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.
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Meta
Monthly Archives: August 2024
Reason for Hope, Despite
Let’s begin with a positive story. Salon, Rae Hodge, 11 Aug 2024: A daring escape from cynicism: Scientist explains why “hopeful skeptics” are outsmarting doomers, subtitled “A new book from a Stanford neuroscientist aims to prove that cynicism blinds us … Continue reading
Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 5
Final post summarizing this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4. The final three chapters return to the cosmic scope of the book’s overall theme, exploring what we’ve concluded about the far future and the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, Human Nature, Meaning
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Weird and Demented
The weird news story of the day is something Trump said yesterday at a press conference in Florida. Here’s the first place I saw it: Salon, Nandika Chatterjee, 9 Aug 2024: “I call complete B.S.”: Trump made up a story … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Politics
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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 4
More summary of this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3. In these chapters Greene summarizes how imagination, extrapolating from dreams and the perception of patterns, led to the formalization of myths into religions, which may have … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Meaning, Religion
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More About the Weirdos
Why folks in Louisiana are obsessed with placing Bibles in every classroom; The books Utah is banning from all classrooms; How JD Vance’s shifting religious beliefs have aligned to the ancient authorities; And short items. When I was growing up, … Continue reading
Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 3
More summary of this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2. Today’s chapters concern how life gave rise to consciousness, and how mind gave rise to the imagination, and to stories. Ch5, Particles and Consciousness: From Life to Mind, … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, MInd
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Weird Ways Some People Think
Whatever VP candidate Harris would have picked, Republicans would have attacked him — and her motives for her choice; Most conspiracy theorists who claimed at one point that Biden had died and was replaced by a body double… have either … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy
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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 2
More summary of this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1. 3, Origins and Entropy: From Creation to Structure, p44 If the universe began with a big explosion, how has so much order, with complex structures, emerged? Because, consistent with the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Evolution
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Subhumans, Deference, Bluster
JD Vance blurbs a book that says progressives are subhuman; Trump is hostile toward women and non-white people who are not sufficiently deferential to he who is destined to rule; Trump blusters about bitcoin, about which he has no idea. … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Politics
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Today’s Examples of Tribal Antics
Sometimes the antics of the tribalists are on the front page of the New York Times, two days in a row. Though that shouldn’t be surprising, given that they’re half the population. Today’s topics: Trump’s latest attacks against Harris; How … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Politics
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