Extra Credits
Published on 14 Oct 2018Credit to Alisa Bishop for her art on this series: http://www.alisabishop.com/
Quantum computing isn’t a replacement for classical computing … yet. Quantum decoherence happens when anything gets in the way of a qubit’s job, so sterile low-temperature environments are an absolute necessity.
A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.
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October 17, 2018
Quantum Computing – Decoherence – Extra History – #5
How Toronto got its name
Colby Cosh on the origins of the name of Canada’s largest city (which, surprisingly, isn’t the Mississauga name for “big stink on the water”):
Detail from a 1688 map of western New France by Vincenzo Coronelli that locates “Lac Taronto” at Lake Simcoe.
City of Toronto Culture Division/Library and Archives Canada via the National Post
By the time of Franquelin, “Tkaronto” had already become “Taronto,” a generic name for the highway between Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario. The Humber River was called the Toronto River by the French before Gen. John Graves Simcoe and the British got hold of everything. The word, in turn, became attached to a trading settlement at the southern end of the trail — a pretty crummy place, by all accounts, but one destined for bigger things as part of a global seafaring empire.
The miracle is that it held on to the name. Simcoe insisted that “Toronto,” on being anointed as the site of the new capital of Upper Canada in 1793, be dubbed “York” in honour of Prince Frederick (1763-1827), Duke of York and second son of George III. This Duke of York is the “Grand Old Duke of York” from the satirical verse about military futility. He was also commander-in-chief of the British armies that helped to chase Napoleon out of Europe twice, and is thought to deserve genuine credit for this, so be careful who you write insulting rhymes about.
Simcoe dubbed Toronto “York” just because he was sucking up to a very identifiable future boss, and for no other reason. The people of Toronto seem to have understood this and resented it. In the decades to come, it was occasionally observed that there were something like a dozen other places in Upper Canada called “York.” Moreover, Simcoe’s “Little York,” as it was often called, seems to have presented an increasingly embarrassing parallel with the Americans’ bustling New York.
In 1834, when the Legislative Council of Upper Canada decided that the capital needed to be formally incorporated as a city, the citizenry remembered that they belonged to “Toronto” and appealed to the council to have the more musical old name restored. Over four decades their annoyance had not receded. Diehards who wanted York to remain York for imperial-grandeur reasons were outvoted, and Toronto’s formal Act of Incorporation observes that “it is desirable, for avoiding inconvenience and confusion, to designate the Capital of the Province by a name which will better distinguish it.” The appellation “Toronto,” of course, had actually been nicked from a spot some way off, but the white settlers had mislaid that information, and didn’t check with anyone who would know better.
Bren vs Spandau part two
Lindybeige
Published on 31 May 2016The WW2 German fanboys didn’t like my first video on this topic, some were quite hostile. Here I explain myself even more fully.
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Many people didn’t read the description on my last video, and so missed my dealing with most of the objections. People don’t read descriptions, so here I come back at my critics in video form. So terrified were some people to think that someone out there might be suggesting that German WW2 equipment wasn’t superb in every way, or that British equipment might have been as good as adequate, that they were very quick to misinterpret me, and to jump to wild and erroneous conclusions. Most people were not like this, and I was blessed as ever by many pleasant comments, but when a YouTuber concludes that a piece of WW2 German or medieval Japanese kit was sub-perfect, then he will face the wrath and wails of the fan-boys.
Musical stings kindly contributed by David Bevan.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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QotD: “60 is the new 40”
… over the years I’ve watched people my age go from rarely mentioned as sportsmen and pop stars to more commonly as leading actors and television presenters and now ubiquitously I find myself in the thick of captains of industry, ennobled politicians, retired sportsmen and character actors. You only notice the accumulating years in relation to other people.
Last week an editor breezily mentioned that as I was coming up to a milestone decade would I perhaps like to write something about it? You know, is 60 the new 40? Why do you make those little noises when you get out of a chair? Am I considering getting a shed, or a cruise, or Velcro? And what about sex?
The only people who ask about significant birthdays are younger than you. No 70-year-olds are inquiring about my insights on being 60. Age is the great terra incognita. But then, all the people who tell me to do anything are younger than me now.
And please, can we stop this “60 is the new 40” thing? No one is saying 20 is the new 10. And who wants to be 40 anyway? An insipid, insecure age.
My generation, the postwar baby-boomers, are over the meridian of our vital parabolas. We’ve done our best and our worst, overachieved and underperformed, are either preparing to bask on the sun loungers of our success or suck our bruised fingers in the waiting rooms of failure. So 60 is both a personal summit from which to look back, breathing heavily, hands on my knees, and a generational one.
A.A. Gill, “Life at 60”, Sunday Times, 2014-06-29.
