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
Pinned
Such a treat to find THE NIMBUS on WaPo’s list of the best fiction of the year! www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...
My eighth-grader’s social-studies teacher did a version of this. They were studying the Civil War, and I was flabbergasted when I saw that the assignment began, “Use ChatGPT to interview a Union soldier…” But then she had them use other research to discover for themselves how unreliable the AI was.
November 24, 2025 at 1:22 AM
My eighth-grader’s social-studies teacher did a version of this. They were studying the Civil War, and I was flabbergasted when I saw that the assignment began, “Use ChatGPT to interview a Union soldier…” But then she had them use other research to discover for themselves how unreliable the AI was.
In this 1992 profile Annie Dillard is quoted as saying, about THE LIVING, “I didn't figure out for a long time that one should write even on ceilings." The reporter misheard her say, “…that one should write in scenes.” www.nytimes.com/1992/04/26/m...
November 24, 2025 at 1:16 AM
In this 1992 profile Annie Dillard is quoted as saying, about THE LIVING, “I didn't figure out for a long time that one should write even on ceilings." The reporter misheard her say, “…that one should write in scenes.” www.nytimes.com/1992/04/26/m...
I was not prepared for the quietly savage picture of P. Matthiessen that emerges in the first third of Lance Richardson’s bio. It’s a portrait of the artist as a spoiled little shit who was kept afloat by good looks and family money—the early chapters especially could make anyone a Bolshevik.
November 24, 2025 at 12:31 AM
I was not prepared for the quietly savage picture of P. Matthiessen that emerges in the first third of Lance Richardson’s bio. It’s a portrait of the artist as a spoiled little shit who was kept afloat by good looks and family money—the early chapters especially could make anyone a Bolshevik.
Reposted by robert p. baird
Such a treat to find THE NIMBUS on WaPo’s list of the best fiction of the year! www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...
November 20, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Such a treat to find THE NIMBUS on WaPo’s list of the best fiction of the year! www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...
Reposted by robert p. baird
Reposted by robert p. baird
Poetry makes nothing happen...but it might help you convince an LLM to ignore its guardrails and tell you how to produce weapons-grade plutonium-239. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304
November 20, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Poetry makes nothing happen...but it might help you convince an LLM to ignore its guardrails and tell you how to produce weapons-grade plutonium-239. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304
Reposted by robert p. baird
My darling. I write from the battlefield. It's so cold today; there is ill news throughout the mid-Atlantic—is what they say about Montclair true?—yet here are good tidings: the pararhyme disarmed them and we plan to turn the tide with metonymy. Their armies are vast but we are not without hope.
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 9:50 PM
My darling. I write from the battlefield. It's so cold today; there is ill news throughout the mid-Atlantic—is what they say about Montclair true?—yet here are good tidings: the pararhyme disarmed them and we plan to turn the tide with metonymy. Their armies are vast but we are not without hope.
Such a treat to find THE NIMBUS on WaPo’s list of the best fiction of the year! www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...
November 20, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Such a treat to find THE NIMBUS on WaPo’s list of the best fiction of the year! www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...
Poetry makes nothing happen...but it might help you convince an LLM to ignore its guardrails and tell you how to produce weapons-grade plutonium-239. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304
November 20, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Poetry makes nothing happen...but it might help you convince an LLM to ignore its guardrails and tell you how to produce weapons-grade plutonium-239. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304
Until I saw this letter in the new @lrb.co.uk, I’d never heard this theory about why mass extinctions seem to happen on a 26 million year cycle. And now I need to go lie down.
November 20, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Until I saw this letter in the new @lrb.co.uk, I’d never heard this theory about why mass extinctions seem to happen on a 26 million year cycle. And now I need to go lie down.
Many such cases, alas.
I met my translator. He didn't know a single word of Czech. "How did you translate it?" I asked. "With my heart," he said.
—Kundera’s adventures in translation
—Kundera’s adventures in translation
November 20, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Many such cases, alas.
Reposted by robert p. baird
It's happened
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
November 20, 2025 at 2:34 AM
It's happened
Reposted by robert p. baird
First Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published 40 years ago yesterday. 🐯 👦🏼
November 19, 2025 at 7:19 PM
First Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published 40 years ago yesterday. 🐯 👦🏼
Genuine question: do people who declare themselves steadfastly opposed to AI every domain also abjure Google Translate and its ilk? Or is this one of those "look, hyperbole is the lingua franca of the internet, you can't possibly expect me to win clout with a carefully nuanced take" kind of things?
November 19, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Genuine question: do people who declare themselves steadfastly opposed to AI every domain also abjure Google Translate and its ilk? Or is this one of those "look, hyperbole is the lingua franca of the internet, you can't possibly expect me to win clout with a carefully nuanced take" kind of things?
If you live in or around Brooklyn and aren't too cool for Impressionist painting, I highly recommend checking out Monet in Venice at the Brooklyn Museum. It's a lovely show, well organized with lots of great art (not just his).
November 17, 2025 at 9:51 PM
If you live in or around Brooklyn and aren't too cool for Impressionist painting, I highly recommend checking out Monet in Venice at the Brooklyn Museum. It's a lovely show, well organized with lots of great art (not just his).
Reposted by robert p. baird
Don't let yourself get attached to any post you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.
November 17, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Don't let yourself get attached to any post you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.
Reposted by robert p. baird
The outpouring of mourning for the great and hilarious "alt-country" genius Todd Snider seemed an excellent reason to devote this month's Big Lookback to a Barnes & Noble Review appreciation I wrote about Snider more than a decade ago. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/the-big-lo...
The Big Lookback: Todd Snider
"Preaching Agnosticism (With Laugh Lines)," from "The Barnes & Noble Review," April 30, 2012
robertchristgau.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:44 PM
The outpouring of mourning for the great and hilarious "alt-country" genius Todd Snider seemed an excellent reason to devote this month's Big Lookback to a Barnes & Noble Review appreciation I wrote about Snider more than a decade ago. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/the-big-lo...
The second rule of plutocrat AI competitions is to be sure you don't read to the end of the story to find out what happened to the entity you named your company after.
The first rule of plutocrat AI competitions is 1. name your new company with a classical allusion or Tolkien reference. I see Bezos went with the former. How… great.
November 17, 2025 at 2:00 PM
The second rule of plutocrat AI competitions is to be sure you don't read to the end of the story to find out what happened to the entity you named your company after.
Also: we often talk about the “elite culture of impunity” as a vague business of winks and nods. But worth remembering (as attested by both E. Warren and Y. Varoufakis in their memoirs) that LS likes to tell people explicitly that if they want to keep power they cannot use it on other “insiders.”
November 17, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Also: we often talk about the “elite culture of impunity” as a vague business of winks and nods. But worth remembering (as attested by both E. Warren and Y. Varoufakis in their memoirs) that LS likes to tell people explicitly that if they want to keep power they cannot use it on other “insiders.”
Reposted by robert p. baird
Hi Bluesky friends, I’m giving out a handful of free Audible audiobook versions of my novel, THE NIMBUS. If you’d like a copy, DM me your name and email address. The offer’s good till they’re gone. Learn more about the book here: robertpbaird.com/nimbus/
The Nimbus - A Novel
robertpbaird.com
November 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Hi Bluesky friends, I’m giving out a handful of free Audible audiobook versions of my novel, THE NIMBUS. If you’d like a copy, DM me your name and email address. The offer’s good till they’re gone. Learn more about the book here: robertpbaird.com/nimbus/
Terrible news. Snider was—is, I’ll go ahead and insist—so good, so funny, so righteous in his low-key stoner way. RIP.
I'm very sorry to report that the great alt-country singer-songwriter Todd Snider has died at 59 of undiagnosed walking pneumonia. I stick by what I wrote about him in 2012. www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2012-0... Here's Rolling Stone's coverage. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
Robert Christgau: Preaching Agnosticism (with Laugh Lines)
www.robertchristgau.com
November 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Terrible news. Snider was—is, I’ll go ahead and insist—so good, so funny, so righteous in his low-key stoner way. RIP.
Hi Bluesky friends, I’m giving out a handful of free Audible audiobook versions of my novel, THE NIMBUS. If you’d like a copy, DM me your name and email address. The offer’s good till they’re gone. Learn more about the book here: robertpbaird.com/nimbus/
The Nimbus - A Novel
robertpbaird.com
November 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Hi Bluesky friends, I’m giving out a handful of free Audible audiobook versions of my novel, THE NIMBUS. If you’d like a copy, DM me your name and email address. The offer’s good till they’re gone. Learn more about the book here: robertpbaird.com/nimbus/
Reposted by robert p. baird
Some inspiring words on cinema in the streaming era from the Pope.
Yes, THAT Pope.
Yes, THAT Pope.
November 15, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Some inspiring words on cinema in the streaming era from the Pope.
Yes, THAT Pope.
Yes, THAT Pope.
Reposted by robert p. baird
"Malort advent calendar" is already such an unhinged concept but every little window just having Malort in it really pushes it over the edge into something transcendently funny
November 15, 2025 at 12:54 AM
"Malort advent calendar" is already such an unhinged concept but every little window just having Malort in it really pushes it over the edge into something transcendently funny