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Ward Q. Normal (he/him)

@wardqnormal.bsky.social

7.9K followers 1.5K following 5.8K posts

Teacher, knitter, widower, Phish head, provincial park, strategy puzzle video game, type of volcanic crater, electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, species of moth of the family Tortricidae, ...

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · Aug 11

New school year about to start, so a new thread for the alphabetical order commute playlist. This morning's drive started with "Dumb All Over" (Zappa) and ended with 4 songs titled "Dust" (Monks of Doom, Parquet Courts, 13th Floor Elevators, Elvis Costello).

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 15h

Tiresome,
Loathsome,
Gruesome,
Noisome,
Irksome,
Newsom.

LGBTQ Nation @lgbtqnation.com · 17h

Gavin Newsom vetoes gender education bill, declines to sign other trans protections - buff.ly/MTUAV85

Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 16h

Every Bondi quote and clip makes me angrier than the last. Such an irredeemably awful, hateful, and unserious person should not be in a position of leadership in so much as a high school extracurricular club, let alone a country's justice dept.

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Derek Powazek @fraying.bsky.social · 18h

Goddammit. All I want is a nice social media place that doesn't feed AI or support a CEO who treats their users like shit.

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 17h

A great way to turn the temp down here as @jay.bsky.team @pfrazee.com and @aaron.bsky.team want would be to stop communicating site policies and practices with individual users or on their timelines and hire a comms person who is a professional communicator to do all the front facing interaction.

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born miserable @bornmiserable.bsky.social · 2d

BREAKING: Bluesky Announces New Slogan “Not as Transphobic as X, But We’re Working on It”

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Sheryl Weikal and the colorful Parrotlegals @leftistlawyer.com · 1d

Conversion therapy destroys you. It's torture. I was waterboarded with vinegar until I said I was a boy and wanted to be a boy. I still have nightmares about it to this day.

That's what they want SCOTUS to protect.

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ween lyric bot @weenlyrics.bsky.social · 18h

When I carbonate the test tube
Then you won't see me

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 17h

Starting to believe you guys have an interview process where you make sure everyone you hire is absolutely utter shit at explaining anything about the site, so every response and skeet anyone posts just makes every issue worse. This is literally the dumbest response you could have given.

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 18h

"I cite the case of Rubber v. Glue, which established the legal precedent of neener neener neener."

Putting petulant toddlers in charge of every branch and agency of our government was not a good idea.

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 18h

I guess it's a positive step. I just wish she could realize how disastrous GOP policies are without having to throw in all the unnecessary racism.

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utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 22h

Again, going in circles, but Trump ****literally**** does not understand how the American government works. He has ****never**** understood it. He was, until this administration, protected from his own stupidity but now there is no longer anyone at the helm. It’s ***actual*** anarchic governance.

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 21h

Trump has talked about his own death a few times now. That seems extremely significant, considering a few months ago he was insisting he'd run for president again in '28. Dude knows he's on the way out.

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Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 1d

Erin Baba is a journalist. Link is a lawyer.

Bluesky silences journalists and lawyers now for the sake of the leadership egos.

These rank, arrogant amateurs playacting at being kings and queens of the sandcastle.

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Emma Evans @trance.bsky.social · 1d

Łink's ban is wrong and should be reversed.

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Thinking Person's Guide to Autism @thinkingautism.com · 1d

“As a neurodiversity advocate and as an autistic person, I’m really grateful for so much of the work that’s been done that allows me to be myself and to be successful being myself.” Link, who has been *banned*!?!? from this platform?

thinkingautismguide.com/2025/06/spac... #AutisticWhileBlack

Space Law, Race, and Neurodiversity: Autistic Advocate AJ Link

We live in a country & society that is built on racism. The neurodivergent community isn't free of that racism—per Autistic advocate AJ Link.

thinkingautismguide.com

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Dr Kat Day (she/her) @chronicleflask.katday.com · 1d

Daughter of Robin Williams, Zelda Williams 💔

zeldawilliams
20m
From Create Mode
••
Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don't and I won't. If you're just trying to troll me, I've seen way worse, i'll restrict and move on. But please, if you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's NOT what he'd want.
To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough,
, just so
other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it.
Gross.

And for the love of EVERYTHING, stop calling it 'the future. Al is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.

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trick van treat @derek.bike · 1d

lots of people know Łink from what he did to promote alt text usage here. this tip about pretending you’re describing an image over the phone has been burned in my brain since i saw it

bluesky post from
@knilirabaj.bsky.social that says

It's pretty cool you're using that alt text accessibility feature. It's not cool that you're not really describing the image though. Nice and simple is a good start. Descriptive and accurate is the way to go. You'll get the hang of it. Try pretending you're describing the picture over the phone.

July 1, 2023 at 10:33 PM Everybody can reply

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 1d

Again, if your business model ever leads you to think, "we need to get more engagement and input from transphobes, racists, and other assorted assholes," then you need to pause, reflect, and change course.

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 1d

Here is how I appealed the suspension. It took them about an hour to respond. All in all I was down for about 4 hours.

Hello, I have been suspended for a post accusing me of threatening violence. If you look at the thread the post is part of, 1 am describing the evangelical belief system about the rapture, which includes the mass murder of Jews.
I, a Jew, was not making threats against Jews.
I, a Jew, was educating about the dangers that the evangelical community poses to Jews in order to *protect us*
This is obviously and clearly not a threat or an excuse for suspension.
Please reinstate my account.

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-𝚖𝚘𝚡 ❆ ☃︎︎ ❆ @moxiest.art · 1d

fix it.

A typewritten note that reads:

Link is, literally, the reason we sell our art.
He talked us into it and insisted on showing us financial support.

In 25 years of being active online, we've never encountered a better voice.

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 1d

You all did, in fact, vote for this. It was all spelled out. You were warned.

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 1d

If is ever an AI version of me created after I die, I want all of you to go to the nearest data center you can find and burn it to the fucking ground.

Todd Vaziri @tvaziri.com · 1d

Please tell me that the Williams family will sue OpenAI out of existence.

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 7d

Hey everyone! I'm extremely excited to announce that today marks the release of the 10th Anniversary Edition of Steve Silberman's ground-breaking NeuroTribes, with a new foreword by John Elder Robison.

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman: 9780399185618 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

This New York Times–bestselling book upends conventional thinking about autism and suggests a broader model for acceptance, understanding, and full participation in society for people who think differ...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 2d

I'm no social media expert, and certainly don't have any experience with the incredible challenge it must be to run a system like this, but ...

I feel like "we prioritize the experience of trans people over that of transphobes, who we don't have to tolerate" isn't a tough standard to set.

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 2d

"... in the future when they don't have [me] to fight for them ..."

Is this the first time he's acknowledged his mortality? If so, that seems like a milestone.

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