Summer of Sports

I don't know too many people who are bigger sports fanatics than me. It's weird, I know, my being a Chinese female and all. Part of it is that I grew up with sports: my mum did gymnastics all through high school, university and grad school, I dabbled in volleyball, track and field, and shooting (not at humans) in high school, and played on the varsity tennis team in university. At IBM and Oracle, I did softball, ultimate Frisbee, volleyball, beach volleyball, and tennis. Nowadays, I stick to individual sports such as tennis, golf, and snowboarding. There is nothing special here. Loads of women, maybe even Chinese women, participate in sports, some more involved than me. However, I personally know none who loves to watch sports as much as I do. If not for live sports, I wouldn't own a TV. Baseball, tennis, basketball, golf, soccer, Formula One, hockey, football, downhill skiing, cycling, track and field, cricket, ... You name it (just don't bring up figure skating). Come Olympics time, Winter or Summer, I'm glued to the TV.

So this summer is a bonanza for a sport junkie like me. Since May, we've had Roland Garros (French Open tennis where Nadal won, again), the NBA finals, and the US Open of golf (where Tiger won, again). Currently, the European soccer championship is about to culminate in an exciting final between Germany and Spain. It was a sad day when my beloved Team Oranje lost inexplicably in the quarter-finals; they've been my team since my undergrad days. But, I'm afraid they do that every time: looking so good only to falter when it counts.

Coming up, Wimbledon is about to kick into a higher gear. Tour de France starts in early July -- if they have any riders left. My Blue Jays will continue to torment me with their lacklustre offence. And in August, of course, the biggest event of them all, the Olympics. In recent years, the trend in Olympics coverage drives me up the wall. I don't give a hoot about how some poor sod, overcoming unimaginable hardship, wins gold. Just show me the action, please! Alas, NBC or CBC -- it really doesn't matter which North American network it is -- is bent on appealing to casual fans who haven't a clue about steeple chases or luge runs. Now, I'm not a snob. Once upon a time, I was clueless too. However, I was lucky enough to be watching Chinese TV where the commentators explained things: the techniques involved in running a curve on the track, what to watch in a gymnastics or diving competition, how the different styles of high jump compare, not stories about so-and-so not having shoes as a child, or such-and-such dated everybody on her skating team. If you want mush, please tune to Desperate Housewives or The Young and the Restless. Sports is for people who only care about results!

Phew! Now I feel better. Anyway, last but not least, this time, we actually have an Olympian in the family -- the extended family anyway. My step-brother's wife (my step-sister-in-law?) is on the Canadian Olympics team. She's the reigning World Champion in her discipline, has already qualified for the Olympics, and has a great chance of making it onto the podium. Go Karen!!

Hopes and Fears, by Keane

Hopes and Fears by Keane

I bought this first album of Keane's a few weeks ago. It's pleasant enough. After listening to it a few times, I find my self humming with the music. There is nothing offensive, that's for sure. There is also nothing particularly moving, either. The lyrics are forgettable. The music seems to be lacking in some way. Is it because it's the piano, rather than the guitar, that dominants? Tom Chaplin's voice is full of emotions, but it sounds forced since I detect no emotions in the music or the lyrics. I don't hate the album by any means. I just don't love it.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

On the surface, this book contains all the topics in which I have a strong interest: mathematical logic, theories of computation, artificial intelligence, programming, music, art, etc. As an undergraduate student, some of my favourite courses were in those fields. Strangely, I found this Pulitzer Prize-winning book hard to take. I am so used to reading theorems and proofs in the form of a technical paper that I found metaphors tedious. Why not state facts in the plain and concise language of mathematics, instead of using characters and stories?

The discussions on artificial intelligence seem rather dated. The sad fact is, the whole field of AI has made very little progress in terms of algorithm design; whatever advances we have seen in the last few decades are a result of improvements in hardware. The concept of a Turing Test, which once seemed so reasonable to me, now appears so inadequate. In fact, what is the point, even, of building machines that imitate humans? What kind of humans do we try to imitate?

It turned out that my mistake was in making the assumption that Hofstadter was a computer scientist. But he's not. His interest has always been in cognitive science. Coming from that angle, one does not look at the biological or mechanical functioning of the brain, or attempt to create algorithms to imitate human thinking patterns. One studies how humans think purely in a theoretical way. No wonder nothing comes out of it -- the whole point about being human is that each one of us is utterly impossible to predict!