WTF-Beta

kitsch

Food defined social hierarchy in 1776. Here's what was on the table

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/28/nx-s1-5843114/250-colonial-america-1776-food-anniversary

Vesuvius buried these scrolls.

AI is bringing them back.

Once thought to be unreadable, 2,000-year-old papyrus scrolls from one of antiquity’s only surviving libraries are finally spilling their secrets—and National Geographic got a first look at what they say.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/herculaneum-scrolls-mount-vesuvius-ai

Trump’s Board of Peace plans to grant itself sweeping immunity, documents show
Draft resolution seeks to shield board members and security forces from potential prosecution for work in Gaza

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2026/jun/27/board-of-peace-legal-immunity-un

corn

salt

treason

This is what I was worrying about during our gas leak...

Firefighters responding to a reported natural gas odor in a Twinsburg Township neighborhood had been on scene for only about two minutes before a house exploded Thursday afternoon, destroying three homes, damaging at least 36 others, and setting off a chain of events that authorities say is nothing short of miraculous.

https://www.cleveland.com/summit-county/2026/06/two-injured-dozens-displaced-in-twinsburg-township-explosion-probe-could-take-weeks.html

three

We have a new favorite: Van Leeuwen. Real ingredients and intense flavor. When I tried the Sicilian Pistachio, it tasted like a pistachio nut. Not artificial at all. Coffee Affogato was also excellent, along with the Caramlized Banana Honeycomb.

Check out the ingredients...

https://vanleeuwenicecream.com/

The technology presents all sorts of thorny problems—a philosopher’s favourite kind

TEN YEARS ago, as the AI revolution was gathering pace, arts and humanities students were told that, if they wanted to make themselves employable, they should “learn to code”. That may have been bad advice. These days, it is programmers who are nervous about AI taking their jobs.

They might consider learning to philosophise. Earlier this year the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published figures showing that American philosophy graduates are more likely to have jobs than their peers who studied computer science. In 2024, the most recent year for which numbers are available, 7% of those who had studied computer science were unemployed, against just 5.1% of philosophers.

Many are being snapped up by AI firms themselves. Students get job offers before they have graduated, says Luciano Floridi, a philosopher at Yale University. Academics are moving, too. Dr Floridi describes the scale of departures from philosophy departments as a “haemorrhaging”.

https://archive.is/QJhnN

The Norwegians are taking over.

jewelry

Piglets

Castle Impossible.

https://people.com/castle-impossible-hgtv-couple-french-chateau-how-to-watch-premiere-date-11707909

Ha. I just used it to give me the skinny on carpeting. We will be replace our aged plush with something more wheelchair friendly. Claude did a great job.

And I also asked about how to set up and use the NMES gizmo that we bought for e-stim to see if we can wake up the arm. It was very comprehensive.

I've used the free version of Claude for reducing imaging reports (MRIs and CT scans) to understandable summaries. Also for interpreting progress reports from physical, occupational, and speech therapists. For both the imaging and the therapy reports I fed in the reports over time and Claude did a good job helping me understand what progress/lack thereof that Mr wtg's therapists are seeing. Saved me a ton of time figuring out all the terminology.

I also used it to help figure out how to use ramps to facilitate wheelchair access to our house. It was lousy at that until I redirected it. And then it was still not very good. It did tell me which manufacturers have the highest quality products. It was probably a toss up whether it actually saved me time or not.

It gave a couple of off-the-wall interpretations about things that happened in therapy. It is much more "emotional" than I expected. I thought it would be more logical and detached.

It did a pretty good job comparing two OTC e-stim devices we were considering for home use to help try to wake up Mr wtg's arm.

I have found its fawning to be annoying. "You're so smart to have figured this out." "Mr wtg is so lucky to have you as an advocate in his corner." I haven't asked it to stop doing this yet, but I'm pretty close.

The mini-AIs that are in Amazon that answer questions about various products are basically useless at this point. And duck.ai (pops up in DuckDuckGo searches) and Leo (part of Brave) also have pretty limited use.

Haven't done anything beyond that.

I feel like I did when I first started using Netscape and AltaVista to access the info on the internet. The information and analysis that are available is amazing. But I'm also a bit troubled by the quality of the results. I still feel like I have to double check a lot of things because it can miss information and its analysis can be flawed. That becomes apparent if you have any background in the topic at hand. The quality of the prompts is definitely a factor; you kind of have to figure out how to use it. If you don't and take it at face value I could see running into problems.

Glutes

Beach

Beaver