Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
» Full Profile
» Facebook profile
» Previous Views from Medina Road (2010-2013)
» Blogspot Views from Medina Road (2003-2010)-
Recent Posts
Categories
- Aesthetics
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- Bay Area
- Bible
- Book Notes
- Cars
- Changing One's Mind
- Children
- Commonplace Book
- Conservative Resistance
- conservatives
- Conventions
- Cosmology
- Culture
- Decline
- Economics
- Education
- Epistemology
- Evolution
- Family History
- Films
- Games
- Heinlein
- History
- Human Nature
- Human Progress
- Humanism
- Humor
- Isaac Asimov
- Links
- Links & Comments
- longtermism
- Lunacy
- Mathematics
- Meaning
- MInd
- Morality
- Movies
- Music
- Musings
- Narrative
- Notes For
- Paperback Sets
- Personal history
- Pet Peeves
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Politics
- progress
- Provisional Conclusions
- Psychology
- Quote at Length
- Quotes
- Ray Bradbury
- reality
- Religion
- Reviews
- Robert Silverberg
- Robert Wright
- Science
- science fiction
- Science Fiction Nonfiction
- Short Fiction
- Silverberg
- Skiffy Flix
- Social Progress
- Space
- Species Reset
- Spirituality
- Star Trek
- Statistics
- Steven Pinker
- Supernatural
- Technology
- Ten Commandments
- The Book
- The Gays
- Thinking
- Travel
- Tribalism
- TV Sci Fi
- Uncategorized
- Website Issues
- Writing
Archives
- December 2024 (19)
- November 2024 (30)
- October 2024 (32)
- September 2024 (29)
- August 2024 (37)
- July 2024 (33)
- June 2024 (25)
- May 2024 (31)
- April 2024 (25)
- March 2024 (36)
- February 2024 (32)
- January 2024 (32)
- December 2023 (25)
- November 2023 (31)
- October 2023 (29)
- September 2023 (29)
- August 2023 (31)
- July 2023 (31)
- June 2023 (30)
- May 2023 (28)
- April 2023 (27)
- March 2023 (33)
- February 2023 (29)
- January 2023 (30)
- December 2022 (30)
- November 2022 (29)
- October 2022 (32)
- September 2022 (30)
- August 2022 (30)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (30)
- May 2022 (33)
- April 2022 (32)
- March 2022 (31)
- February 2022 (29)
- January 2022 (31)
- December 2021 (34)
- November 2021 (32)
- October 2021 (31)
- September 2021 (20)
- August 2021 (8)
- July 2021 (13)
- June 2021 (4)
- April 2021 (8)
- March 2021 (25)
- February 2021 (16)
- January 2021 (20)
- December 2020 (10)
- November 2020 (11)
- October 2020 (15)
- September 2020 (13)
- August 2020 (23)
- July 2020 (27)
- June 2020 (11)
- May 2020 (13)
- April 2020 (10)
- March 2020 (8)
- February 2020 (3)
- January 2020 (5)
- December 2019 (3)
- November 2019 (7)
- October 2019 (12)
- September 2019 (5)
- August 2019 (4)
- July 2019 (5)
- June 2019 (9)
- May 2019 (3)
- April 2019 (2)
- March 2019 (4)
- February 2019 (16)
- January 2019 (3)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (5)
- August 2018 (9)
- July 2018 (3)
- June 2018 (7)
- May 2018 (6)
- April 2018 (11)
- March 2018 (5)
- February 2018 (6)
- January 2018 (3)
- December 2017 (8)
- November 2017 (11)
- October 2017 (8)
- September 2017 (14)
- August 2017 (12)
- July 2017 (13)
- June 2017 (15)
- May 2017 (21)
- April 2017 (24)
- March 2017 (16)
- February 2017 (22)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (3)
- November 2016 (1)
- October 2016 (9)
- September 2016 (3)
- August 2016 (4)
- July 2016 (2)
- June 2016 (18)
- May 2016 (11)
- April 2016 (12)
- March 2016 (9)
- February 2016 (9)
- January 2016 (18)
- December 2015 (21)
- November 2015 (17)
- October 2015 (14)
- September 2015 (22)
- August 2015 (16)
- July 2015 (12)
- June 2015 (14)
- May 2015 (14)
- April 2015 (7)
- March 2015 (13)
- February 2015 (19)
- January 2015 (20)
- December 2014 (11)
- November 2014 (15)
- October 2014 (9)
- September 2014 (3)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (16)
- June 2014 (19)
- May 2014 (34)
- April 2014 (26)
- March 2014 (37)
- February 2014 (27)
- January 2014 (19)
- December 2013 (11)
- November 2013 (8)
- October 2013 (10)
- September 2013 (21)
- August 2013 (13)
- July 2013 (6)
Meta
Monthly Archives: June 2016
15 Ways of Buying a Book, Part 1
A few weeks ago I reminisced about Growing Up with Books, the books in my childhood house provided by my parents for us children, or that they had kept from their own childhood. (My parents were not readers themselves, as … Continue reading
Posted in Personal history
Comments Off on 15 Ways of Buying a Book, Part 1
Thomas Paine, THE AGE OF REASON (1796)
Thomas Paine was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, author of Common Sense in 1776, which inspired the American revolution, and Rights of Man in 1791, which defended the French Revolution. He’s one of those Founding Fathers … Continue reading
Posted in Bible, Book Notes
Comments Off on Thomas Paine, THE AGE OF REASON (1796)
Links and Comments: Friedman on historical change, why evangelicals like Trump, Paulos on math and biography, Gawande on science, the case against reality
Today in NYT, Thomas L. Friedman: Another Age of Discovery. Friedman lets Ian Goldin, co-author of a book about the lessons we can draw from the period of 1450 to 1550, i.e. a period of extraordinary change. Then: Gutenberg undermined … Continue reading
Posted in Atheism, Culture, Mathematics, Science
Comments Off on Links and Comments: Friedman on historical change, why evangelicals like Trump, Paulos on math and biography, Gawande on science, the case against reality
Reading In and Around the Bible: Three More NT Epistles; Revelation
Final post of notes about my first reading of the New Testament. List of previous posts: Intro and sources used (Oxford’s edition of the New Revised Standard Version, the King James Version via Steve Wells’ Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, Stephen M. … Continue reading
Posted in Bible
Comments Off on Reading In and Around the Bible: Three More NT Epistles; Revelation
Reading In and Around the Bible: Hebrews, James
Next set of Biblical commentary. See Part 1 about sources used — NRSV, Asimov, Miller, KJV via Wells. List of previous posts: Intro and sources used (Oxford’s edition of the New Revised Standard Version, the King James Version via Wells’ … Continue reading
Posted in Bible
Comments Off on Reading In and Around the Bible: Hebrews, James
Reading In and Around the Bible: Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy
These follow Romans chronologically, written from 60 to 67, along with Philippians, Philemon, and Titus, which I read but about which I don’t seem to have taken any notes. (These epistles by Paul, or his surrogate, are all pretty similar.) … Continue reading
Posted in Bible
Comments Off on Reading In and Around the Bible: Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy
Reading In and Around the Bible: Romans
Returning to my notes upon reading sections of the Bible for the first time. The last couple posts here were about Genesis, but before that I’d finished the New Testament, and left off with the two books of Corinthians, trying … Continue reading
Posted in Bible
Comments Off on Reading In and Around the Bible: Romans
The Orlando Shooter and the Evil of Religious Fundamentalism
To put this as concisely as possibly, my take on the Orlando mass-shooting is that it is rooted ultimately in the animus to sexual minorities — a portion of humanity that for whatever reason has *always existed* [see footnote] — … Continue reading
Family & Personal History, 2016/1
After a couple year’s gap — the interval being occupied by the move from SoCal to Oakland, among many other things — I’m resuming my family history project of scanning old photos taken by myself, or more importantly scanning photos … Continue reading
Posted in Personal history
Comments Off on Family & Personal History, 2016/1
Never Be the Same Again
Best song from the elusive Darren Hayes album WE ARE SMUG…, released online back in 2009, but not available on CD until last year, and which I finally caught up with via Amazon last month. I am not generally a … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Comments Off on Never Be the Same Again