KD^3C^3 - 20260208 We need volunteers
Programming note: I'm looking for another host for this newsletter. Again. This time I'm not doing it because the service is shutting down, but rather because the owner of the website has announced he's switched to mostly vibe coding any and all updates. I think my general opposition to using spicy autocomplete (aka LLMs or Generative "AI") has been pretty well documented at this point (feel free to ask me if you're unfamiliar) but I'm not moving from a strictly moral stance. No, there's a very clear history of vibe coded apps being full of security holes, ones that are particularly hard to notice or patch. So switching to this mode of running the website means its only a matter of time before something breaks irreparably. Migration might take a little while as I want to find a suitable place to go. Ideally I'd self host, but that's a much larger burden.
Anyway, onto the newsletter!
Is the olympics again. This year is a winter olympics year, which means I get to watch curling again. I fully admit I’m a casual curling fan at best. But I am still a fan. Every four years I get to put on the matches in whatever city the olympics are happening and get my fill.
This yea, the Mixed Doubles curling even started even before the Ionic Ceremony, by a full 2 days. The matches have been scheduled pretty poorly for me, starting most days at 4am my local time. This has been a little easier to stomach since I have also been suffering from an unknown medical malady since late december that cause me abdominal pain that prevents me room effectively sleeping through the night. I haven’t had an unbroken night of sleep for over month now.
But the bright side is that a few times, My body has woken me up at 4am, just in time to catch a match. I do have a peacock subscription, which means I can catch replays (and I’m doing hat now) if I do manage to sleep through the match if my abdominal pain peaked at an inopportune time.
Generally speaking, I’m farm from a fan of the USA in most respects. But There’s so much sport happening during the olympics that it’s hard to keep up with more than one or two countries at a time, so I have mostly been paying attention to the US matches.
In these mixed doubles matches, the athletes are wearing cavalier microphones, which means in addition to watching them perform, we also get to hear them as they talk to one another and strategize. Like any sport there’s a lot of jargon, so it’s nicely supplemented by the commentators who can hear what they’re saying as well and explain it to the uninformed viewer. It’s pretty clear that the commentators know a lot of people might be turning into this match as their first ever exposure to curling (it’s a not something like speed skating, where you can tell who is winning and the format is pretty straightforward (the one in front wins).
Curling has a lot of strategy to it, as each time a shoe is thrown the following team has to adjust and react to new new board state. The game takes place in a series of ends” similar to innings in baseball. Each end has the athletes alternate throwing a set number of stones down the ice. In Mixed Doubles, that number is five stones each. One player throws the first and last stone, while the other throws the middle three. Only one team scores points each end, and they do that by having stones closer to the center of the target (called the house) you get one point for every stone between the center and your opponent’s closest stone. Tis means goin glass is an advantageous position, and the last throw is always given to the team who did not score in the last End. And if you can manage to score without that last throw it’s called a steal and puts you into an even more advantageous position.
Mixed Doubles is a more dynamic version of the sport compared to Team Curling, with fewer stones each end, and only two players per team. This means usually the person throwing the stone is also the one sweeping, so they have to pop up after launching it and sweep the ice to influence the positioning and movement of the stone as well. In team curling, there is one person to throw, tow to sweep and one to call (they’re the one yelling about things like “Hard” and “Lines’s good” and CURL!” Players rotate through those positions in the team sport, but only in mixed doubles are team mates taking on double duty with each throw.
I’ll be honest, I started watching curling as a bit of a joke, but like so many jokes if you do it long enough, it just becomes a thing you like. Maybe I’ll try Ski Mountaineering this year, it’s the first time appearing in a winter olympics and it seems a little silly too.
Anyway, onto the newsletter!
Is the olympics again. This year is a winter olympics year, which means I get to watch curling again. I fully admit I’m a casual curling fan at best. But I am still a fan. Every four years I get to put on the matches in whatever city the olympics are happening and get my fill.
This yea, the Mixed Doubles curling even started even before the Ionic Ceremony, by a full 2 days. The matches have been scheduled pretty poorly for me, starting most days at 4am my local time. This has been a little easier to stomach since I have also been suffering from an unknown medical malady since late december that cause me abdominal pain that prevents me room effectively sleeping through the night. I haven’t had an unbroken night of sleep for over month now.
But the bright side is that a few times, My body has woken me up at 4am, just in time to catch a match. I do have a peacock subscription, which means I can catch replays (and I’m doing hat now) if I do manage to sleep through the match if my abdominal pain peaked at an inopportune time.
Generally speaking, I’m farm from a fan of the USA in most respects. But There’s so much sport happening during the olympics that it’s hard to keep up with more than one or two countries at a time, so I have mostly been paying attention to the US matches.
In these mixed doubles matches, the athletes are wearing cavalier microphones, which means in addition to watching them perform, we also get to hear them as they talk to one another and strategize. Like any sport there’s a lot of jargon, so it’s nicely supplemented by the commentators who can hear what they’re saying as well and explain it to the uninformed viewer. It’s pretty clear that the commentators know a lot of people might be turning into this match as their first ever exposure to curling (it’s a not something like speed skating, where you can tell who is winning and the format is pretty straightforward (the one in front wins).
Curling has a lot of strategy to it, as each time a shoe is thrown the following team has to adjust and react to new new board state. The game takes place in a series of ends” similar to innings in baseball. Each end has the athletes alternate throwing a set number of stones down the ice. In Mixed Doubles, that number is five stones each. One player throws the first and last stone, while the other throws the middle three. Only one team scores points each end, and they do that by having stones closer to the center of the target (called the house) you get one point for every stone between the center and your opponent’s closest stone. Tis means goin glass is an advantageous position, and the last throw is always given to the team who did not score in the last End. And if you can manage to score without that last throw it’s called a steal and puts you into an even more advantageous position.
Mixed Doubles is a more dynamic version of the sport compared to Team Curling, with fewer stones each end, and only two players per team. This means usually the person throwing the stone is also the one sweeping, so they have to pop up after launching it and sweep the ice to influence the positioning and movement of the stone as well. In team curling, there is one person to throw, tow to sweep and one to call (they’re the one yelling about things like “Hard” and “Lines’s good” and CURL!” Players rotate through those positions in the team sport, but only in mixed doubles are team mates taking on double duty with each throw.
I’ll be honest, I started watching curling as a bit of a joke, but like so many jokes if you do it long enough, it just becomes a thing you like. Maybe I’ll try Ski Mountaineering this year, it’s the first time appearing in a winter olympics and it seems a little silly too.