SimonLaw

Hi!

I'm Simon.

I used work for Canonical as a QualityController. Now, a much larger and dedicated team which focuses on QualityAssurance, making Ubuntu a better distribution for everybody.

Join the BugSquad, a group of wonderful volunteers whom you should all thank. I suggest that you join #ubuntu-bugs and do just that.

Contact

You can reach me by

E-mail: sfllaw@sfllaw.ca
IRC: sfllaw on irc.freenode.net.
Jabber: sfllaw@sfllaw.ca

Background

I became a DebianDeveloper when I was still at the UniversityOfWaterloo, back in 2000.

I'm an upstream maintainer for a several pieces of software. You might use WvDial to dial up to the Internet. Or tvtime to watch television.

I've worked for a bunch of fun places, like a mathematics firm, a multinational bank, and an appliance company. Along the way, I picked up little bits of wisdom that I fully intend to pass along.

Goals

I have every intention of writing software to help people debug theirs. Like the StackTraceLibrary, StraceReplay, SourceSlice, and PropterHoc.

Specs

These are the specifications that I contributed to:

Conferences

I used to be deathly afraid of public speaking. Somewhere along the line, that bit of my brain must have dropped out.

Now I go to conferences as often as I can. Sometimes, I'm smart enough to have come up with a presentation and then I get to talk about something I'm passionate about. But if not, there's plenty to do: listen to interesting talks, chat with brilliant people, and use the free wireless Internet.

Hobbies

I used to write that working on FreeSoftware was my hobby. Is it possible for something to be a job and a hobby?

Lucky for me, I have other hobbies.

I really like cooking and entertaining people. I'll throw dinner parties, cocktail parties, and party parties. But usually there will be some excuse. Like, say, an Ubuntu party. We should probably have an UbuntuPartyInMontréal.

JeffBailey tried to get me to play in his recorder ensemble. I purchased one and I'm afraid I'm not very good.

Sometimes, I go to concerts to jump up and down with other kids my age. I also have a computer in my living room, hooked up to a television and some speakers. This way, I can dance around the house listening to music. It occurs to me that I should write the AudioTranscodeTron, because everything is archived in FLAC.

When I'm at concerts, or walking around, I'll take photographs. Most of them are terrible though, but that's why I delete them instead of letting you see. I'm shy that way.

Oh yes, I write prolifically on my online journal. A much abridged version gets syndicated to PlanetUbuntu. This way, you aren't bombarded by yet another concert review or new recipe. My life doesn't completely revolve around computers. Only most of it.

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