robert p. baird
@robertpbaird.com
Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that. || I'm on a Bsky hiatus, but THE NIMBUS, my debut novel, is now available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. || robertpbaird.com
It‘s a lot more fun to read the coverline as a caption, and to imagine EW taking a break from her rambles to watch the movie in her motorhome on a bright summer day. She’s just inside the open door, shouting at her laptop screen loud enough for her trailer park-mates to wonder if all’s ok.
Happy eclipse day to all who celebrate! If you're like me and can't find your way to totality today, here's the next best thing: home.ubalt.edu/ntygfit/ai_0...
gb19s title
home.ubalt.edu
The retconning of Woke 1 is really depressing. I don‘t care how much Tema Okun and “White Fragility” and Pelosi in kente cloth annoyed and embarrassed you. It was the closest this country has come in my ~half-century on earth to reckoning honestly with the racism that founded and still sustains it.
Took me way too long to realize that the pied-a-terre tax is actually a “you should be paying NYC income tax” tax.
I get that half of NY media loves this guy because they went to school/parties together, but it's incredible to see the Times ignore the fact that the MI's only meaningful policy success of the past decade is sponsoring C. Rufo's campaign to make racism great again. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/n...
Can This Man Stop the Mamdani Agenda?
Reihan Salam loves New York. He loves the free market. And he’s very worried.
nytimes.com
Last bit of Odyssey-discoursin': is there any chance Nolan didn't have this scene somewhere in mind when deciding where he wanted his wooden horse to be found? The location and orientation seem too similar to be an accident.
Nolan's more forgiving of Odysseus than Vergil was, but I don't think it's controversial in the slightest to say that his read on the Trojan War shares more with the Aeneid than it does with the Odyssey.
Levi Stahl@levistahl.bsky.social · 2w ago(I mean, I’ve got a dog in this fight. The more people are talking about the Odyssey, the more copies of the Odyssey Chicago sells. But we -do- also have a glorious Aeneid. Y’all could try that.)
I‘m not saying it’s going to happen. But the next Nolan script might be worth a careful scan...
Another possibility: recognize that Rosenbaum is a charlatan who was using AI for much more than he originally claimed, who didn’t bother learning what one can reasonably expect from AI, and who wasn’t doing anywhere near the kind of vetting and verification that published work demands.
Brendan Keogh@brkeogh.bsky.social · 3w agoSurely the solution here is just *don't use AI tools* for your writing and research and continue to do your writing and research in ALL the ways you were doing it before you started using AI instead of doing the work??
I‘ll be honest that I don’t know how Mamdani is going to make his 30% discount at city grocery stores work economically. But it’s really telling how many people are out there announcing that the stores can’t possibly work b/c they personally would buy all the goods and flip them for a quick profit.
A Sunday-morning doodle about Einstein, Saussure, and the scientific prospects of state-of-the-art AI: robertpbaird.com/rm/free-crea.... (If you hate any writing about AI that doesn't loudly and repeatedly abominate AI and all its works, let me spare you the time and say: this is not for you.)
Free Creations of the Human Mind — Robert P. Baird
Novelist, journalist, and editor.
robertpbaird.com
Plus here's a little sidecar about how the past year has changed my mind about A.I.: I'm now convinced that it's neither a hoax nor a passing fad, but to my mind that makes it more difficult to manage, not less. robertpbaird.com/rm/i-was-wro...
I Was Wrong about A.I. — Robert P. Baird
Novelist, journalist, and editor.
robertpbaird.com
New piece! On Iason Gabriel, an ethicist and philosopher at Google DeepMind, for the Guardian Long Read: www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte....
‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI
The long read: Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate – and think through – the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists...
theguardian.com
New piece! On Iason Gabriel, an ethicist and philosopher at Google DeepMind, for the Guardian Long Read: www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte....
‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI
The long read: Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate – and think through – the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists...
theguardian.com
I knew about Wemby obviously but the great revelation for me this playoffs was just how stupid talented the Spurs are. Castle, Champagnie, Harper—Harper!—all so good, and so fun to root for when they’re not playing the Knicks. (Happened to be at Bishop Loughlin yesterday and saw these on the wall…)
Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis is a wild stat. I'd feel very bad for Spurs fans if they didn't have so many insane young players and a seemingly great future. But wow.
Winning any day this week would have been amazing, but the Knicks winning on Pride, so that one party could blend into another, was such a magical “This is why we have New York” moment. A gorgeous night.
Feels like gravity is running at .75g in the city today, even for an opportunistic bandwagoner like me. Love this team so much. 🧡💙
A year to the day since this fellow was published. Thanks to everyone who’s given it the supreme compliment of their time. If you’re holding tight for a paperback, you’ll get your opportunity come October. (But if you’re reading this & want a hardback now, hit me up…) bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The Nimbus: A Novel
A Novel
bookshop.org
A year to the day since this fellow was published. Thanks to everyone who’s given it the supreme compliment of their time. If you’re holding tight for a paperback, you’ll get your opportunity come October. (But if you’re reading this & want a hardback now, hit me up…) bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The Nimbus: A Novel
A Novel
bookshop.org
