32 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  6. Re: Commander Cody and the Hot Rod Lincoln.
    Thanks Kate, that song brings back such warm memories. ”Hot Rod Lincoln” was originally written by Charlie Ryan in 1955, a WWII vet who grew up south of Kalispell in Polson, Montana. He performed with singers like Johnny Horton and Jimmie Reeves.
    When the song was re-written and released by ”Charley Ryan and the Timberline Riders” in 1959, it became a success simply because of America’s love of hot rods, mostly late 20’s and early 30’s 2 door door Ford coupes that had their original 4 cyl engines replaced with Flathead Ford V-8s. When a guy came along with a hot rod powered by a Lincoln Flathead V-12, he was king of the road. Much to my amazement I would eventually learn that the Hot Rod Lincoln was indeed a real car, and the race in the song had actually taken place. Even more amazing when I learned that the Hot Rod Lincoln still exists today. The Hot Rod enthusiast of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s were indeed responsible for much of the engineering that went into the muscle cars of the 60’s and 70’s when Detroit ruled the roost. Enjoy the video of the orignal Hot Rod Lincoln.
    https://youtu.be/Yw0I4LIPTm8

  8. Eventually my handle for the Shiny Pony WILL stick………. “The BongWhisperer” .

  9. For a brief time in 1974, some HS buddies and I were captured by the 1950’s music resurgence brought on by Sha Na Na. We played in the Senior talent show sporting fenders on our greased back hair, buckets rolled up on our Levi’s and cigs rolled onto our short sleeve shirts. One of our most requested song was Hot Rod Lincoln … an absolute gas to perform. But for some reason, I always pictured a big ass 1960’s tail fin, suicide door, Lincoln. I guess because that was the only “Lincoln” I was aware of. I never associated any older cars as “Lincolns” … that’s a pretty fine hot rod

  10. I think CTV said they did not carry it because they realized it was set up. Well,good they finally got a clue. Most of what Junior has done so far has been “set up”, including the White House dinner, Vogue interview and virtually anything that has appeared in the US media. Globalists are promoting our boy –wonder why.

  11. Love this part:
    “According to the sharp-eyed Canadian blogger J.J. McCullough, however, everything about the press conference—the setting, the question, and the answer—was choreographed by Trudeau himself.
    As McCullough points out, Trudeau was actually the first to suggest reporters ask him about quantum computing.”
    🙂

  12. “I’m really hoping people ask me how quantum computing works”. What a pathetic bid for attention.

  16. All will be fixed at Attawapiskat Indian Reserve with Dr. Carolyn Bennett’s visit spreading Liberal love with more money and empty promises. Places like that are not habitable, they need to shut it down, get them out of there. If Indians want all the modern conveniences they need to live where access to them is possible and within reason. As long as they and successive governments show no respect for our tax dollars by throwing it into a bottomless pit nothing will change. It’s rampant stupidity.

  19. HRL is a classic.
    The Commander Cody band had Billy Kirchen on guitar when they recorded it. He still does a greatly expanded version of it at his shows. A couple of years ago he was touring with Redd Volkaert a Tele god from Vancouver who played in Merles band for years. They did a smokin’ break neck version of HRL. You can view it on You Tube.
    Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel does a job on it as well.

  22. There is a strange sickness going around in Alberta. Apparently it lasts exactly 16 weeks. Alberta Health Services managers come down with this sickness and make a miraculous recovery just as their 16 weeks of PAID sick leave are about to expire.
    The NDP hasn’t figured out that they were elected because previous governments let this $hit go on. I thought health care was stuff the NDP was supposed to be good at. Instead they veered off on their own pet projects. This is why the NDP will not get re-elected.
    Alberta Health Services managers accused of squandering sick days
    AHS says four months of fully paid sick time isn’t excessive and that it’s common across Canada in this sector. Officials say more than half of the people taking the full, four months off were very sick and that it looks worse than it is because the institution is so big.

  23. I can’t wait for all the selfies that our quantum-computing-expert-in-chief will take with the happy couple. (Barf!)

  27. Yes, and Plainzfyre’s deconstruction of Trudeau’s publicity stunt show how he and the co-opted have resorted to political science, which like Justin’s description of quantum accounting, is not science.
    “Actually, Justin Trudeau doesn’t get quantum computing.”
    This isn’t the place for a full primer on quantum computing, though Seth Lloyd’s “Programming the Universe” is a good non-technical introduction. A single qubit, or quantum bit, is neither a 0 nor a 1 until it is measured. This doesn’t mean it has “more complex information” encoded into it, though. Once you measure it — which you have to do if you are to do any computing — you can get only a 0 or a 1. There’s no additional complexity there. As this quantum computing textbook explains, you can gain only one bit of information about whatever question you were originally asking by measuring one qubit. Why, then, are quantum computers powerful?”
    A quantum computer measures a qubit (or qubits) at the end of a computation or series of computations. Because intermediate steps have been taken while each qubit is neither a 0 nor a 1 but in a mixed state that has some probability of being one or the other, a quantum computer can do some types of computations much faster than a normal computer could. The power of quantum computers grows when you entangle many qubits together. The capability of quantum computers, in a sense, grows exponentially — very, very fast — with the number of qubits you can successfully entangle together. Keeping qubits entangled together until you want to measure the output — or “coherent,” in the parlance — has been very difficult, which is why progress in quantum computing has been slow.”
    Does it matter that Trudeau was wrong? As Scott Aaronson, a noted quantum computing expert, says, “The widespread praise for this reply surely says more about how low the usual standards for politicians are, and about Trudeau’s fine comic delivery, than about anything intrinsic to what he said.” The experts polled by Motherboard can’t really be taken at face value, as who is going to go out on a limb to criticize a photogenic politician who has just brought your discipline into the limelight? That’s all great news for scientists. It just doesn’t make him one.”
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/18/actually-justin-trudeau-doesnt-get-quantum-computing/

  28. Justine government avers that it is not now; nor, has it ever been a member of the quondumb party.
    …-
    “The cult of science. As it gains more and more prestige, it attracts opportunists and charlatans spewing an ocean of nonsense…”
    “Scientists have long been aware of something euphemistically called the “experimenter effect”: the curious fact that when a phenomenon is investigated by a researcher who happens to believe in the phenomenon, it is far more likely to be detected.”
    http://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/scientific-regress

  29. While the capabilities of quantum computers have been heralded far and wide, the reality is that, according to my sources, they don’t actually exist. What has been accomplished, however, is building and testing hardware that can perform some of the low-level operating functions (basically simple binary arithmetic, as I recall).
    It’s the equivalent of putting some logic gates on a breadboard and using them perform some Boolean algebra, just to see if it’s possible.
    That demonstrates that such machines might be feasible, but a full-blown quantum computer, complete with central processor, memory, and associated interfaces, doesn’t exist, as such. Mind you, there’s a firm which, I believe, is located in the Vancouver area that has claimed to have done that but doubt has been expressed by third parties about its validity.
    Quantum computing is yet another one in a long line of ideas and concepts like room-temperature superconductors and controlled thermonuclear fusion. Great promises are made, as are forecasts as to when they will be commonly available (“in another 20 years” is a favourite time period). Interest in them fades as reality shows that actually delivering on those claims is much more difficult than originally anticipated. Maybe something will come of it, but not right away.
    I’ll believe that a quantum computer exists when I can walk up to one and kick it.

  30. Quite frankly it makes no difference at all if Trudeau’s quantum performance was correct or not. People are overlooking the obvious — which is that as citizens of Canada, we care little about whether or not our politicians understand quantum physics. What we want if for them to have a sophisticated understanding of policies (Justin does not, and an ability to exercise good judgement and leadership. Harper had these qualities in spades. Justine is photogenic. I am sorry, but unless something emerges that proves me wrong, I still think Justin is a lightweight and lacks understanding of key issues. Unfortunately, the media think that being charismatic is all that is needed. (I am not sure he is, but many easily amused people seem to like him.) As it stands, he is not qualified to run the lead the country, and I do not think he is.

  31. Not to remember the idiocies perpetuated by Indian Affairs, or whatever the ministry is called these days. Had occasion to pass through a native village in NWT. A few decent houses, school, school teacher’s house. But only the school and the school teacher’s house had running water, etc. Everyone else had to use a common well and – of course – no indoor plumbing. Even then – and it was a long time ago – I was astounded at the idiocy of a bureaucracy which thought installing this two-level infrastructure was okay. But then, it was probably a legacy of Jean Chretien when he was Minister of Indian Affairs (or whatever it was called). There was a mine at Pine Point, NWT, which had housing built by the mine operator, Cominco. However, scattered throughout the townsite were lots designated for natives, with housing to be built by Indian Affairs. Said houses were much inferior to those built by Cominco, and the rents were substantially higher than those charged by the company (rents were subsidized). Needless to say, no one wanted to rent the Indian Affairs houses, and those who did transferred as soon as possible. The discrepancy didn’t bother Chretien, who reported shrugged off the issue with something along the lines of ..l.”well, Cominco has lots of money”. Ironically, Cominco wanted to build the same class of building on ALL the lots, subsidizing all equally, and would have allocated a certain percentage to natives, but Indian Affairs wouldn’t let them.

  32. Let me adjust that sentence for you LindaL:
    “Unfortunately, the media think that being charismatic (AND LIBERAL) is all that is needed. (I am not sure he is, but many easily amused people seem to like him.) As it stands, he is not qualified to run the lead the country, and I do not think he is.”
    Yes it makes no difference if Justin understands quantum computing. It does matter he doesn’t understand economics, ethics or human nature, or cares.
    Political science is science to this warmist watermelon. No, marauding gangs of Islamist killers, bent on apocalyptic nuclear war are not the pervasive issue – a half degree of warming in the last 50 years speciously attributed to the small quantity that CO2 humans emit is, with statism always the solution.
    All areas of meaningful thought are now delegated to political science which as the saying goes is science the same way military music is to music; or justice or common sense; anyway you get my drift.
    The truly sad part is to watch many scientists whore themselves as sycophantic fund seekers, always sure to stay within the self-serving narrative of existential climate change threats, which they must be sure, if they are indeed scientists, is far from valid. It’s easier to shut your mouth, except when oohing and awing over Justin or spouting Grit talking points, and to take the money – than to employ scientific integrity.
    This is an example of our “un-muzzled scientists?”

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