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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» Previous Views from Medina Road (2010-2013)
» Blogspot Views from Medina Road (2003-2010)-
Recent Posts
- Stages of Wisdom
- Comments from Facebook; What the Conversion Therapy Case is About
- How Tribal Loyalty Overrides Evidence of Incompetence
- MAGA Retribution?
- Shades of Autism
- Tearing Down
- More on why what’s going on is going on
- Sometimes They Really Are Out to Get You
- Reactions to the Hegseth and Trump Speeches to the Military. And Christian Music.
- Military Orders, and Coal Obsession
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Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly
Dacher Keltner, AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life
This is a book about the subjective experience of awe, and how being aware of everyday examples of awe can make your life more meaningful and fulfilling; yet how (in my take) it’s about the emotion, triggered by both the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Psychology, Science, science fiction
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More About the 747
For decades the Boeing 747 was the largest passenger airliner in the world, and it debuted (in 1968) just a few years before I had occasion to take a plane flight anywhere, or pay attention to different kinds of planes. … Continue reading
Posted in Personal history, Technology
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What We Learned from This Morning’s Newspaper
Items today concern the US military budget, the Chinese balloon, flooding in Houston, Richard Powers on a real battle for trees, and the passing of the 747. All items from today’s paper (the New York Times).
Varieties of Fantasy, and Book Notes
Today’s three topics: A conservative’s take on a fantasy novel; A Le Guin fantasy novel; And insights into books by Heinlein and Brockman.
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Religion
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Real News; Demagogues; Spirituality
Three themes for today: How science is the only news, per Stuart Brand; Demagogues and ideologues on the right; and Ross Douthat’s warning about spiritual experiences that don’t align with his own. Glancing through that John Brockman book The Third … Continue reading
Suppression, Prejudice, and Misinformation
Three political topics for today. How the Republicans seek to suppress history, concepts, books, even words; Two problems that could be solved simultaneously (were it not for Republicans); How anti-vaxxers and anti-abortionists are searching for new senses of meaning.
Posted in Politics, Psychology
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Recent Book Lists
Three items for today: a list of “influential” science fiction works, a list of nonfiction books that changed minds, and Elon Musk’s books he thinks everyone should read.
Posted in Book Notes
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Third Culture Books; Perceptions and Reality
Today’s three topics: A new Michael Shermer book I missed when it came out last October; How magenta is a color that doesn’t exist on the spectrum; Public perceptions of the economy. There are authors I’ve followed for years, both … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Politics, Psychology
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A Crisp, Sunny January Day
Topics for today: Why China’s decline in population is a good thing; Yuval Noah Harari on identity; Moral panic and the right-wing mind; How climate change has been covered in textbooks since the 1970s.
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Psychology, Religion, Science
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Recent Science Matters
What fetal tissue actually looks like; how humans inbreed dogs to the point of their inability to survive in the wild; the discovery of the enormous universe and who did and didn’t get credit.
