Entertainment
11 Readers Share How They ‘Just Add Water’
Eight years ago, a reader named Chloe wrote a comment that became a parenting motto for the whole Cup of Jo community:
“My favorite parenting advice is, ‘If they are crabby, add water.’ This has served me well over the years and believe it or not, with a 14, 10 and eight-year-old, I still use it. Run a bath, take a shower, water the garden, wash the dog, have a hot drink, have a cold drink… just add water. It works 99% of the time.”
Since then, the phrase has helped so many parents, including myself. I think of it every night, as I bathe my baby Evelynn in our kitchen sink, soothing away her witching hour mood. Photo evidence above! Here, 11 more readers share how “just add water” saved the day…
“This picture was not taken at the height of summer, but rather in early March when it was technically too cold for car washing. But it was the end of the day, and I was desperate for an activity that would last until my husband got home and I could finally take a break. Adding water did the trick!” — Claire
“My son and I are lucky to live five minutes from a jetty, so we often walk over for ‘a few quick flicks’, as he says. I read my book or work on a knitting project between requests to untangle his fishing line. He likes to change his rig every couple of minutes if he’s not getting any bites, so he’s always busily chopping up a selection of stinky baits and rummaging around in his tackle box. We rarely catch anything, but it’s a lovely, peaceful way to spend time together outdoors after a busy day.” — Lauren
“Whenever the cooped up-ness of rainy days gets to me, I announce a rain walk. Lately, my kids have insisted on abandoning umbrellas and raincoats to see who gets the most soaked!” — Jessica
“I have come back to this bit of Cup of Jo wisdom so many times over the years (both as parenting advice and for myself!). In the midst of my divorce, whenever things got too serious, my daughter and I would head to the beach. This beach photo was taken right in the middle of my separation. We started every day with a dip in the sea. What a dream.” — Christa
“When my kids were little, sensory bins were all the rage. Rice, beans, and a few toys never failed to give me a moment of peace. One morning, on a whim, I decided to let my toddler ‘water’ my fading floral arrangement. What started as a simple outdoor activity turned into a fully immersive rose-petal bath for one very exploratory toddler.” — Miranda
“My two-year-old, Beau, running merrily towards the biggest puddle after a morning of rain. Tongue out, zero inhibitions, slap happy after a visit from his favorite garbage truck. Levity — in every sense of the word.” — Ginelle
“Every summer, my kids and I do an ‘Open to Close Day’ at the science center, the library, and the public pool. We arrive when the place opens and stay until we’re kicked out — and pool day is always the longest challenge and greatest fun. We tell our friends they can meet us when they want (‘Don’t worry, we’ll be there all day!’). We read books and play games and have pizza delivered for dinner. But honestly, we don’t have to do much because the kids love the water and never get bored!” — Emily O.
“When my eight-year-old is wiped out and grumpy after school (as she often is), I have her take a bath and water ‘the garden’ (mostly weeds). She feels great afterward!” — Katherine
“Most days, I ask myself why we ever moved out of the city and back to my childhood home, in a rural town outside of Oslo. The commute wears you down, and the big garden is constant work. But then, summer finally arrives in Norway, and everything is green and the sun never sets. You just turn the hose on and the kids and dogs and plants come alive — with zero effort on my part.” — Helle
“‘Just add water’ has remained one of my most consistent parenting mottos over the years. When our boys were younger, they often disagreed, and this led to hurt feelings and harsh words. But the bath always brought them back to themselves and each other. Sometimes they needed a little extra enticement (seen here: an egg cream and a favorite hat), but by the time the bubbles subsided and the water turned tepid, they were both giggling and ready to take on the world together. They’re older now, so bubble baths aren’t common anymore. But just last night, my teenager was getting overwhelmed with school tasks. I walked him to the shower, and no further instructions were needed. Thanks, Joanna, this one truly never fails.” — Purnima
“My son has been sick constantly since we put him in daycare, and this last bout really had him down — fevers, cough, the whole shebang. None of us have been sleeping well and even though he seemed to be getting better, he was still grumpy (uncommon for our smiley guy!). We went out and bought this little splash pad, and he was thrilled to pieces while playing on it! He slept through the night again that evening, and is back to his cheerful self.” — Rebekah
When have you used the CoJ parenting advice “just add water” with the kids in your life? We’d love to know xoxo.
P.S. Some of our favorite advice for new parents and how to inspire kids to play on their own.
Entertainment
AI just disproved a major math problem. A mathematician explains.
While the rest of the world was watching the World Cup on Sunday evening, mathematician Levent Alpöge casually announced on X that he had used Anthropic’s Fable 5 to disprove the Jacobian conjecture.
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The Jacobian conjecture is a long-standing open problem in algebraic geometry that’s bedeviled highly accomplished mathematicians for almost 90 years. It was included in “Smale’s problems,” a list of unresolved math problems put forward by mathematician Stephen Smale in 1998.
But that proved no obstacle for Fable 5, Anthropic’s latest frontier AI model. (You may remember Fable 5 as the public version of Claude Mythos Preview, the AI model that Anthropic says has such advanced cybersecurity capabilities that it was too dangerous for public release.)
Alpöge is part of Harvard’s Society of Fellows, and his Linkedin profile notes an affiliation with Anthropic. We’ve reached out to Anthropic with questions about Alpöge’s work.
Meanwhile, for those of us who don’t understand polynomial functions from n-dimensional space, the question is: Does this represent a major breakthrough in artificial intelligence, or mathematics, or neither?
“This did not cause me to update my priors about what AI can and can’t do,” professor and mathematician Andrew Blumberg told Mashable. “This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect AI to be able to do. If there was a counterexample that was concise and easy to state that people haven’t found because it’s a pain to search through all this stuff, AI will find it.”
Blumberg, who has a joint appointment in mathematics and computer science at Columbia University, is involved in the First Proof project, an effort to test the capabilities of frontier large language models in solving research-level mathematics. So, it’s safe to say he understands mathematics and AI better than most of us.
Mashable Light Speed
‘You want to learn something from the answer’
Providing a counterexample to the Jacobian conjecture is still a significant achievement for AI in mathematics, Blumberg notes. But he also says there’s a big difference between providing a positive proof for a major math problem and providing a single counterexample that disproves it. Here’s the metaphor Blumberg used to explain.
“Suppose that Moses came down from the mountain with tablets, and on the tablet was written, ‘Cancer can be cured.’ Would you care? You don’t just want the answer to the question. You want to learn something from the answer. And the reason Smale thought this problem was important is because he thought that if we solved it, we would understand more things about the about the way nature is structured.”
In other words, Blumberg says, “this counterexample tells us essentially nothing. It’s just, you know, there are a lot of polynomials, and it’s hard for people to check them all, but it’s not hard for machines.”
The Jacobian conjecture isn’t the only math problem AI has tackled in recent months. OpenAI announced in May an “internal model” had disproved the Erdős unit distance conjecture, a central conjecture in discrete geometry.
However, in that case, the result was more productive, Blumberg says. That’s because OpenAI didn’t just provide a counterexample — but a disproof of the problem itself.
“The disproof there already has led to interesting things because experts in the area unpacked what was going on in the disproof and then used it to do other things,” Blumberg says.
And that’s not necessarily the case with the Jacobian conjecture counterexample, he adds — while conceding he’s not expert enough to see if there’s something special about the structure of the counterexample that we can learn from. “But it’s not in and of itself interesting.”
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
Entertainment
macOS 27 Beta has a secret Siri AI interface. How to try it.
You’ve waited long enough for Apple’s relaunch of Siri as an AI assistant, and now you can finally try out the Siri AI beta for iOS. But, psst, don’t tell anyone, but there’s even more Siri AI for you to try out with a secret Siri AI interface on Mac.
A Reddit user on the r/MacOSBeta subreddit has discovered a “hidden lightweight UI” for Siri AI in the macOS 27 Golden Gate beta. This feature basically provides users with an array of AI tools, presented in a pop-up menu whenever text is highlighted.
The Siri AI pop-up interface includes AI tools such as Rewrite, Proofread, “How does this sound?,” and “Edit with Siri.” There are also menu options for summarization and providing bullet points from the selected text.
Siri AI can also provide a selection of specific tools dependent on the context of what’s selected. For example, highlighting a phone number provides a pop-up to “Add to contacts” or when selecting an address the pop-up offers an “Open in Maps” option. There are tools for creating calendar events, composing messages and emails, and tracking flights and packages as well.
Why is the feature hidden? Well, as MacRumors points out, the Siri AI interface in macOS 27 developer beta 3 and public beta 1 is simply an unfinished product. Certain features don’t yet work how they’re supposed to. Some options don’t work at all. Clearly, Apple has yet to make it available because it’s simply not ready.
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However, Reddit users say there is a way to turn the interface on in the macOS Golden Gate Beta. According to Redditor pdfu, if users running the macOS 27 beta simply need to open up the Terminal and input a few lines of code.
Please note: We do not recommend running terminal instructions or changing important OS files unless you fully understand what you’re doing. We have not tested these terminal instructions, so proceed at your own risk.
sudo mkdir -p /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain && sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool true
After that, the Reddit threat instructs users to restart their computer and the Siri AI interface will be enabled.
If you’ve had enough of the unfinished interface, you can turn it back off by once again opening Terminal and the following input:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool false
It’s unclear if the Siri AI interface will launch with the official version of the new macOS. However, it’s certainly interesting to see Apple further brand its Siri AI relaunch as an all-in-one AI tool across the company’s products.
Entertainment
X-Men ‘97 Just Secretly Connected Itself To The Raunchiest Marvel Movies
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
As a longtime Marvel fan, one of my favorite things about X-Men ‘97 is how many fun Easter eggs are stuffed into every single episode. Sometimes, these are winking references to earlier episodes. More often than not, they are connections to the comics and to the larger Marvel universe. Of course, these references are often of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them variety. Because of this, you sometimes need to be as fast as Quicksilver on the remote control if you want to catch every wacky bit of trivia that pops up onscreen.
That was certainly the case with the recent episode “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs.” This episode follows up on an earlier Animated Series episode (“Weapon X, Lies, and Video Tape”) and has Wolverine and a team of oddballs discovering major secrets about Weapon X. It’s an episode filled with some jaw-droppingly weird X-Men lore, including an appearance from everyone’s favorite xenomorph knock-offs, the Brood. However, that’s not the weirdest thing about this terrifying tale. The episode provides a list of characters attached to the Weapon X program, and if you pause at the right moment, you’ll see names from the raunchiest, bloodiest Marvel movies ever made: Deadpool and Logan!
The Ultimate In ’90s Media Technology
In Marvel Comics, it’s revealed that Weapon X wasn’t actually the name of the program. Instead, it was the Weapon Plus program, and Wolverine was referred to as “Weapon X” because he was the tenth experiment created by the program (X is the Roman numeral for 10). Incidentally, Weapon I was Captain America, who was turned into the world’s greatest soldier through an experimental super-serum. Later, the project switched to experimenting on mutants, with the goal of creating weaponized warriors who would be easy to control. There have been many characters experimented on or otherwise connected to the program, which is why so many names appear in “Weapon X, Lies, and DVD.”
The episode doesn’t get into the full tangled history of the program, which is consistently referred to as Weapon X. However, the characters do find test subject data on DVDs, all of which are helpfully labeled with the name of the person who was experimented on. One set of DVDs is very easy to view, and the other appears for only a brief moment. With the help of the pause button, though, you can identify some major names. This includes Bucky Barnes, better known to MCU fans as the Winter Soldier. It also includes characters who have only appeared in the comics, including the creepy villain, John Sublime.
The X-Men Get Raunchy
Unsurprisingly, Wolverine and his crew from this episode (including Maverick, Garrison Kane, Sabertooth, and Lady Deathstrike) all appear on the DVDs, as do other characters from Wolverine’s past, including Silver Fox. But for fans of the live-action movies, the most notable names that appear in the episode are Ajax and Deadpool (the villain and hero, respectively, of the first Deadpool movie) and X-23, who appeared in both Logan and Deadpool & Wolverine. Amusingly enough, this effectively connects the (mostly) family-friendly X-Men ‘97 with some of the raunchiest and most vulgar Marvel movies ever made!
Deadpool effectively paved the way for modern, R-rated superhero movies with a film that combined over-the-top ultraviolence and hilariously crass dialogue. It was also unapologetically raunchy, with a naughty Morena Baccarin sex scene that likely made the pre-cancerous Wade Wilson wish that his booty had a healing factor. Logan, meanwhile, was more serious but no less brutal, connecting X-23 (who was created for the kids’ show X-Men: Evolution) to a violent and heartbreaking film where we bid farewell to both Logan and Professor X. Now, that same character (who made a fan-favorite return in the wonderfully offensive Deadpool & Wolverine) is permanently tied to X-Men ‘97.
Does that mean we’re likely to see X-23 onscreen? Not really: even if X-Men ‘97 runs for several more seasons, there are so many ‘80s, ‘90s, and early ‘00s stories to adapt before the writers would ever get to her story. Deadpool might be likelier to appear: after all, he appeared in X-Men: The Animated Series via things like flashbacks and Morph transformations, and Morph continues to take on this appearance in X-Men ‘97. Is all of this leading up to a proper appearance from the Merc With a Mouth? Maybe. Somehow, though, I think Jean Grey will be too busy fighting Apocalypse to help Deadpool properly celebrate International Women’s Day!
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