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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- Joshua Greene, MORAL TRIBES, post 1
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- The poorly educated and the “cognishly umpired”
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Meta
Monthly Archives: April 2017
I Want to Live: TOS “The Enemy Within”
A transporter malfunction splits Kirk into two beings, one a savage Kirk, one a docile Kirk, while crew members on a freezing planet below cannot be rescued until the malfunction is fixed. In the enhanced graphics, we see a nice … Continue reading
Posted in Star Trek
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I Can Do Anything: Mark Haddon’s THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
Last week I posted a look back at 20 Years of Locus Online and, having asked my lead contributors over the years for their best or exceptional posts, revisited an 11-year-old essay by film reviewer Gary Westfahl, Homo aspergerus: Evolution … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, MInd, Personal history
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Wishing Things Away: The Gays, and Abortions
Several recent items about two topics recently struck me as similar in the way some conservatives deny their reality or think they can simply wish them away. In Chechnya, there have been reports in recent weeks that authorities are rounding … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Morality
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Neil deGrasse Tyson on Science
Dear Facebook Universe, I offer this four-minute video on “Science in America” containing what may be the most important words I have ever spoken. As always, but especially these days, keep looking up. — Neil deGrasse Tyson Science In America … Continue reading
Posted in Science
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Harari on THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION
In today’s NYT Book Review, Yuval Noah Harari reviews THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION: Why We Never Think Alone, by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach. The review’s opening echoes Harari’s own work, e.g. What gave Homo sapiens an edge over all other … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, MInd
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March for Science
I’ve never marched for any cause — it’s not my style — but I think tomorrow’s “March for Science” is as worthy as anything could be, despite the inevitable casting of science as some sort of partisan issue. It’s the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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Fine, Evie, Fine: TOS “Mudd’s Women”
The Enterprise rescues the crew of a rogue spaceship and deals with Harry Mudd, whose scheme is to sell women to lonely miners on distant planets. As the story begins the Enterprise pursues renegade ship, Harry Mudd’s. In the enhanced … Continue reading
Posted in Star Trek
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Link and Comments: Molly Worthen on Evangelicals and Fake News
New York Times’ Sunday Review: Molly Worthen on The Evangelical Roots of Our Post-Truth Society. The arrival of the “post-truth” political climate came as a shock to many Americans. But to the Christian writer Rachel Held Evans, charges of “fake … Continue reading
Links and Comments: Thinking about the Future; Doctors and Fake News; Polls about Atheists
Slate: Our Puny Human Brains Are Terrible at Thinking About the Future, to follow up on the Elizabeth Kolbert post a few days ago. Some people regularly connect with their future selves, but a majority does not. And this matters, … Continue reading
That Dress, and How to Do Science
Slate: Two Years Later, We Finally Know Why People Saw “The Dress” Differently Two points here. First, the controversy over the color of the dress — blue and black or white and gold — is certainly the most widely-known example … Continue reading
