WTF-Beta

Over a century ago, the German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler conducted what became a classic experiment. He suspended a banana to keep it just out of reach of a chimpanzee, placing a pile of boxes and crates nearby. The chimp soon stacked up the boxes, climbed them and grabbed the treat.

This was evidence, Köhler believed, of spontaneous problem solving by the chimpanzee; no training was required. It was the kind of thing that humans do all the time.

Since Köhler's early work, researchers have conducted similar experiments involving an out-of-reach reward and an object to stand upon in birds and elephants. And both have solved the problem successfully.

Olli Loukola, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Turku in Finland wondered whether bumblebees — short-lived creatures with miniscule brains — might be capable of the same task. And in a paper recently published in the journal Science, he and his colleagues present evidence that they are.

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/07/nx-s1-5846947/bumblebees-problem-solving-research

Here's a novel one.

https://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/for/d/melrose-park-vintage-secret-sentry-safe/7924969648.html

My Lithuanian mom had an oven in the basement that she used during the summer. But it was just an oven,; there was no kitchen setup with tables and other workspace.

Very inviting home. I think my favorite part is the barn! My idea of the ideal living space.

And of course the gardens.

I've always wanted a summerhouse/gazebo. I guess a gazebo is the open style?

I actually looked into building one from this company that we first encountered up in Wisconsin. One of the enclosed ones rather than the open style. Octagonal is sweet but rectangular is easier to furnish.

https://www.gggazebos.com/our-gazebos

State trooper saves kitten.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/wisconsin-trooper-has-a-new-pawtner-a-kitten-he-saved-from-the-side-of-the-road/

Our adopt a stray story...this was decades ago...

We thought we heard something in our garage but it was a week before we saw a young cat flash by and jump up into the soffit. I suited up with long sleeves and gloves and retrieved him. He was scruffy, skinny, and a little beat up; he must have tusseled with one of the neighborhood outdoor cats. And he was terrified, though he seemed to trust me, and even moreso, Mr wtg. We ended up keeping him and named him Moose. He lived a long and happy life with us and his canine buddies.

Explainer:

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/a-moonlit-earth-as-seen-from-artemis-ii/

The traffic is one reason we're not keen to see them move here; we live in the burbs because we aren't fans of crowds. And the disruption in terms of infrastructure improvements will be a nightmare.

Mostly, though, we don't want our taxes to go up just to make the Halases and the McCaskeys richer.

You may very well be right @rontuner

But hope springs eternal here in beautiful Arlington Heights!

All's quiet on the western front.

Last night. Five people looking at the person in the hole, who apparently drew the short straw:

Photo gallery of Sagrada Familia from AP.

https://apnews.com/photo-gallery/sagrada-familia-gaudi-barcelona-aae21510cd85f7a79df324a2e8cb8eae

On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics.

A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”

The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of Donald Trump’s own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No, we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!

This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.

The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on February 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-iran-strait-of-hormuz-boxed-in/

THEY'RE MOVING TO HAMMOND!!!!

The Bears’ Board of Directors voted Thursday to advance the stadium development in Hammond, Indiana, with the exact to be selected. This is this first time that the Bears’ board has voted on any stadium site.

As one source said, “There is more work to do but barring anything very strange, it’s a done deal.”

Much rejoicing and happy dancing in the wtg house....

https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/transform-the-region-bears-vote-to-advance-stadium-project-in-hammond/

They are still out there doing the repair. Gonna be a long night for them.

Just checked it out....everyone looks much more relaxed and I don't smell gas anymore.

I went out in the screen room this afternoon and caught the smell of natural gas. Turns out a construction crew working on a village project to replace water mains managed to hit a gas line around 2 pm. Took Nicor (gas utility) almost two hours to get here and as far as I can tell they still haven't figured out how to turn off the gas. A consulting engineer who is on the water main project said that a) the gas line was unmarked and b) the fact that it was pretty windy is working in our favor, dissipating the gas.

Looks like they won't be shutting off our gas (the break is apparently on the other side of the still-to-be-located shutoff valve) so they won't be pounding on our door in the middle of the night to come and re-light the pilot in our water heater. At least that's what the Nicor guy said. I hope he knows what he's talking about. Given that they can't figure out where the valve is, my level of confidence in their abilities is not real high right now.

(tried to post some pics but postimages is misbehaving right now)

What would Jesus drink? Welcome to the age of Christian energy beverages

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/04/jesus-christian-energy-drink

@chas I pinged my eye researcher friend Dr Mary (PhD, not MD, but she regularly saw patients in the eye clinics at the universities where she worked). Hopefully she'll get back to me soon!

Steve Kroft weighs in:

Former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft calls the changes under Bari Weiss "disastrous." He adds: "This is journalistic interference. It makes no business sense whatsoever. It's the highest rated news program on television, and it has been that way for more than 50 years. The audience was up about 9% last year. Why would you mess with that?" Our conversation airs tonight on the

@newshour

The exchange between Pelley and Bilton:

https://archive.is/POkWl