Alex Wein
LightNews LightNews
alexwein.bsky.social
Alex Wein
@alexwein.bsky.social
190 followers 580 following 390 posts
data worker, word game liker, pretty boring quite frankly.
Oakland, CA
Posts Replies Media Videos
alexwein.bsky.social
about to play caves of qud for the first time and having weird anxiety. what if it's as good as people say? but also, what if it isn't?
February 16, 2026 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
jwolondon.bsky.social
I do think one of the most significant developments in computing in the last decade (apart from ~that~ one) has been the computational notebook.

Browsing through my @observablehq.com notebooks, they capture my visual and computational thinking more effectively than anything that preceded them.
A grid of 140 small images representing the 'thumbnails' of Observable notebooks. Below each is a small block of text (largely unreadable at this scale) with the title of each notebook.
February 15, 2026 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
markruffalo.bsky.social
It’s also the way I walk.
February 5, 2026 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
alshipley.bsky.social
I wrote about Warren Zevon's "Carmelita" for Spin's Deep Cut Friday column this week:
www.spin.com/2026/02/deep...
Deep Cut Friday: ‘Carmelita’ by Warren Zevon - SPIN
Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series. Warren Zevon kicked around The oft-covered standout from Zevon’s self-ti...
www.spin.com
February 6, 2026 at 2:35 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
i guess adoption of the AI feature on app dot snowflake was low, because they added a terribly annoying hypocycloid in the margin that follows your cursor
February 5, 2026 at 6:16 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
me on a zoom call this morning: what your asking sounds very difficult maybe literally impossible.

me 5 minutes after the call ends: here's a 10-line sql definition that should be work as a robust solution.
February 3, 2026 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
robdubbin.bsky.social
thrilled to announce i’m doing a mini-crossword residency at @puzzmo.com all month! 28 tiny crosswords, one each day of february. i’ll thread them here, first up is CROSSOVER EVENT www.puzzmo.com/puzzle/2026-...
Puzzmo - Cross|word
Play Cross|word on Puzzmo, Take a hint.
www.puzzmo.com
February 1, 2026 at 5:01 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
would it surprise you to learn that the first thing i tried to make when learning javascript in 2017 was a word game? alexsfirstwordgamewasbad.val.run
a screenshot. In the top left there are Reset and New Board buttons, in pink. There are 3 columns of 4 black circles, each with white 1-4 white letters on it. Two paths are colored: in blue "turbine" and in orange "spitted". These words are listed, in the color of the path, on the right.
January 31, 2026 at 3:59 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
an hour into this video, i learned that Glenn Jones, who leads the marvel snap design team, made a little word game: letterperk.com
January 30, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
findabigword.bsky.social
solution: https://bigwordbot.val.run/IM__ETE__LSN__IS
A 4x4 black and white grid with the following letters: IM__ ETE_ _LSN __IS
January 30, 2026 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
celia-14.bsky.social
I'm starting a newsletter for The Daily Spell! It'll have weekly updates plus bonus puzzles with some extra lore.

Interested in TDS, but the daily pace doesn't work for you? Subscribe to solve puzzles and discover the story weekly instead.

Go to About the Game to subscribe:
www.the-daily-spell.com
✨The Daily Spell✨: a daily word puzzle
Drop letters into place to unscramble today's magical headline. New puzzle and story daily!
www.the-daily-spell.com
January 30, 2026 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
benjamindickman.bsky.social
new CollectEdNY blog pot from Mark Trushkowsky!
www.collectedny.org/2026/01/slow...

#iTeachMath ♾️
see posts below ⬇️
January 23, 2026 at 8:35 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
hilary duff doing carlycore
January 23, 2026 at 9:08 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
ericdharvey.com
Heavy Rhyme Experience was a Delicious Vinyl artist showcase with the Heavies as the MG's and we used to be a real country. Acid-jazz rap www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8JZ...
Grand Puba, Masta Ace, Main Source & The Brand New Heavies - Heavy Rhyme Experience Theme
YouTube video by UPROXX
www.youtube.com
January 23, 2026 at 2:11 AM
alexwein.bsky.social
tove styrke's first new song since 2022 is more of sonic departure than I maybe wanted, but it's growing on me. i'm still pulling for tove as this year's zara larsson
January 20, 2026 at 1:28 AM
alexwein.bsky.social
i've decided to revisit my least fun word game. for some reason. observablehq.com/@a-lexwein/a...
Alex's 11 little word game notebooks
Over the last few years, I've used Observable to make a handful of very janky word games. Several are focused around Finding A Big Word. This is a list of what I've made so far. They are roughly order...
observablehq.com
January 17, 2026 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
datavizsociety.bsky.social
📊 In her latest review, Nicole Mark (@nicoledesignsdata.com) explores how Desiree Abbott's "Everyday Data Visualization" offers seasoned practitioners a refreshing return to the scientific rigor behind color theory, accessibility, and project management.

nightingaledvs.com/review-every...
REVIEW: Everyday Data Visualization: A Refreshing Return to Fundamentals, Nightingale
A Zen Buddhist teacher, Suzuki Roshi, famously said, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.
nightingaledvs.com
January 13, 2026 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
macwright.com
reading some academic papers on graph layout: macwright.com/2026/01/11/g...
Graph layout
JavaScript, math, maps, etc
macwright.com
January 12, 2026 at 2:15 AM
Reposted by Alex Wein
aman.bh
Rhea and I have been tracking our @nytimes.com word games (Wordle, Connections and the Mini) for the past two years. I decided to analyze our 4,200 gameplays with #rstats to determine a winner and made some festively embroidered charts with ggplot. Have a read. #dataviz

aman.bh/blog/2025/tw...
A digital illustration styled to look like an embroidered fabric patch or cross-stitch. The text reads 'TWO YEARS OF WORD GAMES' in the center, with '2025' at the bottom and 'AMAN V. RHEA' in the top right. The background is a checkered pattern of colored squares (green, yellow, gray, purple, and blue), mimicking the color palettes of Wordle and Connections. A scatter plot titled 'CROSSWORD TIMES' comparing daily Mini Crossword completion times over two years. The chart uses a pixelated aesthetic. Aman's data (left, in blue) shows a widely scattered distribution with a trend line hovering between 1 and 1.5 minutes, and includes a high outlier labeled 'Legendary bad Saturday.' Rhea's data (right, in red) is much more tightly clustered near the bottom, with a trend line consistently sitting around or below the 1-minute mark. A waffle chart titled 'WINS IN A DAY' displays the percentage of days when each player achieved 0, 1, 2, or 3 wins (a 'Sweep'). Aman's grid is dominated by '1 win' (yellow) and '0 wins' (beige), with only a few red squares representing a Sweep. Rhea's grid is much more colorful, featuring large blocks of '2 wins' (green) and a significant number of 'Sweep' (red) squares. An infographic titled 'CONNECTIONS: Who flops, clutches, or cracks purple?'. A table shows Aman has a slightly higher perfect game rate (30%) than Rhea (29%). Below, a horizontal bar chart compares specific play styles: Aman is more likely to play 'By The Book' (solving in exact order, 13%) and 'Total Flop' (losing all attempts, 6%). Rhea is significantly more likely to 'Clutch' (win with 3 mistakes made, 17%) and solve 'Purple First' (cracking the hardest category first, 8% vs Aman's 3%)
December 27, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Reposted by Alex Wein
westwords-xwt.bsky.social
📢📢📢 It's happ3ning! 📢📢📢

Westwords III
Sunday, June 14
Berkeley, CA
Individual and pairs solvers welcome

If you haven't competed previously, you can sign up for email updates at our website. See you in June!
westwordsbestwords.com
Westwords | June 22 | Bay Area & Online
Westwords 2025 is in the books! Thanks to all of our solvers, volunteers, and constructors for making it a huge success, and congratulations to the winners! The puzzle packs from 2025 and 2024 can be ...
westwordsbestwords.com
January 9, 2026 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
davidehrlich.bsky.social
on tuesday night i held several of the world's greatest filmmakers hostage for a 15-minute speech about what critics & artists owe to each other in the age of rapid enshittification. i'm not entirely sure why i did that.

anyway you can read it here if you want to: www.indiewire.com/criticism/mo...
January 9, 2026 at 6:23 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
@mjskay.com @matthew.wiki he needs some theory shapes. standard iceberg? hybrid network/iceberg? arxiv.org/abs/2510.01382
January 9, 2026 at 7:40 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
does anybody remember how to do my job?
January 5, 2026 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
alexwein.bsky.social
my brain just kinda short-circuits when I try to think about What's About to Happen, so instead i will think about boggle this weekend
January 17, 2025 at 3:51 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
best beverage songs of 2025: Lemonade by Maren Morris, Elderberry Wine by Wednesday, and Soda Pop by Saja Boys
alexwein.bsky.social Alex Wein @alexwein.bsky.social · Dec 13
I have continued to ponder this observablehq.com/@a-lexwein/b...
January 2, 2026 at 5:16 PM