hit television series "Taxi", "Mork and Mindy" and "WKRP in Cincinnati" first aired. The famed Camp David talks were held between Israel and Egypt. Jimmy Carter was President, and in a small town in New Jersey, on December 1st, Alexei Kosut was born. But very few people cared.

Although I was born in New Jersey, I didn't stay long. I lived with my parents for a few years in upstate New York, before we moved to California. By 1984, I was living in El Granada, a coastal town about fifteen miles south of San Francisco. My parents and brother Oliver still live there, as do I when I'm not attending school.

For the past thirteen years, I have had a long and varied academic career. I spent six years at King's Mountain Elementary School, graduating in 1990. I then spent three years at the Nueva School, a private school in Hillsborough, CA. After finishing eighth grade there, I spent a year at the public high school near my home, Half Moon Bay High School, before transferring to Crystal Springs Uplands, a private high school also located in Hillsborough.

I graduated from Crystal in June of 1997 and have completed two years as an undergraduate at Stanford University, where I am majoring in computer science and possibly math (I haven't decided yet). Next fall, I return as a junior.

But Why Do You Care?

I dunno. You're the one reading this. I have been described as "unique," "witty" and "strange." I perfer the latter. My interests include computers and the Internet, eating, sleeping and singing poorly. My favorite television show is Babylon 5, my favorite musical performer is "Weird Al" Yankovic, and I like cafeteria food. My interests exclude any form of sporting event, except the odd game of air hockey.

As a presence on the Internet, I have been involved in a number of projects. I was a founding member of the DALnet IRC Network, though I no longer frequent IRC (my nick was Lefler). I used to maintain the Babylon 5 Creative Works Archive (now defunct), a repository of fan fiction for my favorite telvision show (for a working archive, try Alternate Universe Today). I have been involved in the HTML and HTTP working groups of the IETF (the 305 status code was my idea, although I don't believe it's present in any implementation).

The project for which I have spent the most effort and time is the Apache Group. Apache is a volunteer organization that produces World Wide Web server software. It currently is used by forty-nine percent of Web servers. I am one of the developers on the project, and have written a substantial amount of code, including most of the HTTP/1.1 code in Apache 1.2. In Apache-related capacities, I worked the summers of 1996 and 1997 at Organic Online, a web production company in San Francisco. In 1998, I worked the summer at C2Net Software, a company whose products are very tied in with Apache.

What Do I Look Like?

There are random photos of things scattered throughout my web pages. But here are a few photos that I kind of like, so I thought I'd share.

• Alexei and Josh - Josh (right) was my roommate sophomore year (Photo taken Feb. 5, 1999 by Andrew Carhart)
• Alexei playing skee ball - This was at a dorm trip to Chuck-E-Cheese (Photo taken Feb 5, 1999 by Andrew Carhart)
• Alexei and Laura - Me and Laura at the beach (my mother took this picture)