Alex Wein
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alexwein.bsky.social
Alex Wein
@alexwein.bsky.social
170 followers 550 following 350 posts
data worker, word game liker, pretty boring quite frankly.
Oakland, CA
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Alex Wein
driven-by-data.net
I think this is pure charting gold from WaPo (credits to Szu Yu Chen, @emmakumer.bsky.social and @jeremybmerrill.com) www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...
Line chart showing how the share of em dash uses in ChatGPT responses has increased from single-digit percentages in 2024 to almost 80% in July 2025. The chart cleverly used a dashed line resembling em dashes Bar chart showing the most frequently used emojis in ChatGPT messages in 2025. The emojis are shown sitting on top of each bar. The winners are the brain emoji (26%) and the checkmark emoji (>30%)
November 13, 2025 at 10:45 AM
alexwein.bsky.social
dope dope dope dope dope dope dope dope
November 12, 2025 at 8:42 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
i know we all rag on tufte for insisting that joylessness should be a core value of visualization, but we forget about the adorable little "ideas" guy from tvdoqi
a angular face with one eye, with 3 stick figure legs (or possibly 2 arms and a spine). above the face, it says "ideas"
November 12, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
sotoalfred.bsky.social
I once called her America's best working popular musician-songwriter. Happy birthday to Miranda Lambert. What a discography. humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2023/11/10/r...
Ranking Miranda Lambert’s discography
I called her the best working American singer-songwriter. The six albums below offer ample demonstration.
humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:14 AM
alexwein.bsky.social
made enough progress on coney letters to push to prod loopyletters.val.run/coney

like my other "find a big word" games, the words are random uniformly pulled from the wordnik list, which includes a lot of junk. i'm sorry. better on mobile than desktop.
#How to play Coney Letters: 1. Use every letter to spell a word. 2. Consecutive letters in the word must be adjacent on the circle. The middle letter is adjacent to all the others. 3. When you find a word, the next word to find appears. 4. Go fast? Go slow? Enjoy! a screenshot of a safari on an phone. The page is titled "Coney Letters, a word game by Alex Wein". In the center is a white circle with the letter E. Surrounding the circle are 7 thick arcs with the letters O, R, T, N, C ,I starting at 1 o'clock position and going clockwise.
November 9, 2025 at 10:46 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
i was considering adding more loops to loopy letters, but ended up filling in the donut instead. wip alexwein--0199cef989287565a4c0a69b4c1e007f.web.val.run
a screenshot of a safari on an phone. The page is titled "Coney Letters, a word game by Alex Wein". In the center is a yellow circle with the letter A. Surrounding the circle are four thick arcs with the letters S, M, O, and T, starting in the northwest and going clockwise. The word "-MOATS-" is above the circle
November 8, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
jessefuchs.bsky.social
Magical Athlete!
October 3, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
thinkygames.com
We are live! 🎉

thinkygames.com/even...
November 5, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
adamwagner.bsky.social
new name, new bovid, same great gameplay. Anigrams is now The New Yorker's: SHUFFALO!!!
newyorker.com The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 15d
Introducing our new game, Shuffalo: a daily word-scramble challenge. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/p29khb
November 3, 2025 at 5:53 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
this is an archive of 1300 examples of string boards in media www.vaultofculture.com/nst
Narrative String Theory — The Vault of Culture
An ongoing series, initially appearing on tumblr, collecting all known appearances of “narrative string theory” (string walls, walls and floors littered with paperwork by obsessives, etc.).
www.vaultofculture.com
November 1, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
xws.bsky.social
the minis are free forever! you can share them using the quoted post above. i also catalogued them here:

www.brookehusic.com/puzzminis/

xoxo 💕
www.brookehusic.com
October 31, 2025 at 5:37 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
this snocaps album is great. does a cool job bridging some of katie's pre-2020's sound with the saint cloud/tiger's blood stuff. I missed the scuzzy indie guitars.
alexwein.bsky.social Alex Wein @alexwein.bsky.social · Mar 27
Five years ago today, Waxahatchee released Saint Cloud. Nobody has released a better album since.
October 31, 2025 at 7:00 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
jenny from let's eat grandma is back with a very satisfying 80s synth anthem
October 27, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Reposted by Alex Wein
totalvibration.bsky.social
I happen to work with two of my favorite Thinkers About Music: @annkpowers.bsky.social and @artsorority.bsky.social. Lo and behold, they have a new @npr.org podcast together!

(This episode's free. The rest will be on NPR Music+, which costs a nice cup of tea/month.)

www.npr.org/2025/10/23/n...
“I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)” by Stevie Wonder : All Songs Considered
This is the first episode of a new series on All Songs Considered, hosted by NPR Music critic Ann Powers and editor Daoud Tyler-Ameen. Most of what you hear on All Songs is focused on new music, but n...
www.npr.org
October 23, 2025 at 3:31 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
whoa bloomberg has a line chart-based word game
October 20, 2025 at 7:09 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
boggle
October 20, 2025 at 3:23 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
scrabble
October 20, 2025 at 3:23 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
i got a new notebook yesterday, but the paper is a little too glossy, so I don't think it's gonna fix my life
October 20, 2025 at 2:29 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
phyllis beat me 78-73 in round 3 this month; not as heartbreaking
alexwein.bsky.social Alex Wein @alexwein.bsky.social · Apr 20
i just had a heartbreaking 140-138 loss to Phyllis in round 3 of the monthly online boggle tournament
October 17, 2025 at 10:51 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
shit...damn...motherfucker
October 14, 2025 at 4:43 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
not enough discussion of charts and graphs
tldrcomicbookclub.bsky.social TLDR Comic Book Club @tldrcomicbookclub.bsky.social · Oct 13
🔥 FRIAR SIDE CHAT 🔥

DIE is set to return, so we simply had to chat with @kierongillen.bsky.social

Between his series with @stephaniehans.bsky.social returning and his other can't-miss @imagecomics.com with @casparw.bsky.social, THE POWER FANTASY, this was a loaded interview 😏⬇️
Kieron Gillen's Charts and Graphs (and DIE)
Podcast Episode · TLDR Comic Book Club · 10/13/2025 · 1h 1m
podcasts.apple.com
October 14, 2025 at 12:53 AM
alexwein.bsky.social
when i started my job, i talked a lot about how valuable good documentation is. but now I have to write good documentation and I do not want to.
October 9, 2025 at 9:44 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
fun stuff...although after reading, i am less certain i understand either what a theory is or what a shape is
mjskay.com Matthew Kay @mjskay.com · Oct 9
to appear at #alt.vis 2025: THEORY IS SHAPES

sure "theory figures" are great, but @matthew.wiki, @maryamhed.bsky.social, me, and Carolina Nobre wonder: why always a 2D plane or a flowchart? why not icebergs, horseshoes, Möbius strips, or BLT sandwiches?
arxiv.org/abs/2510.01382

#ieeevis #hci
Abstract and teaser figure of the paper "Theory is Shapes" by Matthew Varona, Maryam Hedayati, Matthew Kay, and Carolina Nobre. The teaser figure is an "iceberg" theory figure, showing four levels: the tip of the iceberg, containing a nested set diagram and a Cartesian plane. The next level down (just under the water) has a complicated flow charts and a combination flow chart and matrix. The next level down has the iceberg figure itself and a horseshoe. The final level contains a Möbius strip and a BLT sandwich. The abstract reads: "Theory figures" are a staple of theoretical visualization research. Common shapes such as Cartesian planes and flowcharts can be used not only to explain conceptual contributions, but to think through and refine the contribution itself. Yet, theory figures tend to be limited to a set of standard shapes, limiting the creative and expressive potential of visualization theory. In this work, we explore how the shapes used in theory figures afford different understandings and explanations of their underlying phenomena. We speculate on the value of visualizing theories using more expressive configurations, such as icebergs, horseshoes, Möbius strips, and BLT sandwiches. By reflecting on figure-making's generative role in the practice of theorizing, we conclude that theory is, in fact, shapes.
October 9, 2025 at 2:42 PM
alexwein.bsky.social
had to get into some of the nuances of marvel snap's in-game currencies with my therapist this week
October 2, 2025 at 2:13 PM