WTF-Beta

@Bernard said:

Question: Are proper names allowed in the Word association thread? I have avoided using them, but sometimes they are the first to pop into my mind.

I thought the original rule was no proper nouns.

My personal opinion is that rule is silly and that anything goes!

The US defense secretary, ⁠Pete Hegseth, this week ordered an annual testosterone-deficiency screening for active-duty and reserve service members aged 30 and older, which he says will help to maintain military readiness.

But many medical professionals warn it might do nothing of the sort and instead could increase service members’ risk of infertility or lead to other consequences if testosterone is prescribed inappropriately.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/18/us-military-testosterone-screening-doctors

On a related note....

Retired Adm James Stavridis, former supreme Allied commander, on the testosterone testing (on Smerconish this morning):

But let's back up, Michael, does it make sense? I don't think so. When I look at the needs of the 21st century battlefield, sure, you need some big, burly, UFC like guys, maybe on the very front end of things. But who are the -- who are the killers at scale on these battlefields? They're destroyer captains, often women.

They're fighter pilots, often women. They're aircraft carrier commanders. Captains of aircraft carriers, recently, a woman. They are cyber warriors. They are drone warriors.

Believe me, Ukrainian women have probably put more Russians in their graves than you can imagine. So when I look at the 21st century battlefield, I'm not sure all of those women who are by definition Low T individuals are the problem. And I think testing everybody and then offering testosterone supplements doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you want to do something smart medically for the force, go back to requiring flu shots, which were taken away by Secretary Hegseth.

https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/smer/date/2026-07-18/segment/01

Josh Kerr makes athletics history by shattering one-mile world record in London

Time of 3min 42.66sec betters El Guerrouj in 1999 by 0.47

Kerr becomes seventh British man to hold record

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/18/josh-kerr-makes-athletics-history-by-shattering-one-mile-world-record-in-london

colonnade

farm aid

Voisilmapulla | Finnish Butter Eye Buns

https://breadtopia.com/voisilmapulla-finnish-butter-eye-buns/?utm_content

DNA from the skull of an unknown Revolutionary War soldier reveals more than his name

https://apnews.com/article/america-250-revolution-dna-unknown-soldier-a672d84951897c9f2c2615a1e6c49758

New spinning drone hides in plain sight

‘Phantom Twist’ harnesses motion blur to nearly vanish in flight

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/07/new-spinning-drone-hides-in-plain-sight

Large language models can write essays, solve math problems, and generate computer code, but it’s not fully understood how they do it. Researchers can observe the billions of parameters inside these systems changing during training, yet the internal logic of the models remains largely hidden. In a sense, the engineering is ahead of the science. Can science catch up and make LLMs and other deep neural networks mechanistically interpretable?

https://cacm.acm.org/news/can-we-understand-how-large-language-models-reason/

@ShiroKuro said:

I actually thought it was recommended by someone here at WTF

I passed along bachophile's recommendation of Mason's book.

https://wtf.coffee-room.com/post/25491

Josh Shapiro goes big for down-ballot Dems

The Pennsylvania governor is pouring millions into a coordinated campaign to help elect other Democrats. It could serve as a launchpad to a presidential bid.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/17/josh-shapiro-down-ballot-dems-01001996

This $25 Bottle Is America’s Best Straight Bourbon, According to the 2026 International Wine & Spirit Competition

The bottled-in-bond whiskey earned 98 points and a coveted Gold Outstanding medal, an honor awarded to just 1.3% of spirits entered this year.

All Old Bardstown bourbons are distilled from a mashbill of 72% corn, 13% rye, and 15% malted barley. (Among Kentucky bourbon producers, that’s a notably high barley content.) The whiskey enters the barrel at 125 proof, and Old Bardstown Bottled-in-Bond ages for at least four years before bottling at 100 proof. If you’re looking to pick up a bottle, you may need to travel. This is generally a Kentucky-only release — fortunately for shoppers, it’s readily available on shelves in the state for around $25.

https://www.foodandwine.com/old-bardstown-bottled-in-bond-earns-gold-outstanding-medal-at-international-wine-and-spirit-competition-2026-12019951

D&D players raise millions in real-life campaign against ‘corporate elite’

Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Dungeons and Dragons push is part of a wider trend using tabletop games for political action

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/16/dungeons-dragons-tabletop-games-politics

@jon-nyc Sounded to me that Tillis left that possibility open.

"And I'm trying to get to yes, but this is a very important part of getting to yes."

@Rontuner said:

Up to 385 now from the sensor not far from us. Thanks for posting the picture that allowed me to find the airnow.gov site

There's another site, too, IQAir. That crazy reading is in Northbrook (it's up to 860 now) and the sensor is an Illinois EPA device.

https://www.iqair.com/profile/illinois-epa

This one station that's nearby is reading crazy high; others are more in the 350-450 range. Not sure what's going on.

Regardless, it's wicked miserable out there.

549, no signs of letting up.

@dolmansaxlil - how bad is it up by you?

Immigration and tariffs affecting the Senate race in Texas.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/12/trumps-deportation-drive-tests-gop-gains-in-texas-00993955

‘Death by a thousand cuts’: Inside Trump’s remaking of American elections

The president remains laser-focused on an electoral system he claims is rigged — and his administration is uprooting entire chunks of the current structure ahead of the midterms.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/16/inside-trumps-remaking-american-elections-00999693