Nick Robert

I guess I should have a formal 🦋 intro post. My name’s Nick. I’m a community journalist and aspiring fiction writer. I’m big into paleontology and the natural world. I have a scicomm blog I haven’t updated in a long time (rexmachinablog.com). I love to write and talk about big ideas.

I have no words.

Hannah Arendt defined totalitarianism as “organized loneliness”. I can’t think of a better definition of what AI and chat bots want to push us into, financed and designed by literal totalitarians

The U.S. AI industry is being run by a batshit rationalist sex cult, and no, I am not being hyperbolic - they’re genuinely Like That:

The Onion has created a machine that will kill everyone on Earth that is coincidentally running out of money and the only way to slow it down is if my staff and I take a six-week vacation to Cabo San Lucas.

Just a friendly reminder that your desire to read books and eat pastries in a seaside cottage during a raging thunderstorm is valid. Don’t allow anyone to disrespect you by telling you otherwise.

The original version of this was posted on my FAisDM (felicitousArtisan is Darth Mongoose) Tumblr many years ago. I drew it at about 11pm right before going to bed, trying to express something I felt about art. When I woke up it kinda blew up.

Comedy about a guy having to do housework is a tough sell these days, I will give you that.

reader: wow this seems effortless. writer: it took me ten years & 400 drafts to complete this story

I really need NASA to come out with a hat with the Artemis mission patch on it.

if you don’t like the process of writing then don’t be a fucking writer, it’s not that complicated

The very aggressive marketing of “dietary supplements” to healthy people by the supplement industry (an industry that was worth around $200 billion last year) is a scam

The new thing is landlords using ai photos for their property listings. Totally legal. Total scam. The whole economy is oil and scams.

It is the anniversary of the My Lai massacre today. I'd say that even more than most years, it's important to remember what happened. And the role Hugh Thompson, an active serviceman, played in both stopping and publicising it. Despite enormous military, political and public pressure to stay quiet.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Thursday said House Democrats will demand that ICE be banned from the use of tactical nuclear weapons without a judge's order.

Democrats Condemn ICE For Murdering Without Proper Warrants https://theonion.com/democrats-condemn-ice-for-murdering-without-proper-warrants/

Wildlife tracking tips. A wintry comic from last year.

[observing someone’s obsessive passion project] wow i really like whatever’s wrong with that guy

This group of teenagers behind me is discussing their favorite brands of water and I’m just wondering when this generation became septuagenarians

remember, folks,

It feels really performative at this point, but a reminder that it’s National Day of Mourning for Native folks Relatedly, thousands of Native women are still disappearing and agencies are doing fuck all about it Learn more here: www.niwrc.org/mmiwr-awaren... And here: notournativedaughters.org

Absolutely wild. She was 8 when she entered the country. An unjust system is to blame here.

Audience culture is the worst it's ever been, I swear to god. People forgot how to act. I'm at the theater, trying to enjoy my show, which I've paid GOOD MONEY for, and these two old assholes are in the balcony heckling the life out of the poor bear onstage. Not letting him finish a single joke.

I miss the era of when shows had so many episodes they would have to do holiday episodes.

"Dickensian"

Ah, I'm awake again. Time to open the psychological harm app

Everyone is a muppet except for Daniel Craig MAKE THIS HAPPEN

Nanotyrannus attacking a young Tyrannosaurus is super common in paleoart especially in the last few weeks. Won’t stop me from depicting it too. Enjoy the new #watercolor. #paleoart

Reminder that anyone who says "a writer must do this," "a writer cannot do that," is WRONG.

getting a text in the middle of the night and it's just my loathsome vizier saying "Your enemies lie in wait, my lord!!" what am I supposed to do with that. its four in the morning

How about we shut down the government for this very popular and specific goal and then, hear me out, we hold out for like a month and a half and then, ok this part is important, after a watershed election where we ran the table, ONLY THEN, fold and don't get the one thing we said we wanted.

Shutting down the government is a big deal. People have been hurt in big ways as a result of the decision. To have that suffering be for nothing—to re-open the government without actually having protected people’s health insurance and economic well-being—is unconscionable.

There are many good science fiction novels. Not a single one that I have read delivers a happy vision of the future in which aged right-wing billionaires control the media.

Ouranosaurus

🐧 Puffin fact #2: Puffins are amazing flyers. They flap their wings up to 400 times a minute, reaching speeds of 55 mph. Underwater, they “fly” through the sea to chase fish! 4/5 #BrushWithTheWild #WildlifeArt #Puffin

Nobody *needs* to drive. What people need is to get around. A century of bad urban policy has led to the two being synonymous.

Thank you Vanity Fair for printing this incredible subhed. www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/st...