Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

XXXN3O - No problem. Thanks for adding that patent. I had posted on that a long while back & forgot all about it. Who can keep up anymore.

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"Picture Atlas of the Starry World" by Austrian astronomer Edmund Weiss.
Historical illustration depicting Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over Niagara Falls on the night of November 12-13, 1833. Plate 26 from Edmund Weiss' Bilder-Atlas der Sternenwelt (1892). The lunar crater "Weiss" is named after him.




Bound into three exquisitely colored volumes, Fungi Collected in Shropshire and Other Neighbourhoods (1860–1902) features hundreds of species, collected across 42 years by a female British mycologist named M. F. Lewis. Collected from her home town of Ludlow, England, and other locations in England and Wales. She does not appear to have published any of her work, but she was known locally and is cited in the Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and the records of the British Mycological Society, among others.


Fungi Collected in Shropshire and Other Neighbourhoods (1860–1902)

Volumes One, Two, and Three of her work are hand bound in leather with gilded spines, and contain detailed watercolors of some three hundred species. Lewis’s field notes include scientific names, locations, and dates for each mushroom documented.

The Albert R. Mann Library at Cornell University has the only copy of Lewis’s work, which was officially published in October 2023, a century and a half after Lewis completed it.


Nov 12, 1925: Italy agrees on a plan to repay its WWI debt to the U.S. under what are seen as highly generous terms. To satisfy an original indebtedness of $1.65 billion, Rome will give $2.1 billion over a period of 65 years, with a moratorium on interest the first five years and the first payment due in 1926 and the final one scheduled for 1987.


However, amid the Great Depression and failed international efforts like the 1932 Lausanne Conference to link war debt relief to German reparations, Italy made payments until 1933 but defaulted on its obligations to the US in June 1934. This default, prompted by economic hardship and no further relief, halted all repayments, and the debt remains unpaid today. The Johnson Debt Default Act of 1934 barred defaulting nations like Italy from US capital markets until 1940. I'm sure the USGOV got paid by other means plus the CIA rigged their election in 1948 so the Commies wouldn't take power.


November 12, 1939: Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s snow cruiser designed by Dr. Thomas Poulter passes through traffic and onlookers before halting for the night in Framingham, Massachusetts.




Nov 12, 1959: Electronic Brain Some Day May Link Doctors Over World on Single Case. "This Utopian world will come about through the use of the "black boxes" popularly known as electronic brains."


Dr. Robert S. Ledley was the pioneering super 'Brain' in computer medical science at Georgetown University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University.


The Most Influential Scientists in the Development of Medical Informatics: Robert S. Ledley (1926-2012)

In depth Wiki page on Ledley.

“The army called me down to New York [in 1950]. I was with New York University (NYU)—and the colonel said to me, ‘Well, if you volunteer to be in the army, then you'll become a lieutenant, an officer. But if you don't volunteer, you'll be drafted anyway, and sent to boot camp. So I volunteered. And they sent me to medical field service school in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. And that was kind of interesting. And then, I guess my card dropped out, they wanted a dentist who was a physicist. And that was me.”

The Story Behind the Development of the First Whole-body Computerized Tomography Scanner as Told by Robert S. Ledley

An underrated part of the London tube is that each of the 272 stations has a plaque with a unique depiction of a penitential/meditative labyrinth, created by artist Mark Wallinger in 2013 thus explaining to tube riders that they are about to embark on a spiritual journey of self discovery by getting on the train!

Sound nutty?! Every time you get on a train you are confronted by a sign saying "You are here" and the 'here' in question is at the start of a winding and circuitous path toward enlightenment. Londoners can have little mystical experiences during their gloomy daily commutes. I'm sure those who ride the train often don't even give the labyrinth signs a second glimpse, but something new I learned today.


Tube celebrates 150th birthday with labyrinth art project (2013) | Wiki

“Labyrinths offer the opportunity to walk
in meditation to that place within us
where the rational merges with the
intuitive and the spiritual is reborn.
Quite simply, labyrinths are a way to
discover the sacred in everyday life.”
- Helen Curry, The Way of the Labyrinth

THE LABYRINTH

A SACRED WALK: RECEIVING THE WISDOM OF THE LABYRINTH


Weather forecast for down under... rain..or maybe snow!



"Making clouds rain has been the subject of intensive research in several countries since the mid-40s. This study is the story of rainmaking in Australia - from the first tentative experiments with dry ice to the present, large-scale operations using silver iodide as the seeding agent. The film gives an account of the basic theory of cloud-seeding and outlines the techniques used in its practical application."


Nov 12, 1970: Exploding Whale Day! The Oregon Highway Division consulted with the U.S. Navy and decided the best way to dispose of a beached whale carcass was to blow it up with a 1/2 ton of dynamite. The explosion caused blubber to rain down on spectators & cars for over a 1/4 of a mile (402 m). A five-foot chunk of whale blubber hit a new Oldsmobile that spectator Walter Umenhofer had bought at a dealer's "whale of a deal" promotion. LMAO! Due to the physical damage and the smell that permeated the car, insurance covered the full retail value of the Olds.



The TV news segment is a classic. Ya gotta see it to believe it. Blubber Ahoy!




Goodbye, penny. The U.S. Mint says it is stopping the production of pennies, a historic move more than two centuries after the one-cent coin entered circulation. The last penny was stamped at the Philadelphia U.S. Mint during an event held today. The last time a coin was discontinued in the United States (it was the half-cent coin) was in 1857.

The Treasurer of the United States, Brandon Beach said the last few pennies were stamped with a special omega mark and will not go into circulation. The government plans to auction the pennies off in the future.


Reuters

The Penny Dies at 232 (NYT)

Pres Trump ordered a halt to penny production on Feb 11, 2025.
A bill dubbed the “Common Cents Act” would round cash transactions to the nearest five cents. The nickel will be next to get axed.

The Navy SEAL community lost a legend with the passing this September of Rear Admiral Thomas “The Hulk” Richards.

Richards was an inspiring leader—a warrior’s warrior, and an extraordinary Navy SEAL who was ready to risk all for his teammates. He did exactly that during a Viet Cong ambush on 30 January 1971. Then-Lieutenant (junior grade) Richards immediately took charge of his six-man SEAL patrol in a rice paddy in Vietnam’s Cà Mau Peninsula while under heavy fire. His platoon commander lay seriously wounded (shot in both legs), three of his six teammates were down hard, and a Viet Cong’s bullet had just ripped through his right hand as he held his Stoner light machine gun’s pistol grip. Richards led fearlessly, rallying his teammates against an enemy force that outnumbered them by 10 to 1.

Standing on top of a rice dike, he directed close-in fire support from a lone Seawolf helicopter gunship while completely exposed to enemy fire that had just wounded him. Then, with selfless disregard for his own life, and again completely exposed to enemy fire, he dragged all three of his wounded teammates out of the ambush “kill zone” and across the rice paddy to makeshift cover behind a dike.

He went back into the heavy fire to rescue each wounded SEAL, one after the other. He dragged each teammate for extraction to a Sealord helicopter that hovered, skids wet, over the rice paddy. With one arm, he lifted each wounded SEAL up to the crewman with his uninjured left hand. (We did not call him “The Hulk” back then for nothing.) All the while, enemy rounds hit the Sealord’s fuselage and splashed all around them in the rice paddy.

On that day a Navy SEAL legend was forged—a legend that stands as the embodiment of conspicuous gallantry under fire. Richards’ heroic actions that day define extraordinary heroism, all witnessed by the SEALs and Seawolves who were with him that day, fighting for their lives. His extraordinary heroism went above and beyond the call of duty and is still waiting to be officially and fully recognized by the Navy—even after more than 50 years and nine sworn, notarized, and submitted eyewitness accounts.

Three excerpts from two of those sworn statements, submitted by his wounded platoon commander and the Seawolf fire team leader providing critical fire support, describe Richards’ heroic actions as they witnessed them unfold:

“I used my hands to pull on rice plants to follow Tom and Rowland. As I got near Rowland, Tom was dragging Futrell across the N-S dike line with his good hand. Then he was on the radio. He was still completely out in the open, ignoring the now heavy fire that had already wounded him.”

—Excerpt from sworn witness statement on 18 March 2021 by Lieutenant Commander Grant Telfer, Zulu’s platoon commander, who was seriously wounded during the ambush.

“The helicopter was making an approach. . . . Tom Richards, still up and in the open, grabbed me again and dragged me over the north-south dike toward the helicopter. The next sight was beyond belief. One at a time, LTJG Richards, in the open, and with only one arm, lifted Futrell, then Rowland, up into the helicopter until the crewman could grab them and drag them in. Then Tom grabbed me and lifted me up. I was amazed at his strength.”]

—Excerpt from Telfer’s statement.

“I had a front row seat from 70 feet of altitude, almost directly on top of the SEAL squad. LTJG Richards’ large muscular frame made him easily distinguishable from the other SEALs. I saw him drag each of the wounded clear of the kill zone while he himself was wounded and under heavy fire. Zulu Platoon was outnumbered 10-1. LTJG Richards, without doubt, should have been awarded the Medal of Honor.”

—Commander Carl Nelson’s sworn witness statement on 1 June 2020. 

Nelson was the Seawolf fire team leader in command of the lone UH-1B helicopter gunship and Sealord formation. He had already flown more than 600 combat missions at the time of the operation, including to support numerous SEAL operations, and he provided the only combat air support from his lone gunship during the Viet Cong ambush. He was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroism during the engagement.

As one Congressman stated in his endorsement of an additional review by the Secretary of the Navy of Richards’ actions: 

“The nine sworn eyewitness statements of the SEALs and Seawolves of Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron Three described the extraordinary heroism of Richards and the conspicuous gallantry of Lawrence as they desperately fought to save the lives of their severely wounded teammates during that Viet Cong ambush more than fifty years ago. These statements tell the story of extraordinary heroism above and beyond the call of duty.”

Captain Slattery is a retired Navy SEAL. He was a teammate of Tom Richards in SEAL Team One.

The Passing of a Navy SEAL Legend