How's it going, hackers? Nick Black out of the ATL. I focus on low-level applications and libraries, primarily on Linux but also targeting other UNIX platforms.

I sent out my first patch in 2001, removing some unnecessary (void*) casts from GLIBC string routines. It was promptly refused by Ulrich Drepper, which will surprise no one who hacked GLIBC in that era. The first contribution I recall having accepted was a fix to IPv4 dissection in Wireshark, back when it was Ethereal. Since then, I've had patches accepted into over fifty major projects, including the Linux kernel. For a time, I comaintained x86info and the NGPT Linux patches.

My own projects are all open source, including:

• growlight, an advanced disk manager
• omphalos, a fullscreen network recon/attack tool
• libtorque, threaded continuations-based I/O for manycore NUMA
  ...and many others.

In 2012 and 2013 I oversaw the SprezzOS project, a Debian derivative that explored rolling release, autoupdates of packages, UEFI and GPT-capable system installation, tight ZFS integration, distribution-wide use of LLVM, and other technology that has since become standard. I was also the #1 committer by commit count on Github for much of that time :).

In 2019, I went freelance as Dirty South Supercomputing, where I consult and try to work on as much open source as I can. Clients receive steep discounts if the work I do for them can be submitted back upstream or released as open projects.

Your contributions will allow me to focus on improving the performance, robustness, and beauty of core Linux technologies. In particular, I'd like to do a Compiz-like OpenGL Wayland compositor. See my Charn and CharnGL projects:

• Charn
• CharnEGL
• "New Directions in Window Management I"
• "New Directions in Window Management II"

In addition, I'd like to expand growlight's functionality, and add stresstest/recovery capabilities.

profound changes are imminent in the ancient craft of the beautiful