Localhost: Mindy Preston

Abstract: Interfacing with lower-level systems using familiar abstractions, rather than alien ones, is a thing of joy – in testing, reasoning, modification, and participation. Library operating systems allow application programmers to approach operating systems programming in a way that's comprehensible, documentable, testable, and hackable with everyday tools. The end result is a whole virtual machine, easily run locally or as a remote guest in a public or private cloud, which is nonetheless smaller than many base container images. Let's democratize systems hacking!

About Mindy: Mindy Preston (yomimono on the Internet) runs https://somerandomidiot.com, an embroidery and feelings blog that swerved hard into functional programming and never fully recovered. She is a core team member of the MirageOS project and a member of robur.io, a nonprofit collective developing robust digital infrastructure.

Mindy is an alum of the Outreachy program, Recurse Center, and the University of Wisconsin, and aspires to be the world's best cat stepmom.