ABOUT THIS ISSUE: DECEMBER 14, 2025

It's full-blown holiday party season. Last year I didn't get on a scale until New Year's Day, and I was shocked, SHOCKED to discover that I'd gained weight. Well, not shocked that I had gained weight, but by how shockin' much. I got on the wagon and dropped over 20 pounds by May before diet fatigue set in. But I was still watching the scale and leveled off for a couple months before another "growth spurt" in August when family birthdays and travel got the best of me, like they do every year. I was happy to level off again in the fall. Hopefully I can still arrive at New Year's Day lower than last year. But my wife and daughter made Christmas cookies this weekend and it would be rude not to have a few...

Among the funnier things I came across this week were these from the Good Clean Funnies list:

Medical experts are now saying obesity is a disease. I'm overjoyed! Tomorrow I'm calling in fat.

Am I ambivalent? Well, yes and no.

Also, these to-do list items attributed to comedian Steven Wright:

Buy a parrot. Teach the parrot to say "Help! I've been turned into a parrot!"

Run into a store, ask what year it is. When someone answers, yell "It worked!" and run out cheering.

I gotta try that last one at a big coin show. Maybe carrying a heavy canvas bag marked "1927 Denver $20."

Here are some interesting non-numismatic items I came across this week. One on the "robot smaller than grain of salt" has a video showing it in relation to the size of a U.S. cent. What will we use for this purpose without pennies?

Robot smaller than grain of salt can ‘sense, think and act' (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/12/12/robot-miniature-tiny-solar-computer/)
The Rembrandt Thief Who Came Out On Top (https://hyperallergic.com/the-rembrandt-thief-who-came-out-on-top/)
In a First, AI Models Analyze Language As Well As a Human Expert (https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-ai-models-analyze-language-as-well-as-a-human-expert-20251031/)

Finally, Tuesday, December 9th was the anniversary of the 1968 "Mother of All Demos" by SRI's Doug Engelbart and team. -Editor

Highlights and descriptions of the December 9, 1968 demo by Douglas Engelbart and his team at SRI (at the time called Stanford Research Institute). It was the first public demonstration of the computer mouse and fundamentals of modern computing. The demo included the world debut of personal and interactive computing, featuring a computer mouse that controlled a networked computer system to demonstrate hypertext linking, real-time text editing, multiple windows with flexible view control, cathode display tubes, and shared-screen teleconferencing.

Wayne Homren
Wayne Homren is the founding editor of The E-Sylum and a consultant for the Newman Numismatic Portal. His collecting interests at various times included U.S. Encased Postage Stamps, merchant counterstamps, Pittsburgh Obsolete paper money, Civil War tokens and scrip, Carnegie Hero Medals, charge coins and numismatic literature. He also collects and has given presentations on the work of Money Artist J.S.G. Boggs. In the non-numismatic world he's worked in artificial intelligence, data science, and as a Program Manager for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Garrett Ziss
Garrett Ziss is a numismatic collector and researcher, with a focus on American paper money and early U.S. silver and copper coins. He is also a part-time U.S. coin cataloger for Heritage Auctions. Garrett assists Editor Wayne Homren by editing and formatting a selection of articles and images each week. When he's not engaged in numismatics, Garrett is pursuing a Master's Degree in Quantitative Economics at the University of Pittsburgh.

Pete Smith
Numismatic researcher and author Pete Smith of Minnesota has written about early American coppers, Vermont coinage, numismatic literature, tokens and medals, the history of the U.S. Mint and much more. Author of American Numismatic Biographies, he contributes original articles to The E-Sylum often highlighting interesting figures in American numismatic history.

Greg Bennick
Greg Bennick (www.gregbennick.com) is a keynote speaker and long time coin collector with a focus on major mint error coins and US counterstamps. He is on the board of both CONECA and TAMS and enjoys having in-depth conversations with prominent numismatists from all areas of the hobby. Have ideas for other interviewees? Contact him anytime on the web or via instagram @minterrors.

John Nebel
Numismatist, photographer, and ANS Board member and Fellow John Nebel of Boulder, CO helped the ANA and other clubs like NBS get online in the early days of the internet, hosting websites gratis through his Computer Systems Design Co. To this day he hosts some 50 ANA member club sites along with our coinbooks.org site, making the club and our E-Sylum archive available to collectors and researchers worldwide.

Bruce Perdue
Encased coinage collector (encasedcoins.info) Bruce Perdue of Aurora, Illinois has been the volunteer NBS webmaster from its early days and works each week to add the latest E-Sylum issue to our archive and send out the email announcement.