Alex Francis

DOG AT THE OLYMPICS
FULL COMPETITION HIGHLIGHTS

Me: I can’t believe it’s already mid February. I have so much to get done this semester.

Also me: how is it still February? And it’s only Monday? This semester is taking For. Ever.

Caption: You hear IPA and think of pretentious beer, I hear IPA and think of an alphabetic system of phonetic notation... We are both terrible at parties"

/tʃiɹz/ 🍻

I have watched the video of today’s murder several times and I am here to assure you that there were several agents restraining the victim when he was shot, and there is no way they were worried he was going to shoot one. Even if he had a gun, and I think that’s not true, he was not free to use it.

Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.

If you don't mind, if I could leave this here - it's a wonderful resource and the admins just added a page where people can leave a note of encouragement or support after making a donation and reading the testimonials. We need those today. www.standwithminnesota.com

A male American Kestrel, on the lower left, leans forward with a large dragonfly in his beak to give to the eager female who leans in from the upper right.

From my 2019 Month of Love series, a male American Kestrel offers a dragonfly as a courtship gift to a female. This Valentine's Day, make sure to let your valentine know they're loved by giving them the biggest bug you can find. 🪶🎨🐡

More than 200,000 Danish citizens have signed a petition to buy California as a response to Trump’s attempt to take Greenland.

They say they will provide Californians with “rule of law, universal health care, fact-based politics, and a lifetime supply of Danish pastries.”

"Correlation is still not causation," I intone wearily, hoping some people eventually realize what that means...

(Reasonable sample size, validated instrument, dosage dependent trend line: still not evidence of anything causative)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1N1kt

In the last 70 years, federal jobs fell from 4.5% of all employment to below 2%.

Civil servants aren't what's driving government debt, and firing them won't address it.

I’m not trying to give @pbs.org ideas for raising money—but I am. I would buy women’s fit T-shirts of all my favorite childhood shows. Reading rainbow, 321 contact, square one, zoobiliee zoo. I feel like two generations will run to donate even more money for shirts with Levar Burton on them…

Today, families are often asked to come up with thousands of dollars for bail with little notice. That’s in a country where over a third of adults would not be able to cover an unexpected expense over $400. Bail bond agents profit from this imbalance and lobby hard to protect it. This helps preserve a system where most of the people in local jails haven’t been convicted of a crime. Research suggests that even 72 hours in jail can increase the chance of future rearrest. Jail disrupts the very things that keep people stable. A few days behind bars can mean losing a job or a driver’s license, falling behind on rent or being expelled from school. This instability creates extraordinary challenges for people when they are released, increasing their chances of being swept back into the system for things like low-level charges. Worse still, jail makes it difficult to mount a defense because it cuts people off from legal support. Every minute, people are pulled into this system.

Bail reform increases safety, pretrial incarceration DECREASES public safety

Good op-ed in @nytimes.com from my friend David Gaspar (and Jeremy Cherson) @bailproject.org

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

I hate that even mildly appreciating how clever his PR team has been recently suddenly means I’m supposed to want to vote for him in … 3 years?

YOU DON'T SAY

Screen shot of part of a regular, weekly announcement of funding opportunities from NIH. Under the heading "Funding Opportunities" there is a single, bulleted line saying "None". I've highlighted this single word which seems ominously direct.

This is ... not a good sign.

MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing There’s a stark difference in success rates between companies that purchase AI tools from vendors and those that build them internally.

MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.

Recently our daughter asked what she should do with some leftovers and both my wife and I said simultaneously “put that in the fridge until it molds and then throw it out.” It’s not good, but it’s true.

My PhD student Yue Li is looking for L1 speakers of Chinese and Spanish for her online English experiment! Please see below for details!

Kim Davis going from "my religious beliefs demand that I don't facilitate a same-sex marriages" to "my religious beliefs demand that there are NO same-sex marriages anywhere" *should* make Democrats realize there is no "sincere" compromise with bigots on trans issues.

DC statehood is now an imperative. No more dicking around. Next Dem majority, get it done immediately.

I think this is a really under-appreciated distinction. I feel like there are many things I enjoy in a way that would likely be ruined by becoming a scholar of them. Not that others shouldn’t study those things. But I definitely am better off not doing so.

“You did say ‘No chocolate’, right?”

I’m often frustrated by technical terms with no intrinsic meaning (e.g., Type I vs Type II error) but now that increasing public awareness of the “Big 5” personality traits means more interpretations of “high extraversion” as “is an extrovert” etc., I kinda wish they were just called Traits 1-5.

Over those thirty years, topmost university leaders - once preeminent scientists and scholars - have gradually been replaced by political appointees and corporate fanboys.

Inconceivable! There must be some trick to it! Some GenZ lingo or social media strategy that we just haven’t figured out yet!

“It’s not about ideology, it’s about looking like you have an ideology.” If only the Dems realized it’s easier to look sincere if in fact you are sincere.

I’m for it! I already have a bunch of people in my phone as “[first name] Neighbor” and also some as “[first name] Business” (“Cody Plumber”, “Tracy HVAC”, etc.)

A good thread on the spaciousness of arguments against transwomen competing against ciswomen in sport.

Luke O‘Neil is one of my favorite writers - as much poet as storyteller, and somehow rich in bleakness. He gets more humanity into characters in a single page than many authors do in an entire novel. I loved his collection „A Creature Wanting Form“ and I’m looking forward to this one.