Sam Roberts
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thesamroberts.com
Sam Roberts
@thesamroberts.com
170 followers 230 following 350 posts
Dad, husband, dino master. Philly-based. 🦖 https://samnite.itch.io
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thesamroberts.com
Couldn't get this idea out of my head until I made it. I think it's kinda cursed but people on the discord liked it so here ya go
It's the DARE to resists drugs and violence shirt, but instead it says "T.H.A.C.0. TO HIT ARMOR CLASS 0" (Yes, I know the 0 in THAC0 isn't an abbreviation)
November 10, 2025 at 9:22 PM
thesamroberts.com
I’m here at the dive bar and someone just did the most unhinged thing I’ve ever seen
A screenshot of a jukebox app that is playing 45:33 — the LCD soundsystem workout track that is, you guessed it, 45 and a half minutes long
November 2, 2025 at 1:00 AM
thesamroberts.com
Sexual dimorphism in squishmallows
A photo of two squishmallow tombstone characters on a table next to each other. The girl squishmallow is about 2 ft. tall. The boy squishmallow is about 2 in. tall.
October 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM
thesamroberts.com
Making the global leader in language-learning apps as a backdoor pilot for your animated series
A screengrab from the news section of the Duolingo app. It says “surprise! Duolingo’s first anime series puts the characters to the ultimate test.” with a button to watch now.
October 15, 2025 at 1:38 AM
thesamroberts.com
“My name is Kid Koala and I’m here to play some records very incorrectly.”
October 4, 2025 at 12:43 AM
thesamroberts.com
Oh hell yeah. Gonna buy myself an AriZona iced tea
Text from an email I received: You are eligible for up to a $1.00 credit to be applied to ParkMobile’s service fees. The code provides a $0.25 discount on ParkMobile’s service fees and may be used up to four times for a total discount of $1.00. The code will expire on October 8, 2026.
September 24, 2025 at 7:17 PM
thesamroberts.com
If I'd been drinking my coffee I would've done a spittake. There's a lot of true nonsense in the piece, albeit nothing quite as straight-up gross.
Throughout the country and on many campuses, it is too easy to retreat into silos, reject nuance and seek out only those courses, speakers, colleagues, friends and environments that buttress our existing worldviews. The campus disruptions I’ve seen over the past two years — disruptions that have interrupted classes, destroyed property and restricted access to libraries — reflect this siloed mind-set. Protest should not silence others, and advocacy of political views should not undermine our academic mission.
September 17, 2025 at 2:36 PM
thesamroberts.com
Absolutely shameful false equivalency from the president of Barnard College.
Yet new strategies are also needed. Some on social media have attempted to minimize the broader implications of Mr. Kirk’s assassination by pointing to his extreme views, such as his arguments that some gun deaths are an acceptable price to pay for the right to bear arms. These attempts are like blaming a victim of sexual assault for going to a party wearing provocative clothing.
September 17, 2025 at 1:54 PM
thesamroberts.com
The handshake meme. One arm is "90s Batman Comics". The other arm is "2010s Batman Video Games". Where they shake is "Assassin's Creed Vibes."
August 11, 2025 at 1:52 PM
thesamroberts.com
Sams be like
A quote from me in a discord saying, “I am so furious that I’m going to have to check out The Critical Role Game”
June 16, 2025 at 1:23 PM
thesamroberts.com
Breaking News
King Priam of Troy plans to accept a large wooden horse from Greece that he will use as a victory trophy and will keep using after his reign is over.
Ny times news alert: Breaking News. President Trump plans to accept a luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar that he will use as Air Force One and will keep using after he leaves office.
May 11, 2025 at 4:46 PM
thesamroberts.com
Do people still read/talk about Philip K. Dick? He was everywhere a decade ago, but I rarely hear people talk about him these days, even though his work feels more relevant than ever.

Anyway here's a section from Radio Free Albemuth (written 1976) about a fascist president's rise to power
One asks, Why should such disparate groups as the Soviet Union and the U.S. intelligence community back the same man? I am no political theoretician, but Nicholas one time said. “They both like figureheads who are corrupt. So they can govern from behind. The Soviets and the fuzz, they’re all for shadow governments. They always will be, because basically each of them is the man with the gun. The pistol to the head.” No one had put a pistol to Ferris Fremont’s head. He, was the pistol itself, pointed at our head. Pointed at the people who had elected him. Behind him stood all the cops in the world, the left-wing cops in Russia, the right-wing cops in the United States. Cops are cops. There are only divisions of rank, into greater and lesser. The top cop is probably never seen.
April 16, 2025 at 2:27 PM
thesamroberts.com
Hey, did you hear? The economy is having its best day in almost 20 years!
A screencap of a New York Times push notification that reads, “Breaking News: the S&P 500 surged 9.5 percent, its best day since October 2008c after President Trump backed down on ‘reciprocal’ tariffs for 90 days.”
April 9, 2025 at 8:32 PM
thesamroberts.com
This last section address who the “church” is for, and uses the word “community” in a way that feels provocative given how its usage has shifted in the intervening years. “Serving the community” hits me as good, but here it is, decidedly, not.
After these explanations he returned to the analogy of the religious church. The citizens who build such a church and pay for it probably have in mind that they're doing this for the community. A good sermon can put the parishioners in a right frame of mind for the coming week. Sunday school will help the children grow up right. The minister who delivers the sermon and directs the Sunday school understands these goals and normally goes along with them, but he also knows that his primary goals are not to serve the community. His primary goal is always to serve God. Normally there's no conflict but occasionally one creeps in when trustees oppose the minister's sermons and threaten reduction of funds. That happens. A true minister, in such situations, must act as though he'd never heard the threats. His primary goal isn't to serve the members of the community, but always God. The primary goal of the Church of Reason, Phædrus said, is always Socrates' old goal of truth, in its ever-changing forms, as it's revealed by the process of rationality. Everything else is subordinate to that. Normally this goal is in no conflict with the location goal of improving the citizenry, but on occasion some conflict arises, as in the case of Socrates himself. It arises when trustees and legislators who've contributed large amounts of time and money to the location take points of view in opposition to the professors' lectures or public statements. They can then lean on the administration by threatening to cut off funds if the professors don't say what they want to hear. That happens too.
March 14, 2025 at 7:55 PM
thesamroberts.com
He explains his conception of “the real university” as distinct from the nonprofit corporation which shares its name. Comes off as cringily idealistic now, even though it was insightful then, and still deeply correct!
The real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of the real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself. In addition to this state of mind, “reason,” there's a legal entity which is unfortunately called by the same name but which is quite another thing. This is a nonprofit corporation, a branch of the state with a specific address. It owns property, is capable of paying salaries, of receiving money and of responding to legislative pressures in the process. But this second university, the legal corporation, cannot teach, does not generate new knowledge or evaluate ideas. It is not the real University at all. It is just a church building, the setting, the location at which conditions have been made favorable for the real church to exist. Confusion continually occurs in people who fail to see this difference, he said, and think that control of the church buildings implies control of the church. They see professors as employees of the second university who should abandon reason when told to and take orders with no backtalk, the same way employees do in other corporations. They see the second university, but fail to see the first.
March 14, 2025 at 7:55 PM
thesamroberts.com
Phædrus gives a lecture the next day. He starts by talking about a community that confused a former church building with “a church”. The church is not the material thing, he explains. Then goes on:
Phædrus said the same confusion existed about the University and that was why loss of accreditation was hard to understand. The real University is not a material object. It is not a group of buildings that can be defended by police. He explained that when a college lost its accreditation, nobody came and shut down the school. There were no legal penalties, no fines, no jail sentences. Classes did not stop. Everything went on just as before. Students got the same education they would if the school didn't lose its accreditation. All that would happen, Phædrus said, would simply be an official recognition of a condition that already existed. It would be similar to excommunication. What would happen is that the real University, which no legislature can dictate to and which can never be identified by any location of bricks or boards or glass, would simply declare that this place was no longer “holy ground.” The real University would vanish from it, and all that would be left was the bricks and the books and the material manifestation.
March 14, 2025 at 7:55 PM
thesamroberts.com
Here is the (lightly abridged) section about the university. Feels relevant enough, not just to the Columbia, etc. situation, but our general current political state to share in full.
The newly elected governor was trying to fire the college president for both personal and political reasons. The college president was not only a personal enemy, he was a Democrat, and the governor was no ordinary Republican. His campaign manager doubled as state coordinator for the John Birch Society. This was the same governor who supplied the list of fifty subversives we heard about a few days ago. Now, as part of this vendetta, funds to the college were being cut. The college president had passed on an unusually large part of the cut to the English department, of which Phædrus was a member, and whose members had been quite vocal on issues of academic freedom. Phædrus had given up, was exchanging letters with the Northwest Regional Accrediting Association to see if they could help prevent these violations of accreditation requirements. In addition to this private correspondence he had publicly called for an investigation of the entire school situation. At this point some students in one of his classes had asked Phædrus, bitterly, if his efforts to stop accreditation meant he was trying to prevent them from getting an education. Phædrus said no. Then one student, apparently a partisan of the governor, said angrily that the legislature would prevent the school from losing its accreditation. Phædrus asked how. The student said they would post police to prevent it.
March 14, 2025 at 7:55 PM
thesamroberts.com
Cowards
The Google Maps page for the “Gulf of America”. Posting is currently turned off.
February 13, 2025 at 12:05 PM
thesamroberts.com
Fuck off, Google
A screen grab of google maps. I’ve searched for the Gulf of Mexico and the map is showing me the Gulf of America.
February 11, 2025 at 2:03 AM
thesamroberts.com
Screengrab of Fantastic Four: First Steps. The Thing is talking to Herbie. With the caption "I'm not like this because I'm in the Fantastic Four. I'm in the Fantastic Four because I'm like this."
February 5, 2025 at 1:14 AM
thesamroberts.com
Screengrab of The Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer with The Thing, dressed in a Fantastic Four suit, talking to HERBIE the robot. The caption says "I wear suits now." (It's a quote from The Bear.)
February 4, 2025 at 5:53 PM
thesamroberts.com
Dad rock
My top artists of 2024: 1. The Laurie Berkner Band 2. Raffi 3. cocomelon 4. Vampire Weekend 5. Kamasi Washington
December 4, 2024 at 1:12 PM
thesamroberts.com
Awards are silly but it’s nice to be acknowledged
December 4, 2024 at 1:05 PM