Quotulatiousness

December 21, 2014

The first historical European martial arts tournament

Filed under: Cancon, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:05

Aaron Miedema shared a link to this story about the first known tournament for historical European martial arts:

If I asked you when was the first historical European Martial Arts tournament what would you say? 1997? 2003?

Not even close.

How about where? America? Great Britain? Germany? France?

No, none of the above.

What if I told you that the earliest known tournament took place in a region of the globe which we probably don’t hear enough about, but which surely deserves to be known across the HEMA community: Quebec.

Yes. The first ever tournament took place on the island of Montreal in… 1889. Who was heading this tournament? Perhaps Alfred Hutton on a trip in Canada? Or how about one of those French guys from the Olympics? No, it was another HEMA pioneer. One which is unfortunately unknown to us because he did not leave us any manual, but an interesting figure all the same: David Legault.

[…]

Legault came back to Montreal around 1882. There were very few qualified fencing instructors in town at that time, and the art was going through a revival. His friends then encouraged David to open up a fencing salle in the former Institut Canadien, a learned French Canadian society which regularly drew the wrath of the church. There he will teach not only swordsmanship but also boxing, savate, wrestling, great stick and gymnastics. He will try to introduce the model inside Quebec schools, with more or less success, but his regular classes will grow in popularity and Legault will decide to change the nature of his club which will become known as the Guard of the Archiepiscopal Palace. This group acted as an honorary guard to the Catholic archbishop of Montreal as well as a sort of militia to prepare men for military service. Several similar groups will be created across the province, all of them teaching fencing. Volunteering in the Canadian army and various official militia units which were mostly English speaking was not very popular with French Canadians, and many turned toward these groups instead.

November 22, 2014

QotD: The first “American” college football game

Filed under: Cancon, Football, History, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

… the first college-football contest was not played in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton, but in 1874 between McGill and Harvard. The game the two New Jersey schools played was something close to soccer, with players (25 per side) allowed to kick the ball or bat it with their hands, and points scored by kicking the ball into the opponents’ goal. This game spread to a handful of other northeastern colleges in the next few years, under varying rules.

Meanwhile, Harvard played a different, more rugbyish game that allowed the ball to be carried and thrown. In 1874 it agreed to a two-game series in Cambridge with McGill, which also played a rugby-type game. The first game, played on May 14 under Harvard’s rules, was an easy victory for the home team. The next day they played under McGill’s rules, which permitted more ball handling, used an oval ball (unlike Harvard’s round one), and scored points with a “try,” similar to the modern touchdown. The contest ended in a scoreless tie, but Harvard’s players decided they liked McGill’s rules better than their own.

The “Boston game” soon became more popular than the kicking-oriented variety, and when representatives from four American colleges met in November 1876 to standardize football rules, they largely adopted the McGill/Harvard version. So while the 1874 game was quite different from today’s football, it is at least recognizable as an ancestor, whereas the game Rutgers and Princeton played in 1869 was an evolutionary dead end.

Fred Schwarz, “Why American Football Is Canadian”, National Review Online, 2014-11-13.

June 30, 2014

Differences between NFL and CFL rules

Filed under: Cancon, Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Current Chicago Bears coach (and former Montreal Alouettes coach) Marc Trestman talks about his time in the CFL and what the differences are between real maple-flavoured football and the NFL variety:

There are now nine teams in the CFL, and because of that there is a great deal of familiarity between the organizations. The league itself is tradition-filled and more than 100 years old. Each team plays each other up to three times during the 18-game season. Here are some more CFL nuances:

  • The game is played on a 110-yard field with 20-yard end zones.
  • The field is 65 yards wide (compared to the NFL’s 53 yards), with a 20-second time clock between plays. That leads to action-packed football.
  • There are only three downs to make 10 yards, not four.
  • They play 12 players to a side, and the defensive line must line up a yard off the ball.
  • Six eligible receivers can be in motion prior to the snap.
  • On kicking teams, there are no fair catches, which makes for a very exciting punting game with the wide field.

[…]

Another important difference between the CFL and NFL: the makeup of the teams. In the CFL, you have a 42-man game-day roster, and 20 of the 42 players must have Canadian heritage. The two quarterbacks don’t count against the ratio and you have to start seven Canadians among your 24 starters. But, there is no difference in the competitive makeup of each player. The men in the Montreal locker room were essentially no different than the men in our Chicago locker room. The players truly love the game, train extremely hard in the off-season, are highly competitive and “football intelligent,” and the game is as important to them as the NFL players I have coached. The only difference is the CFL player salary is significantly less than the NFL player. The CFL has a collective bargaining agreement, but the salary cap is $125 million lower than the NFL’s this year.

[…]

The rules in Canada were brilliantly conceived. It’s more of a mental challenge on game day. For example, on a missed field goal, the kicking team gets a point. But if the opponent runs it out of the end zone, the point is taken off the board. There are many tedious rules like this that make it challenging to manage a game. But the rules make sense and are tied to making the game extremely challenging from a game management point of view.

Because you have three downs to make a first down instead of four like U.S. football, most people would say, “You’ve got to make a first down in two downs, or punt on third down.” But because the defense is a yard off the ball, if you are third-and-one or less, most teams go for it. So if you make nine yards on two downs your chances of moving the chains are very good. The kicking game is extremely exciting. Because there are no fair catches, the covering team has to leave a five-yard halo around the returner so he can catch the ball. The return game therefore has more chances for explosive plays. With the wider field, the quicker players can make more things happen.

This may all be of interest to US television viewers, as ESPN just announced a deal to allow them the US broadcast rights for the CFL:

ESPN has acquired exclusive rights in the United States to Canadian Football League (CFL) games through a multi-year agreement, beginning with the 2014 season. ESPN will present at least 86 games in 2014 with 17 or more contests to be televised on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNEWS, including the 102nd Grey Cup. An additional 69 games will be carried on ESPN’s live multi-screen sports network, ESPN3.

The TV schedule kicks off Saturday, June 28, at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN2 when the Calgary Stampeders host the Montreal Alouettes, whose star wide receiver is Duron Carter, son of ESPN NFL analyst and Pro Football Hall of Famer Cris Carter. Canada’s Sports Leader TSN will work with ESPN on game productions and their team of commentators will call the games.

ESPN’s relationship with the CFL spans more than three decades. In 1980, ESPN televised its first live football telecast ever – the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts vs. Montreal Alouettes – and continued televising CFL games from 1980-84, 1986-89, 1994-97 and in 2013. Additionally, ESPN3 has carried CFL games since 2008, including 54 games in 2013.

May 27, 2014

WSJ – “…the Canadian government is paying almost 80% of his developers’ salaries”

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Economics, Government, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:32

Stephen Gordon linked to this rather boggling Wall Street Journal article that outlines how the Canadian and provincial governments are attempting to lure start-up technology businesses to locate in Canada with vast bribes of taxpayer money:

Imagine you are launching or running a startup and there’s a place where all of your developers — the biggest expense for most tech companies — cost one quarter what they do in Silicon Valley. Sure, it’s cold there, but talent is plentiful and the locals are friendly. Would you trade your hash browns for poutine?

Adam Adelman, co-founder of Mighty Cast, a startup working on a new kind of wearable technology, recently told me the Canadian government is paying almost 80% of his developers’ salaries. And that’s not a tax credit. It’s a rebate, a check he gets from the government whether or not his startup makes money.

Even at Mighty Cast, a two-year-old hardware startup, salaries have been 80% of expenses. Combine that with the lower salaries demanded by engineers in Montreal, where Mighty Cast moved its headquarters after its genesis in Silicon Valley, and Mr. Adelman says he’s able to stretch his angel round of investment four times as far.

So the federal government is literally giving away money to start-up tech companies to compete at a huge advantage against actual Canadian companies? Nearly 80% of the payroll is funded from taxes, partly collected from the domestic competition? Does this seem like a good idea to anyone who isn’t already drawing 100% of their income from Ottawa?

The government is particularly badly suited to picking technology winners, and this program sounds like a vast give-away for the well-connected few, literally at the expense of everyone else. Maple-flavoured crony capitalism, with the official stamp of approval of Stephen Harper’s “conservative” government.

February 25, 2014

Next on Quebec’s language hit-list – getting rid of “Bonjour-Hi”

Filed under: Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:48

The Anglos in Quebec will be facing tougher language laws if (when) the Parti Québécois wins a majority in the next provincial election:

Speaking to business leaders, Diane De Courcy vowed to halt Quebec’s “unacceptable slide” into institutional bilingualism — in Montreal and across the province.

A PQ majority government would make it a priority to bring back Bill 14 and to stamp out examples of creeping bilingualism like sales staff who greet customers with “Bonjour-Hi,” she said at a day-long conference on francization programs held by the Conseil du patronat.

“Montreal is not a bilingual city. Quebec is not a bilingual Quebec,” De Courcy said to reporters after her speech.

Last year, the government decided not to push for adoption of Bill 14, strengthening Quebec’s French Language Charter, because of a lack of support from opposition parties. The wide-ranging bill would extend Bill 101 rules for large businesses to smaller companies with between 25 and 50 employees, and toughen up aspects of the language law on access to English education and bilingual municipalities.

[…]

Employees who deal with the public must be able to address customers correctly in French, “not like what we have right now in downtown Montreal, and not only in Montreal, which is ‘Bonjour-Hi,’” De Courcy said.

De Courcy said she thinks it’s great if individuals want to learn different languages like English, Spanish, Mandarin or Arabic in their private lives, but institutions and businesses must function strictly in French.

“There is a difference with what is institutional and it must be without mercy,” she said.

February 20, 2014

Even when he does nothing, Justin still gets great press

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:18

Paul Wells discusses the upcoming Liberal Party convention in Montreal, and the evergreen topic of Justin Trudeau’s ability to get loving press coverage even when he’s not doing or saying anything at all:

… Justin Trudeau, whose party has led the others in national polls for 10 months. Since Trudeau has been the Liberal leader for the same length of time, he has become a figure of some fascination, not least among the members and supporters of other parties. They are convinced the coltish young man, who first set foot in 24 Sussex Drive at the same moment he first set foot anywhere at all, has been given a free ride by the press gallery. Not just a free ride: a leg up. Perhaps even a leg over. In my own case I’ve gone about it in odd fashion, by publishing a 400-page book about Stephen Harper whose thesis is that the Prime Minister is eternal, but you knew I was devious when you walked in.

The Liberals’ opponents have compensated for the gallery’s failure to give Trudeau proper scrutiny by scruting him as hard as they can. The Conservatives have spent millions of dollars on commercial radio ads — in Punjabi, Cantonese, Mandarin and English — warning parents that Trudeau will give their kids marijuana. The Liberals have spent large sums rebutting the Conservative ads with their own. This fight has been going on for four months and may now stand as the most sustained bout of pre-writ campaign advertising in your lifetime. Newspaper reporters, who do not listen to commercial radio and are not sure they believe it exists, have covered almost none of it.

But if the Conservatives attack Trudeau for four months on the radio — and every day in the Commons, and almost as often in email blasts to Conservative donors — and the Liberals still lead, are the Conservative attacks failing? Hard to know. Maybe the Liberals would be less popular if the Conservative back bench and Ezra Levant stopped talking about him. Or maybe they’d be riding even higher, carried aloft on the praise of complacent scribes. Politics rarely lets us test counterfactuals properly.

But if Trudeau’s big mouth reliably gets him into trouble — a proposition routinely argued by his opponents while they are on breaks from trying to get him into trouble — then the Liberals’ Montreal convention is a risky proposition for him. He has two big speeches scheduled there, one on Thursday and a second on Saturday. If his jaw is a shovel custom-built to dig his political grave, he will have two chances to dig deep.

I must commend whoever it was in the Liberal war room that suggested the Tories get “Justin”-themed rolling papers printed up. Even the Conservatives — who have been known for generations for laughably bad political notions — might not have come up with something so dumb without help.

January 31, 2014

(Micro-)Break it to make a material stronger

Filed under: Science, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:18

Another example of how sometimes we can benefit by using biomimicry:

Engineers intrigued by the toughness of mollusc shells, which are composed of brittle minerals, have found inspiration in their structure to make glass 200 times stronger than a standard pane.

Counter-intuitively, the glass is strengthened by introducing a network of microscopic cracks, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday.

A team at McGill University in Montreal began their research with a close-up study of natural materials like mollusc shells, bone and nails which are astonishingly resilient despite being made of brittle minerals.

The secret lies in the fact that the minerals are bound together into a larger, tougher unit.

The binding means the shell contains abundant tiny fault lines called interfaces. Outwardly, this might seem a weakness, but in practice it is a masterful deflector of external pressure.

To take one example, the shiny, inner shell layer of some molluscs, known as nacre or mother of pearl, is some 3,000 times tougher than the minerals it is made of.

May 2, 2013

Warren Moon says Tim Tebow couldn’t hack it in the CFL

Filed under: Cancon, Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:50

And if there’s anyone in the NFL’s Hall of Fame who also knows what it takes to be a great quarterback in the CFL, it’s Warren Moon:

Hall of Famer Warren Moon said in a radio interview Wednesday that the Canadian Football League is not a viable option for Tim Tebow to prove he can play quarterback, as the former Heisman Trophy winner doesn’t throw the ball well enough to play in the league.

“You have to be able to throw the ball up there, if anything. They throw the ball a lot. It’s only three downs, so the passing game is much more important up there, and there’s a lot more field to cover,” Moon said in an interview with KILT-AM in Houston.

“If you can’t throw the football, it doesn’t matter where you play quarterback,” he said. “You have to be able to throw it. That’s his biggest problem, just being able to complete passes, be an accurate passer. I think he’s a really good athlete playing the position, but I don’t think that’s enough sometimes.”

Tebow cleared waivers on Tuesday after being released by the New York Jets. The Montreal Alouettes, who own his CFL rights, have said they would welcome Tebow to the league — provided he’s willing to compete for a job as a backup quarterback.

[. . .]

Moon played six seasons in the CFL after going undrafted out of Washington in 1978, leading his Edmonton Eskimos to five consecutive Grey Cup titles, throwing for 21,228 yards with 144 touchdowns and 77 interceptions. In 17 NFL seasons, he threw for 49,325 yards, 291 touchdowns and 233 interceptions. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Moon said he thinks that if Tebow wants to continue playing in the NFL, he’ll have to switch to another position. Moon told ESPN Radio’s “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” on Monday, “I don’t think it’s going to happen at the quarterback position for him, at least not in the National Football League. You have to be able to throw the football before everything else happens.

June 14, 2012

The “victim” mindset among Quebec protestors

Filed under: Cancon, History, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:13

Dan Delmar on some of the long-standing grievances being channelled by Quebec’s most recent protestors:

“White Niggers of America:” That’s how author Pierre Vallières famously described the Québécois people in his 1968 book, which the former Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ) terrorist leader wrote from his prison cell.

Vallières argued that the struggles of French settlers in British North America were similar to those of pre-segregation era blacks in America, and the lingering effects of English repression were reason enough to issue a call to arms in the late 1960s. FLQ members then kidnapped and murdered Pierre Laporte, who was Quebec’s deputy premier, and sparked a national crisis that ended in martial law.

Vallières and the FLQ may be dead, but the notion that Quebecers are an oppressed people lives on.

[. . .]

Although the “N Word” hasn’t made a noticeable comeback just yet, it’s only a matter of time before fringe elements search for new and more shocking tactics to attract attention to their cause which, at least legislatively, has hit a dead end.

Upon seeing the salute images, many jumped to the conclusion that protesters were racists or that Neo-Nazism was on the rise in Montreal; neither is true. They aren’t racist – at least not intentionally. There is a genuine belief, as Vallière expressed, that Quebecers are in the midst of an epic battle to save democracy and break away from the shackles imposed on them by their Anglo overlords.

[. . .]

In many ways, he [Amir Khadir] embodies the Quebecois victim mentality. At a press conference last week, he compared his struggle with those of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. He turned to a CTV News reporter, a black woman, and said that “Law 78 is as unacceptable as segregation of blacks was in the 60s.” And he said that in all sincerity, with a straight face.

The culture of victimization runs deep. Some Quebec laws are based on the concept that Francophone culture is under attack, and restricting the use of other languages, as is the case with Bill 101, is an important weapon in the war against Americanization. And make no mistake: This is a war, ideologically speaking. Political elites, particularly within the separatist movement and the opposition Parti Québécois, believe the mere existence of the English language in this province is an assault on French.

June 2, 2012

The end of a weird week in Canadian journalism

Filed under: Cancon, Media — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:26

David Akin on all the unusual happenings over the past week:

I suspect Alex felt that way because he and his staff had to deal with a) the ongoing battle between students and Premier Jean Charest b) a grisly murder that forced police in Montreal to issue an international warrant for kitten-killing gay porn star Luka Magnotta c) a freak rain storm that put 70 mm of water on the ground in 30 minutes pretty much flooding most of downtown Montreal for an afternoon. But enough of that, let’s get to God using a bear to deliver God’s own brand of justice [. . .]

“The corpse of a man eaten by a B.C. bear was that of a convicted killer, officials have confirmed.”

[. . .]

“46 mm of rain in half an hour floods Montreal.”

[. . .]

On Friday, heavy rain would contribute to flooding which would end up flooding and shutting down Toronto’s Union Station on Friday causing commuter chaos

[. . .]

The Montreal flash floods occurred as Quebec Premier Jean Charest was trying to broker a deal with post-secondary students who have been “on strike” for more than 3 months because they don’t want to pay an extra $350 or so a year in tuition — over five years. Charest has been over-patient. The students have been, as they say on St. Urbain Street, “stiff-necked”. So the two sides met and then talks broke down.

All that, plus the kitten-killing, body dismembering fugitive porn star…

February 6, 2012

Battery sizes: AAA, AA, C, plus S, M, L, and XL

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:02

Coming to a boutique near you soon: wearable battery clothing.

Scientists charged into the fashion industry this week, unveiling a flexible battery that can be woven into fabric and used to boost the juice of everyday gadgets.

The lithium-ion cells were produced by a group of boffins from the Polytechnic School of Montreal. The team claims their bendy power cells are the first wearable battery that uses no liquid electrolytes, New Scientist reports.

The team sandwiched a solid polyethylene oxide electrolyte between a lithium iron phosphate cathode and lithium titanate anode. These are thermoplastic materials which, when gently heated, can be stretched into a thread.

There is a short-term restriction, however:

The next step is to waterproof the technology before attempts to implement it in future clothing and accessories can go ahead. Backpacks and medical-monitoring garments are said to be the first items the team is planning to add the tech to.

It’d be a bit unpleasant to have your shirt packing “hundreds of volts” discharge unexpectedly just because you broke a sweat …

June 24, 2011

“Damn! Another cursed Mordecai!”

Filed under: Books, Cancon, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:02

Barbara Kay takes issue with the token that Montreal has chosen to commemorate Mordecai Richler:

Mordecai Richler is Canada’s biggest claim to literary fame. If he had been born and lived in any other province but Quebec there would have been an outpouring of ideas on how to commemorate his life and achievements: perhaps renaming streets in his honour, building schools bearing his name, or erecting a statue featuring the disheveled genius wryly peering over his pince-nez at a smoked meat sandwich on wry…er, rye.

Instead Montreal’s political mandarins have decided he is getting a gazebo — a crummy little open pavilion at the foot of Mount Royal, with no known connection to the author. A place for people to come in out of the rain. Not quite a public toilet, but close.

That’s like naming the change house at an outdoor skating rink after Margaret Atwood, a pellet dispenser at the zoo after Yann Martel, or a maintenance shed after Margaret Laurence. But then, if Mordecai Richler had been born outside Quebec, maybe he wouldn’t have been inspired to the kind of savage indignation that made him such a household word (and often not in a good way) in his native Montreal.

She provides a rather more appropriate memorial gesture:

Here’s an idea: Montreal is riddled with potholes. The French for “pothole” is “nid-de-poule,” literally a chicken’s nest. How about if the word is officially changed to “mort-de-caille(ou)” which means “death of stone” (well, death of pebble, close enough). Henceforth let all Montreal potholes be called Mordecais. In this way, his name will forever be on every Montrealer’s lips, because Montreal potholes are ubiquitous and eternal, and yet not in a good way – “Damn! Another cursed Mordecai!” I think Richler himself would have appreciated the irony, and approved.

June 12, 2011

Montreal model railway loses out to real railway

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Railways, Randomness — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:36

Canadian National, which owns the building hosting Montreal Model Railway Club — claimed to be “Canada’s largest fully operational model railway” — is terminating the club’s lease because they can get higher rent for the building:

In a warehouse in Montreal’s historic Griffintown neighbourhood, model train enthusiasts have spent 38 years engaging in a labour of love.

Inch by inch, they’ve constructed what is believed to be Canada’s largest fully operational model railway.

More than 300 people have participated over the years, devoting thousands of hours to building life-like models across an eye-popping, detail-laden, 1,493-metre masterpiece.

And it’s about to be detroyed.

The reason for the imminent dismantling is not without irony: the make-believe trains are about to be forced away by a real train company, dealing with real-life issues like rising property costs.

Canadian National owns the 9,000-square-foot warehouse space and wants to lease it out at a higher rent, starting next year. It warned the model-train association five years ago that its time was up.

The club’s website is http://www.canadacentral.org/Reseau_EN.htm.

February 4, 2011

The Montreal Gazette‘s 1969 view of the year 2000

Filed under: Cancon, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:26

Paleofuture‘s Matt Novak digs up a Montreal Gazette cartoon from 1969:


Click to view full size

The January 18, 1969 Montreal Gazette ran this most peculiar comic, chock full of hilarious expositional dialogue and dystopian delights.

We follow the futuristic misadventures of George Daedalus, also known as Daeda 928 502 467, in the year 2000 AD. George lives in Oshtoham, Canada’s second largest city — which I’m guessing is a combination of the cities Oshawa, Toronto and Markham — and works as a travel agent. George lives his life surrounded by technological wonders like robot servants, videophones, moving sidewalks and 3D hologram walls, but we come to find out that he’s really just not that happy. The last panel shows George taking drugs and using a computer to escape his reality. Boy am I glad I don’t live in that future!

H/T to Cory Doctorow for the link.

August 7, 2010

QotD: De Gaulle

Filed under: Cancon, Europe, France, History, Quotations, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

De Gaulle was great because he knew how to act the part. Actually doing great things was someone’s else problem. The heavy lifting of the Second World War was done by the Russian foot soldier and the English speaking powers. Objectively, Canada did more to defeat Hitler than France. Being a nation of citizen soldiers, who desperately wanted to get home, we did our bit and went home. This allowed a prima donna like De Gaulle to take the credit for liberating France. In gratitude, the Liberator then travelled to Montreal, some twenty years later, and thanked Canada by trying to destroy it.

Publius, “The Saviour of the Nation”, Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2010-08-04

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