Category Archives: MInd

Aesthetics: Color Theory: 60:30:10

Posted on 13 June 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s another item I saw just recently, which shares with the previous post how a design principle can be crystalized in numbers. Via Boing Boing, Devin Nealy, 31 May 2022: The 60-30-10 percent rule of color

Posted in Aesthetics, MInd, Science | Leave a comment

Daniel Keyes: FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (1966)

Posted on 11 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s the next part of the batch of brief reviews of SF novels that I began last week. I’m now thinking, though, that with more substantial books like this one I’ll just cover one book per post — back to … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, MInd, science fiction | Leave a comment

Links and Comments: Nature and Human Brains; Science Fiction and Mental Resiliency

Posted on 19 June 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Scientific American, Caleb A. Scharf: A Failure of Imagination, subtitled, “Nature does not have to play fair with our puny human brains.” A favorite theme of mine: how there’s more to the universe than humans are aware of; how there … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Conspiracies! Conspiracies!

Posted on 20 May 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Over the past several weeks there’s been an outbreak of stories and articles in the various legitimate media (New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, et al) about conspiracy theories related to the coronavirus pandemic. So many articles! … Continue reading →

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What We Learned from This Morning’s Newspaper

Posted on 19 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Robert H. Frank, Molly Worthen, Anthony Doerr, and Nicholas Kristof on cutting taxes for the rich, rejecting Roy Moore-style evangelicalism, how even the conscientious among us react to warnings of climate change, and how Blue States do better at practicing … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Philip Pullman meets Matthew Hutson

Posted on 25 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

There was a big profile of Philip Pullman in the New York Times Magazine a couple weeks ago– Philip Pullman Returns to His Fantasy World — on the occasion of the first book in his new trilogy that parallels his … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, MInd | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Philip Pullman meets Matthew Hutson

Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow: Intro and Chapter 1

Posted on 13 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

This is perhaps the most influential book of the past couple decades on the whole subject of human mental biases, how the ways in which we think entail errors of perception, and employ heuristics that are often but not always … Continue reading →

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George Lakoff on the Conservative Moral Hierarchy

Posted on 14 July 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Retired UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff answers Two Questions About Trump and Republicans that Stump Progressives, a piece that has gotten some circulation the past couple weeks. The questions are: 1) Why don’t Trump supporters turn against Trump even though … Continue reading →

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Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit”

Posted on 16 June 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Carl Sagan, one of the great scientist-communicators to the general public of the past century, author of the 1980 book Cosmos and host of the 1980 TV series of that name, has a list of ideas for how to evaluate … Continue reading →

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Linkdump: Science, society, conspiracy theories, the fear of NRA conventioneers

Posted on 12 June 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Science: The Atlantic: Are We Living in a Giant Cosmic Void?. Maybe. Scientific American: How the Science of “Blue Lies” May Explain Trump’s Support. Subtitle: “They are a very particular form of deception that can build solidarity within groups” Guardian: … Continue reading →

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