Doping for Curling? Really??

So the Russians are still doping for the Olympics? In curling no less. WHAT FOR? What athletic ability is needed for curling? I could see taking something to stay awake.

How did curling ever become an Olympic sport? You could toss a rock with a beer bottle in one hand, the rock in the other, and a cigar sticking out of your mouth. No need to be engaged in strenuous exercises for strength and endurance. You don’t have to be able to run. You don’t have to be able to jump. You don’t have to have an unusual aerobic capacity.

If curling is an Olympic sport, why not snowball fighting? Or scraping ice off of windshields? Or making angels in the snow? The athletic challenges are similar it seems to me.

Full of Crap

I travel a fair bit I guess, although not as much as I one time did. Maybe I should share some of the more recent experiences.

In the USA I like to fly Delta or Alaska. I haven’t found other USA based carriers that have the consistent comfort and service that I find on those two. Some, such as United, are downright distressing, and I now refuse to fly United even if it means not getting there. Maybe such airlines are not sub-par by American standards, but only by what I see in other developed countries.

Nonetheless, I did have an unresolved issue with Delta not so long ago. I had purchased first class tickets for family and me on a short flight, and when we got our boarding passes, it was clear to me that it wasn’t what I had purchased. The agent told me it was a one-class plane. Okay, I could live with that IF it was true, but when I looked out the terminal window at the plane parked at our gate, I knew it was false. So I asked another Delta agent. She checked into it and told me that our seats had been given away to passengers who have higher priority than us! What can be higher priority than a cash purchase first class ticket, I wondered. I contacted Delta customer service and was eventually given a rebate on the fare difference (between first class and economy) and a $200 per ticket voucher, but nobody was able or willing to explain how someone else got our seats because they were more important, despite several requests I made for that explantion. And you know what? It may not have been as big of a deal if the seat they put me into had not been broken (the part I sat on had no support in the middle…was like sitting on a toilet). But apparently my discomfort was my fault because I should have let the flight attendant know so that I could have been reseated……on a full flight. Where would they have put me? In the baggage hold?  Well, they had no answer for that.

Sometimes we find delightful restaurants, such as the Lin Ju Hui in Richmond, B.C., which is a Xinjiang cuisine restaurant. Xinjiang is in northwest China and the cuisine has no seafood, but is based on lamb and chicken. Lin Ju Hui serves food made from fresh ingredients, and serves it quickly and presents it with visual appeal, and at affordable prices.

Then there was the Mazaj in Auburn, Washington. My major recent slop shop experience. Think of being hungry enough to eat whatever is served, and you get the picture. There was not one in our party of four that liked the meat that was served from what appeared to be a microwave, but might have been a steamer of some kind. In any event, normally roasted meats don’t taste great when prepared that way. Nor are they enhanced by accompaniments that say Kirkland on them. Nothing bad about Kirkland…..at Costco…..but to be served dips from a store container as part of a meal substantially above market prices doesn’t cut it for me. But guess what….I ate the meal…I was hungry…and then I was full of crap.

The Singularity

A popular topic with some commentators, thinkers, and books today is what authors call the singularity. It was Ray Kurzweil whose writings first introduced me to this concept. And the concept is that one day human consciousness can be uploaded into computers, and since the computers can be connected, consciousnesses will merge so that there is just one being. Today's authors seem to have mostly lost sight of that ultimate merging, having assigned the term Singularity to uploading consciousness to a computer, artificial intelligence ruling the world, and various other stages of the process that are short of Kurzweil’s vision.

One of the big issues with this whole view is how consciousness can be uploaded into a computer. It is suggested that the brain can be mapped slice by slice and cell by cell, so that an exact understanding and image of it can then be laid into a computer whose memory can be exactly mimicking what was mapped. The computer would at that point have the same memories, the same motivations, and the same behavior, as the human. People rejoice at the idea. Not me. For to me, someone making a copy of me in digital form has not perpetuated me. They have created a clone whose life would from that point depart from my own and would not be me. I would be in a position where I could stand outside of it and observe it, look at it, and so No, that wouldn’t be me even though we would have the same origin.

Suppose there was a way to transfer us into computer memories, where we could all access the same information and share our intelligences. Who would be paying for the power to keep the computer running, for the maintenance, and other costs associated with it? Would we have to work and render services to earn our keep? And if so, I can expect that the pay would not be very high because we'd all be doing it, and all offering the same sort of service, since we would all have the same abilities more or less. The concept of Singularity is interesting, but it seems to me there are too many bumps along the way for it to be a practical aim. There is something to be said for individuality. Vive la difference!!