User:Albill
Al Billings
[edit]Residence: Oakland, California, USA.
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I'm a professional tech guy and have worked in Program Management and Quality Assurance over the last 19 years in technology. Currently, I work for the Mozilla Corporation as a program manager on the Security Assurance team. Previously, I have been the Security QA guy for Mozilla and have worked in both QA and Program Management at Microsoft (largely on Internet Explorer).
I am one of the founders of Ace Monster Toys, an Oakland hackerspace. I'm a former president of AMT and am currently on the board of directors.
I've been on the Internet since back in 1989 when we had to hack into a local dial-up at the University and work out from there through telnet via intermediate university unix boxes. I once ran a UUCP node, pagan.UUCP, back in the golden days, in order to get Usenet and e-mail. I ran two different Seattle area modem-based bulletin board systems in the late 80's and early 90's.
I tend to build 3D printers.
I have an interdisciplinary Master of Art's degree in Humanities from California State University, Dominguez Hills. My concentration was Philosophy, specifically in the space of Philosophy of Religion. My thesis focused on the late 19th century "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" and its beliefs and teachings concerning the nature and structure of the human soul.
I currently teach at the Prajna Institute for Buddhist Studies, a non-denominational Mahayana Buddhist seminary run by my Zen lineage, of which I am also a graduate. I am an ordained priest within the Great Cloud Zen Society, a modern order in the Korean Sŏn (Zen) lineage of Zen Master Sŭngsan (also known popularly as "Seung Sahn"). My current ordained name is "Jigong" (Ji Gong) or "智空," which means "Wisdom of Emptiness." Our lineage and organization follows the model of "lay priest" common with some Korean orders so I am a householder, not a celibate monastic. I live in the world, just like everyone else, and deal with the same problems and struggles.
I live in the Oakland, California with my wife, R, to whom I was married in 2004. I have a seventeen year old daughter from my previous marriage who lives in the Seattle area of Washington State.