Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Jan 30, 1862: the ironclad USS Monitor was launched. She was commissioned a month later and almost immediately took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862 under the command of LT John Worden. Worden (March 12, 1818 – October 19, 1897) later in 1873 would become the first president of the U.S. Naval Institute. Back in those days I guess some got promoted very, very quickly. Lt to 2-star Admiral in only 10 years.


I heard a replica of USS Monitor will be on display at Navy's 250th birthday celebration in Philadelphia this October.


Happy 95th Birthday to Gene Hackman! Hackman served with the Marines in Tsingtao in 1948 to protect U.S. interests from communist forces. Decades later, fellow leathernecks could get his attention by mentioning Ping Kong Tung Lee's, a favorite bar of Marines on liberty.


Hackman: I run into some of them once in a while. Somebody occasionally will come up behind me and say, "Semper Fi!" A couple of years ago, I was walking down the street in New York, and I heard a voice behind me. He said, "Have you been to Ping Kong Tung Lee's lately?" This got my attention; that was a whorehouse in Tsingtao, China.

An interview with Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan

Actor Gene Hackman Served in the Marine Corps in China


FBI informant Ronald Reagan testifies against fellow actors before House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.




Air traffic control radar consoles in the Combat Information Center (CIC) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation, 1988. Very similar to the station I maintained, except on a Destroyer.




There she is!




Asked if China's DeepSeek stole American IP, AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks says it looks like a technique called distillation was used where a student model can "suck the knowledge" out of the parent model and there is evidence that DeepSeek distilled knowledge from OpenAI's models, which is leading to efforts to develop techniques to prevent future copycats.

Yea, now the media is blowing up on that "new" buzz term, "distillation". LOL.

When I went to Google to search for a video on Sacks explaining this, the first 50 vids (yes 50) all pointed to Instagram. LOL, what a joke. Amazingly, the first vid that popped up when searching directly on Youtube site was exactly what I was looking for:



Basically saying they couldn’t copy their own model to make it better and are upset that someone else (China) did. Sounds like a case of IP copyright infringement of OpenAI, which of course the CCP could careless.


And just like that, DeepSeek R1 is an available model choice on Microsoft Azure platform because it is open source.

DeepSeek R1 is now available on Azure AI Foundry and GitHub

Now, the AI hypocrisy from both sides will be revealed.

And of course Microsoft has a deep OpenAI relationship too.

Confluence of technologies plus proprietary data equals opportunity.

It is probable that at least some people in the administration are viewing the USA through an Elon-like lens. What are America's pain points? What are its binding constraints? They are unblocking the drains so the innovation network can flow. Now there's a big gap between "visioning" and actually making it happen. Between talking the talk and walking the walk. Every one has a vision, but what will happen is yet to be seen.



I propose the congressional dress code is changed again so that all House and Senate members are required to wear a onesie covered in the logos of their corporate handlers. Call it casual Friday attire.


The confirmation hearings is more like when a gang of old bullies corners you in the hall and tries to make you eat a bug for their amusement. Despite all the attention on the air tradegy collision, it did invoke the Snowman to respond...







You don't see this happen to a US senator very often...

A judge sentenced disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., to 11 years in prison on Wednesday, concluding his trial for a "long-running bribery and foreign influence scheme of rare gravity."

The sentence is the harshest ever handed down to a U.S. senator. Breaking down in tears, Menendez pleaded with U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein for mercy in a New York City courtroom.

"I have lost everything," he said. "Other than family, I have lost everything I care about. Every day I am awake is punishment. I am far from a perfect man… in half-century of public service, I have done far more good than bad."

Before handing down his punishment, Stein said: "I take no pleasure in this sentence."

"You are quite right about your work. You worked your way up to a senator, to the chair of foreign relations committee," Stein told Menendez. "You were successful, powerful, stood at the apex of our political system. All letters are proof. Somewhere along the way, you lost your way."

Defense attorney Adam Fee told Stein to give Menendez credit for his lifetime of public service, asking for a sentence of no more than eight years.

"Despite his decades of service, he is now known more widely as ‘Gold Bar Bob,’" Fee said.

Prosecutors had requested a 15-year sentence for Menendez, 71, after he was convicted in July 2024 on 16 counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. He is the first U.S. senator in American history to be convicted of working as a foreign agent. His co-defendants, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, were also sentenced to eight years and seven years, respectively.

"As proven at trial, the defendants engaged, for years, in a corruption and foreign influence scheme of stunning brazenness, breadth, and duration, resulting in exceptionally grave abuses of power at the highest levels of the Legislative Branch of the United States Government," prosecutors wrote.

Prior to the announcement of his sentence, Daibes, 67, tearfully told Stein the jury verdict had left him "borderline suicidal," and requested leniency so that he could care for his 30-year-old autistic son.

Hana told the judge, "I am an innocent man."

"I never bribed Senator Menendez or asked his office for influence," he said.

The judge, though, said the jury's verdict was "very, very substantial."

A third businessman pleaded guilty and testified against Menendez at a trial last year.

Outside the courthouse, Menendez proclaimed his innocence, calling his prosecution a "witch hunt" by the Justice Department.

"President Trump is right. This process is political and it's corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system," he said.

Menendez's conviction came after a nine-week-long trial. The former Democratic lawmaker was accused of accepting gifts totaling more than $100,000 in gold bars as well as cash.

The disgraced Democrat was accused and convicted of participating in a years long bribery scheme involving the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Menendez’s wife, Nadine, who is set to go on trial on March 18, also allegedly participated in the scheme. She is accused of receiving paychecks for a job that did not exist.

The indictment against Menendez came after co-defendant Jose Uribe — who allegedly gifted Nadine a Mercedes convertible — accepted a plea deal and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

"Menendez, who swore an oath to represent the United States and the state of New Jersey, instead put his high office up for sale in exchange for this hoard of bribes," prosecutors wrote ahead of the sentencing.

Fox News |  Wiki


XB-1 Baby Boom Goes Supersonic


The test flight was livestreamed using broadband internet beamed to Earth from SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation. A Starlink Mini unit was installed in the T-38 chase plane.