Russil Wvong / Personal / About me

About me


Russil I live in Vancouver, Canada. I was born and raised here, but I've also lived in Edmonton for six years (from 1991 to 1996), and in various other places for shorter periods of time: Taipei (1979-1980), Darmstadt, Germany (1989), Bristol (1992), Colorado Springs (1997).

My parents are originally from Singapore and Malaysia. They both studied overseas (Dad in Australia, Mom in Singapore and the UK) before coming to Canada. I have an older brother, Curt; a younger sister, Judy; and a younger brother, Darren. If you're wondering why the spelling of my name is so idiosyncratic, it's because my parents subscribe to certain numerological beliefs -- in particular, that the spelling of your name influences your character and personality. (I don't believe this myself.)

I've been blissfully married to Abby Fitch since October 1999. Abby's also from Vancouver; we met in Edmonton a few years ago, while she was visiting friends in Edmonton, but we didn't start going out until I moved back to Vancouver in 1998.

Abby teaches ESL (English as a Second Language). She's intelligent, resourceful, very funny, and amazingly friendly: she's lived in France and Costa Rica and travelled in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and China, and it seems that wherever we go, Abby runs into someone that she knows!

Abby and Russil's wedding The huppah arrives

We have a baby boy, Louis Joshua Wvong. As of September 2002, he's now five months old. For pictures, see the 2002 photos page.

Work

I work as a software developer for Agilent Technologies, the world's largest manufacturer of test and measurement equipment. Agilent used to be part of Hewlett-Packard; as of November 1999, we've been spun off as an independent company.

Our division makes protocol testers, used by engineers at network equipment manufacturers and network operators worldwide to test and troubleshoot protocols like IP and ATM. It's a fast-moving business, with plenty of competition. Work is never boring. Dilbert's pointy-haired boss would probably last for about a day before his head exploded.

I'm currently working on RouterTester.

Other interests

I read a lot. I'm particularly interested in social, political, and economic issues.

It seems to me that the difficult problems facing us aren't technical, they're social. We have amazing technical abilities: we can fly, we can land on the moon, we can destroy cities, we can retrieve information from the other side of the world in seconds. But at the same time, 1.3 billion people are living in extreme poverty, on less than $1 a day. What can we do to change this?

I've written up a Global Issues FAQ which attempts to give a coherent answer to this question.


Created: 1997/03/15
$Date: 2007/12/17 04:09:43 $

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