Joshua Raclaw
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joshuaraclaw.com
Joshua Raclaw
@joshuaraclaw.com
6.8K followers 750 following 9.6K posts
sociocultural linguist working in trans and queer linguistics and conversation analysis. posts about yiddish, cooking, adhd, cats, professor stuff. (they/זײ) [ˈɹæ.klɔ] מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
huhhowdoibluethis.bsky.social
Was not expecting this blatant xenophobia on my tv first thing in the morning...
NBC's broadcast of the Macy's parade has superimposed the word "FOREIGNER" over the balloon of Mario.
November 27, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
lilririah.bsky.social
Alt Text isn't the space for seo, secret notes, or inside jokes. It's for people to access media and any context or information that that media has.

If we gon make things right, we gotta find ways to make things right that don't leave us behind.
a11yawareness.bsky.social Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 16h
Some are suggesting you deliberately write inaccurate or confusing alt text, because they say this confuses AI scrapers that are analyzing images.

The purpose of alt text is to help people who cannot see the image. Deliberately misrepresenting the image is a gross misuse of alt text. Don't do it.
November 27, 2025 at 4:22 AM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
raxkingisdead.bsky.social
the yiddish word for editor is: רעדאַקטאָר (redaktor). that’s fun right? The Redactor. sounds evil
November 26, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
alexhanna.bsky.social
"If Big Tech has the budget to put data centers 400 miles above the Earth’s surface, it absolutely has the budget to adequately compensate its workers on the ground. Big Tech cannot claim to be building the future while exploiting those who keep it running."

theopinionpages.com/2025/11/the-...
The Human Cost of Big Tech’s Cosmic Dreams | The Opinion Pages
Imagine looking up at the night sky and noticing new constellations, only to find out they are made up of data centers. This may sound like science fiction, but Google has announced plans to make this...
theopinionpages.com
November 26, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
jael.bsky.social
big late breaking news: the market monitor for the largest energy grid in the u.s., covering much of the midwest and mid-atlantic, has called to block new data centers connections to the grid, saying current course of growth assures regular blackouts
No more PJM data centers unless they can be reliably served: market monitor
The PJM Interconnection’s market monitor urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to rule that large data centers can only come online if the grid operator can still meet reliability metrics.
www.utilitydive.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:17 AM
joshuaraclaw.com
i have seen thanskgiving referred to in yiddish as both dank tog (דאַנקטאָג; "thanks day") and also TENKSGIVING (טענקסגיװינג) and i'm at a loss for why anyone would go with the first option
November 26, 2025 at 6:19 PM
joshuaraclaw.com
מײַן ייִדיש לערערין האָט אונדז געבעטן שרײַבן אַ רעצעפּט. נו, אָט איז װי אַזױ איך קאָכן זשוראַכלינעס סאָס! עסט געזונטערהײט!

7 אונצן װאַסער
¾ טעפּל צוקער
¼ טעפּל ברױנע צוקער
1 פֿונט זשוראַכלינעס
2 לעפֿל שליװאָװיץ
1 לעפֿל לימענע זאַפֿט
½ לעפֿעלע אינגבער
¼ לעפֿעלע צימרינג
¼ לעפֿעלע זאַלץ
November 26, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
katzish.bsky.social
Damn, this plaque is about to get accused of treason
samwang.bsky.social Sam Wang @samwang.bsky.social · 1d
West Point plaque: "Our code of military obedience requires that, should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers must obey the law."
November 26, 2025 at 2:11 AM
joshuaraclaw.com
Sick of hearing about the AI bubble, looking forward to instead hearing about the AI bubbie
November 26, 2025 at 1:10 AM
joshuaraclaw.com
I just think it's nice that the Yiddish word for a pendulum literally means AN UNREST (umru; אומרו)
November 25, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
baddestmamajama.bsky.social
Men will do things like announce “the most popular pie in the country is bad and it’s not debatable” and still be allowed to have jobs and drive cars.
rapsheet.bsky.social Ian Rapoport @rapsheet.bsky.social · 1d
Apple pie is bad. This is not really debatable. So is key lime pie, while we’re on the topic. Pecan pie is the 🐐 tho.
November 25, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
michaelhobbes.bsky.social
The Kamala Harris book is so excruciating
“I wish I could have gotten the message across that there isn’t a distinction between “they/them” and “you.” The pronoun that matters is “we.”
November 24, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
raxkingisdead.bsky.social
a real sentence from my yiddish class: ‘and so the turkey was exposed as a nativist’
November 25, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
themattmcd.bsky.social
My microwave sings a little song when my Hot Pocket is done. Should it have the right to vote?
abeba.bsky.social Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 1d
can’t fucking catch a breath

make it stop
Is ChatGPT Conscious? Many users feel they’re talking to a real person. Scientists say it’s time to consider whether they’re onto something. By Jeff Wise, a science journalist and private pilot.
November 25, 2025 at 8:44 PM
joshuaraclaw.com
yiddish is so good because the word for "apple pie" is just "epl pai" (עפּל פּײַ)
November 25, 2025 at 9:10 PM
joshuaraclaw.com
I’ve never tried reading Yiddish written left-to-right before and I’m kind of shocked at how viscerally discomforting it is
Left to right Yiddish writing: Who is a Jew? It depends on how you ask
November 25, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
pymundgenealogy.bsky.social
I'm never going to stop pronouncing Chotiner's name in my head as in Yiddish
November 25, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
kriswernowsky.com
A package hasn't "shipped" if you've only "created the label"
The Norman Rockwell guy standing up to give a speech at a town hall meeting. He looks like a youngish Abe Lincoln.
November 25, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
brat2381.bsky.social
l bet some of y‘all think Kristi is joking.

Nope.

The Republicans hid this on purpose for almost a year and the MSM missed it.

www.politico.com/news/magazin...
November 25, 2025 at 7:00 AM
joshuaraclaw.com
I have a very lax and accommodating late policy where students can submit late assignments any time before the end of week 13 of the semester, with frequent reminders of this unyielding deadline all thirteen weeks, and yet every year a few students try to submit late work at the beginning of week 14
November 25, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
gadyepstein.bsky.social
“We’ve tried to not have to do it, but we've got direct orders,” the masked ICE agents told them www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/i...
"I asked for their names. They didn't give me their full names," Hestmark recalled of the agents. "They didn't show me their badge numbers. They didn't remove their masks. They simply said, 'We have a warrant for his arrest, and they handed me a QR code, and they put my husband in handcuffs. And they took him and said I couldn't follow." "She was just stunned," Paul said. "She kept asking what was wrong, what did we do? We'd done everything right." "We kept asking them if there was something we could do, if there was any way we could keep her from being separated from the family," he continued. We’re just trying to figure out what's happening, and they're just telling us, I'm sorry. We’ve tried to not have to do it, but we've got direct orders."| • "I had to take my baby, our baby, from his crying mother's arms," Paul said. "We were completely shocked, and I feel like we were tricked," Hestmark said. "We went through every possible legal and appropriate channel. We followed the advice of our lawyer. We were told that our case was straight forward." "He just wanted to be part of this country and for us to start our future together. And he wanted to do it… "Tom isn't in the system. I can't find him," Hestmark said. "I can't call him. I can't put money into his account. The lawyer doesn't know how to proceed because he hasn't been charged with anything." Both said their spouses were able to call them Thursday night, and they believed they were still being held in the basement of the federal building as of Friday afternoon. "She said that she was scared. She was anxious, missed her baby. She just wants to come home," Paul said. "She said the agents themselves were in the detention down in the basement of the federal building, saying, What are we doing here? These aren't the sort of people were supposed to be arresting.” "They hadn't given him anything to eat or any information," Hestmark said. "They gave him a mat and a foil blanket to sleep on." As she was detailing his arrest Friday afternoon, Bilger called Hestmark again from detention. She said he told her they had moved him to the Otay Mesa Detention Center and back but he hadn't slept and still hadn't been processed. "My wife's alone and terrified," Paul said. "My baby doesn't have his mom to hold him. I can't work right…
November 25, 2025 at 12:26 PM
joshuaraclaw.com
took a gummy and decided i'm going to try adding some angostura bitters to the cranberry sauce this year
November 25, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Reposted by Joshua Raclaw
ladyhistorian.bsky.social
I'm so tired of people telling me to have students critique LLM outputs. I'm just going to print this on little cards and hand them out
sonjadrimmer.bsky.social Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 3d
I will add the following: our students lack the research skills required to audit an LLM essay for errors. They don’t arrive on campus with these skills; we teach it to them over four long years. So throwing freshmen in the deep end and saying “swim your way to a shore of rectitude” is folly.
November 24, 2025 at 2:36 PM
joshuaraclaw.com
פּרעצל פּרעץ
big soft pretzel (the aforementioned pretz) little pretzel (which in yiddish sounds like it's a diminutive of the nonce word "pretz")
November 24, 2025 at 11:41 PM