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I play ice hockey with several local Boston-area adult leagues. I started playing at 27, and still consider myself a beginner despite getting much better over the past several years... but the more important point is that I love playing and appreciate getting some regular exercise.

My other big non-computer interest is heavy metal: I listen to lots of different styles of metal, including metalcore (Meshuggah), thrash (Megadeth, Soilwork), Euro-speed (Gamma Ray, Sonata Arctica), progressive (Dream Theater, Lemur Voice) and death (Nile, Deicide). Yearly, I go to a progressive metal festival in Atlanta called ProgPower USA, at which lots of metal bands obscure in the US play for more than 1,000 dedicated fans, who travel thousands of miles in some cases.

My longest-running passion, however, is software engineering. I've been programming since the age of 5, a hobby that has turned into a pretty good career. While most of my programming occurs at work, I am engaged in several free software projects including my own web forum software, Yark, which is licensed under the GNU GPL.

Euro-speed (i.e., power) metal, death metal, progressive rock and metal, and thrash mostly, although I listen to some other random stuff like trance/ambient electronica, industrial, celtic, folk, gangsta rap, and early-90's alternative.

• Euro-speed metal: Characterized by double-bass drumlines and speedy guitar work, this genre includes bands like Stratovarius, Gamma Ray, Sonata Arctica, and Symphony X.
• Death metal: Generally distinguishable from other forms of metal by the use of blast beats and growling vocals. Nile, Deicide, and Cannibal Corpse are good examples of this style.
• Progressive rock: You've probably heard a lot of it: early Genesis and Yes, and most of Rush's career, are examples of this style. Newer bands that do progressive rock particularly well are Paatos and Riverside.
• Progressive metal: Take prog rock and turn up the heaviness. Best known bands of this style are probably Queensryche and Dream Theater, though there are literally hundreds of bands now that fit this style.
• Thrash: Includes older 80's bands like Slayer, Megadeth, Sepultura, Exodus, Testament, and Metallica, plus new bands like Soilwork (a band frequently and unfortunately mischaracterized as death metal despite only really sharing growling vocals with that style) and In Flames, plus other bands that cross between thrash and other genres like Fear Factory (industrial metalcore thrash).

A lot of this music we discuss over at PM:X², the latest in a long line of homes for what was once the Perpetual Motion progressive metal crowd from the mid 90's.

I also listen to a lot of other random stuff, including celtic, gangsta rap, folk, and early-90's alternative.

I read mostly science fiction and fantasy, although I have been known to dabble in other types of fiction and non-fiction.

My favorite book of all time has to be A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge, possibly the greatest science fiction book ever written: it deals with members of a centuries-old free society suddenly finding themselves dominated under suspicious circumstances by an autocratic surveillance and micromanagement state under conditions of duress, and the struggle to regain liberty, preserve identity, and rediscover the moral basis for individual freedom. I can't recommend this book enough.

I can also highly recommend selections by many other authors, notably Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers), George Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire saga), Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light), and David Brin (The Uplift Saga).

Biggest hero is probably Richard Feynman, the physicist who developed quantum electrodynamics. I also have a healthy reverence for Georg Riemann, a 19th-century mathematician who pioneered work into analyses of field theories attempting to unify gravity and electromagnetism using higher dimensions.

And of course, my guitar hero is Kai Hansen of Gamma Ray. RAWK!