I am no longer using LiveJournal. Until my blog gets hacked by a bunch of script kiddies, it will be available here:

http://www.boopidy.com/aj/blog/

Old posts and comments have been imported. So you won’t miss a thing. Thanks!

I'm going to try to introduce you to a band called Opeth. Opeth plays progressive metal*, which sounds scary and inaccessible, and is, a little bit, especially because they use growled or grunted vocals in many of their songs. I'll give you that: when you first hear growls, you might find them disturbing -- or funny. They're not something most ( Read more... )

I actually keep a list of topics to blog about, because it's a lot easier to think of something interesting than it is to painstakingly convert that thought into prose. And I'm lazy.

Anyway, about six months ago, I thought of the following topic. I procrastinated like crazy on it (like I have the other dozen or so topics I have buffered up), until ( Read more... )

Wow. I just found out that Aimee Mann provides the female vocals on Rush’s “Time Stand Still”. Given how many times I’ve heard (a) that song and (b) her albums, you’d think I’d have figured it out on my own. But I didn’t. I’m still surprised, hearing it now.

I've been to a lot of weddings in my day -- 27 by last count.*  The one we went to last weekend might have had the most unique atmosphere, literally. It was on Hang Glider Site #3 at Mount Tam, and the conditions were pretty much whiteout fog. I think we were standing out an outcropping overlooking the sea, but who knows. Anyway, it was super ( Read more... )

Casey Affleck has already admitted that his bizarre "documentary" of Joaquin Phoenix I'm Still Here was staged, essentially a self-destructive two-year-long performance piece.

What about Catfish?

The filmmakers insist that it is. Discerning viewers beg to differ.

Is it life imitating art, or is it merely art imitating art?

I haven't seen Catfish ( Read more... )

A few weekends ago my college roommate James came out to visit. We went to Yosemite for four days. It was pretty sweet. Here are some pictures; I picked ones that I liked, so they're not necessary comprehensive, and some might look very similar to each other.

On Saturday, we did a 14 mile hike from the valley floor up to Glacier Point, then down ( Read more... )

I used to use a laptop every day. In my mind, the most important aspects of a laptop are: screen size and resolution; keyboard quality; thickness and weight; and battery life.

If you asked someone today to choose a top-of-the-line laptop, he’d likely pick a MacBook Pro, the 15” model of which has the following key features:

• 15.4” screen with ( Read more... )

You might have heard whispers about a computer scientist posting a game-changing paper on the internet a few weeks ago. Vinay Deolalikar's attempt at a P != NP proof might net him a million dollars. 
More likely, you've never heard about P and NP and have no idea what I'm talking about. If you're curious at all about one of the most fundamental ( Read more... )

Rick Reilly is one of the most celebrated sportswriters of my lifetime. He's the guy who writes the back-page column for whatever magazine he works for. He's been voted National Sportswriter of the Year eleven times.
More critical acclaim, from his own bio page:

He is the winner of the 2009 Damon Runyon Award for Outstanding Contributions to ( Read more... )