The centerpiece / iconic symbol of Expo '58 was The Atomium, a huge stainless-steel sculpture consisting of nine spheres connected by tubes in the shape of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. The 65-year-old landmark still stands today, and is considered to be the city’s most popular tourist attraction. Six of the nine spheres are open to the public and contain exhibit halls and other public spaces; the top-most sphere includes a restaurant with a panoramic view of Brussels.
I’m our eyes, astigmatism occurs when the lens or cornea are not spherical but are shaped more like a football. This results in light focusing on more than one point on the retina, when ideally the light should focus on exactly one point on the retina. For an eyeglass prescription, sphere is the correction for near- or far-sightedness, and cylinder and acids are corrections for astigmatism.
Bifocals are a variety of corrective eyeglasses with two distinct optical powers. Benjamin Franklin is often credited with inventing bifocals, though there is some debate as to whether or not they had been invented earlier, by someone else, perhaps in England. Regardless, Franklin was an early adopter of bifocals, and helped to popularize them.
A recent invention is an AI robot to help young kids learn STEM skills - science, technology, engineering, and mathematical. The robot is called the Roybi (“roy-bee”) robot. The Roybi robot also teaches languages, for Spanish and Mandarin in addition to English. Elnaz Sarraf is the founder and CEO of Roybi, and according to crunchbase the Roybi company has up to 10 employees and is located in Mountain View, CA.
Isaac Asimov, sf writer and creator of the Three Laws of Robotics, in May 1941 coined the term “robotics,” for the study, creation and programming of robots. He later said he was surprised no one else had come up with the term first.
Thanks, I never knew the story behind Bambi and Felix Salten until reading an article on it a few weeks ago.
In play:
Isaac Asimov died in 1992 of heart and kidney failure, which were complications of the HIV infection he contracted from a transfusion of infected blood during his December 1983 triple-bypass operation. His HIV status was kept secret out of concern that he and his family members might experience the severe anti-HIV prejudice current at the time.
The revelation that AIDS was the cause of Asimov’s death was not made until It’s Been a Good Life, a biography written by his wife Janet, was published in 2002.
Janet Gaynor was an actress who won the first ever Academy Award for Best Actress, which was given to her in 1928. She won the award for her roles in three different films: 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Gaynor was also nominated, but failed to win, in 1937 for her work in A Star Is Born.
Two other women named Janet have also been nominated for Best Actress: Janet Suzman in 1971 for her role in Nicholas and Alexandra, and Janet McTeer for her work in the 1999 movie Tumbleweeds. Neither woman, however, won the award.
There have been four A Star is Born movies but arguably there have been 5 as the 1932 film What Price Hollywood is almost the exact storyline and very heavily influenced the 1937 ASIB, enough that some claim it is a remake of WPH.
In the 2011 technothriller (highly recommended) Limitless, Bradley Cooper plays a schlub of a writer who, over the course of the movie, becomes a brilliant author, a stock-market trading phenom, a junkie in withdrawal, a murder suspect, a suicide case and a polished U.S. Senate candidate.
Archie Manning was a quarterback at Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi), then with the New Orleans Saints, Houston Oilers, and Minnesota Vikings of the NFL.
Manning and his wife Olivia have three sons, all of whom were also football players: Cooper, Peyton, and Eli. Peyton and Eli, like their father, were both successful quarterbacks in college and in the NFL. Cooper, the eldest son, was a star wide receiver in high school, and was recruited to play college ball at Ole Miss – however, just as Cooper was about to begin his college career, he was forced to retire from football due to a diagnosis of spinal stenosis (a narrowing of the spinal canal).
Arch Manning, Cooper’s son, is the number-one ranked pro-style quarterback in the high school class of 2023 according to 247Sports.
The 247 sports evaluation has this:
Owns the requisite frame with good height and room to add mass. Pro-style passer with good functional athleticism defenses must account for, particularly as a scrambler and off-schedule playmaker. Excels throwing on the move. Capable of effective throws across his body on the run. Shows a quick, smooth, repeatable delivery and consistently stays on top of the ball, especially in the short-to-intermediate passing game, where he thrives. Accurate passer to all levels who can fit deeper throws into zone windows with appropriate mix of touch and velocity. Sixth-sense ability to feel pressure and avoid rushers. Athletic enough to scramble for chunk yardage but almost always looks to throw when breaking the pocket. One-of-a-kind quarterback pedigree that manifests in advanced feel for the game and awareness. Elite QB prospect among the nation’s top recruits in the 2023 class. Likely a multi-year impact starter at the Power Five level with early-round NFL Draft potential. - Gabe Brooks
Forty blocks of St. Louis were demolished to make way for the building of the Gateway Arch and it’s surrounding park. In what St. Louis city engineer W. C. Bernard called “an enforced slum-clearance program,” dozens of warehouses and cast-iron buildings housing 290 businesses were razed to create space for the arch. It was a controversial move—particularly since it was discovered that the vote to allocate city funds to the project was rigged.
As of 2020 there are 85 NHSs and 61 NHPs in the United States — National Historic Sites and Parks. As of October 15, 1966, all historic areas, including NHPs and NHSs, are automatically listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). There are about 90,000 NRHPs, and of these, about 2,500 have been designated at the highest status as National Historic Landmarks (NHLs).
The very first NHS in the US was created on December 21, 1935 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7253 allocating 82 acres along the Mississippi River in St. Louis for the Gateway Arch.
Soldier Field is an open-air sports stadium, located in downtown Chicago. It originally opened in 1924, and its name reflects that, in 1925, it was dedicated to the memory of U.S. soldiers who had died in World War I.
The stadium was originally of a Neoclassical design, with long colonnades along the west and east sides of the stadium. In 2002-3, the City of Chicago and the Chicago Bears (the stadium’s primary tenant) undertook a remodeling and updating of the stadium; the colonnades were kept, but the remainder of the stadium was radically redesigned. As a result of the extensive remodeling, Soldier Field lost its designation as a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
