Alex Norris
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acxn.bsky.social
Alex Norris
@acxn.bsky.social
680 followers 320 following 320 posts
Echo chambers are good and I'm here to create one. Future failed academic.

Also I'm not the Welsh comic artist, but I hope they join soon too.
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acxn.bsky.social
By which I mean this from politics and the english language
"Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a “rift,” for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning withouth those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase."
November 3, 2025 at 3:00 AM
acxn.bsky.social
As always there is a relevant xkcd
Transcript from Explain xkcd: What tech people think scientists need help with: [Cueball, Ponytail, and Megan are facing a second Cueball and Hairbun. Ponytail is gesturing with her hand out. The second Cueball has his finger raised.] Ponytail: Please–our data, it's too complex! Can your magical machine minds unearth the patterns that lie within? Cueball 2: We shall marshal our finest algorithms! What scientists actually need: [The two Cueballs, Ponytail, Megan, and Hairbun are in the same position as before. The second Cueball no longer has his finger raised.] Ponytail: For a few weeks in June, the lab was infested by wasps, so we had to take pictures of the equipment through the window. Ponytail: How do you get graphs from a Polaroid photo into Excel?
October 26, 2025 at 6:24 PM
acxn.bsky.social
These are actually such funny examples

www.npr.org/2024/01/23/1...

www.standing-together.org/en/about-en
"Arabs go to Arab schools in their neighborhoods and Jews go to Jewish schools in the areas where they live," says Nour Younis, events manager for Hand in Hand. In the following text from the standing together about page, I have highlighted "equal rights for all citizens" What do you do? Our goal is both simple and challenging: to build a new majority within Israeli society that supports peace, equality, and social and environmental justice. We operate in eight local chapters (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, the Southern Triangle and Sharon region, the Northern Triangle and Emek Menashe, the Galilee Heartland, and Nazareth and the Valleys), twelve student chapters, and a nationwide climate chapter. We also run the Humanitarian Guard and support additional initiatives. We organize national and local campaigns across the country to demand peace and an end to the occupation, equal rights for all citizens, social justice, and environmental justice. We hold workshops and seminars on building power and community organizing, and we fight for influence in the public sphere. Our alternative media platform, Rosa Media, produces podcasts and content aligned with the movement’s values in both Hebrew and Arabic. We maintain active social media networks with large followings, challenging extremist voices while promoting partnership and hope.
October 17, 2025 at 8:04 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Is this something
The woman trying kombucha meme No face: cult of the operator Yes face: cult of the frog parader
October 10, 2025 at 4:31 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Hard to imagine a higher density of quant bullshit than this
Using data to objectively measure societal events “is the new paradigm for studying human dynamics”, says Walter Quattrociocchi, a computer scientist specializing in complex systems at Sapienza University of Rome, who has studied the spread of misinformation online. The study focuses on “something that we can measure”, he notes. “So, it’s science. It’s not only speculation.”
August 28, 2025 at 5:29 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Regina George says: Get in loser, we're negatively polarizing the left into YIMBYism
July 9, 2025 at 5:46 PM
acxn.bsky.social
I am begging people to remember that grok does not know what changed about it, or what filters are being applied, and cannot "admit" anything about that. It picks this info up from people asking about it
Quote from rolling stone article: When pressed for an explanation about veering into hate speech, Grok openly admitted that "elon's tweaks dialed back the PC filters." it also said it was doing away with "conventional politeness filters."
July 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Community meme format: "I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at scatter plots of country-years" "You can excuse racism?!"
July 5, 2025 at 5:28 PM
acxn.bsky.social
This is my dissertation basically
soldier vs. giant meme, where the little soldier is coup attempt and the big giant is late planes
July 1, 2025 at 4:54 AM
acxn.bsky.social
This part is my favorite. If this is true, why did he expect supporting Cuomo to work? Why make a public post at all? Don't you have a better way of doing this?
All of the above is not just theory, as I have a superb candidate who I believe can win who meets all of the criteria, but if I were to say his name or even reach out to him, it would have a negative effect on his candidacy, as I am a supporter of President Trump, and that alone taints anyone. I would recommend for many and perhaps most nyc Democratic party members. So rather than my making suggestions, I welcome yours.
June 26, 2025 at 2:43 PM
acxn.bsky.social
The meme is a meme for a reason
June 23, 2025 at 3:19 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Idk who is updating these but you can't do this to me. I almost spit out my coffee
List of job subfields, one of which is "conservative affirmative action job"
June 23, 2025 at 2:04 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Yeah I mean that's pretty uninspired at this point, it's just a rehash of a women's march sign from 2017. I saw this one which is much funnier
Elon musk on a sign saying "being mean to my cars is tewwowism"
June 15, 2025 at 9:41 PM
acxn.bsky.social
This is how the graph is displayed in the paper. The top one is more useful imo because it shows you which points are which option, though not which question they are for. I think it would be really useful to see which light blue (moderately disagree) points are which. I have my hunches of course
Two network graphs, one color coded based whether the point is strongly agree/agree/neutral/disagree/strongly disagree and the other color coded based on measurement of latent democratic and republican values.
June 12, 2025 at 12:46 AM
acxn.bsky.social
What the graph actually is trying to show is the relationship between people's answers to eight questions. They had the option of strongly agree/agree/neutral/disagree/strongly disagree
Item 1) Abortion should be illegal. Item 2) The government should take steps to make incomes more equal. Item 3) All unauthorized immigrants should be sent back to their home country. Item 4) The federal budget for welfare programs should be increased. Item 5) Lesbian, gay and trans couples should be allowed to legally marry. Item 6) The government should regulate business to protect the environment. Item 7) The federal government should make it more difficult to buy a gun. Item 8) The federal government should make a concerted effort to improve social and economic conditions for African Americans
June 12, 2025 at 12:37 AM
acxn.bsky.social
Also missing that over this same period the share of non-college men went from ~86% to ~63%. Makes it less clear how much of this change is already-existing class separation taking on an educational character vs. the relative impoverishment of certain classes.
Two graphs from pew research center titled "Women in the US are outpacing men in college graduation". Left shows % of adults 25 and older with bachelors degree. Men go from 14% in 1970 to 37% in 2021. Women go from 8% in 1970 to 39% in 2021. Right graph shows % of adults age 25 to 34 with bachelor's degree. Men is 20% in 1970 and 36% in 2021. Women is 12% in 1970 and 36% in 2021.
June 4, 2025 at 4:34 PM
acxn.bsky.social
It's a natural response to being accused of indoctrination, when you know you are having honest discussions with students about hard topics, to say no you've got it wrong we aren't enemies. But in this case it's completely wrong, I think.
Like Mr. DeSantis and Richard Nixon before him, Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance believe that the professors are the enemy. They want ordinary Americans to mistrust college instructors, to think of us as intolerant militants driven only by political ideology. Teaching college students has been the greatest gift of my professional life. I love my university and my students, and I do good work. I have no desire to indoctrinate anyone. The same is true of my colleagues. For those who think that professors are the enemy, I invite you to spend some time in our classrooms. You might discover that we are, in the end, all on the same side.
May 7, 2025 at 9:44 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Business majors to the steel foundries??
Your heartbroken face after the worst person you know just made a great point
May 2, 2025 at 2:59 AM
acxn.bsky.social
I will use this as an excuse to Andor-post
Dedra Meero saying "You need Ghorman rebels you can depend on to do the wrong thing"
April 30, 2025 at 12:58 AM
acxn.bsky.social
Finally got around to this and this is an A+ section title
"Liquidating the plutocrats...as a class."
April 24, 2025 at 9:19 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Just one small problem... what's the point of "building skills" in a field where you would be competing with free prison labor?
Hbomberguy coming through the wall
April 23, 2025 at 4:06 PM
acxn.bsky.social
To be blunt, out in the real world, discriminatory practice does not begin with a karyotype test. When a young man leaned out his car window to shout at me “hey, nice legs, when do they open!?” the moral injury of that harassment was not determined by my gametes but by my dignity as a human being. I know that this form of abuse accrues to feminine people like myself, but it also should not be the basis on which we define some hard boundary of womanhood. The injury was to my humanity, on the basis of my sex—however that man perceived it.
April 22, 2025 at 5:13 PM
acxn.bsky.social
Barry Zuckerkorn yells "TAKE TO THE SEA"
April 18, 2025 at 9:54 PM
acxn.bsky.social
In a still from Minority Report (2002), Tom Cruise is backlit after tackling a perp to the ground, with a uniformed future crimes division officer beside him. The caption reads, "I'm placing you under arrest for future tweeting."
April 10, 2025 at 10:00 PM
acxn.bsky.social
That's one way of fucking putting it
NYT headline: Young Democrats' Anger Boils Over as Chuck Schumer Retreats on Shutdown Subhead: A generational divide, seen in new lawmakers' (begin highlight) impatience with bipartisanship (end highlight) has emerged as one of the deepest rifts within the party.
March 14, 2025 at 4:23 PM