Ls&Qs&Cs: Kids with Lice; Grifters; Moral Panics; USA #1; Backward We Go

Posted on Monday 7 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Catching up on current links I’ve saved from web-browsing over the past few days.

First a Facebook meme: Kids with Lice

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Ls&Cs: How Big Lies are more easily believed than small ones; Supreme Court predictions

Posted on Sunday 6 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Two pieces about politics, but not for their political content, exactly. Plus an endpiece.

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L&Qs&Cs: Tribal Loyalty and Other Atavisms

Posted on Saturday 5 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This is fascinating *not* because it’s political, but because it’s evidence that however much some of us think the world “progresses,” there will always be atavisms. With a Randall Munroe namecheck at the end.

NYT, Jon A. Shields, 3 Feb 2022 (print paper 5 Feb 2022): How Trump’s Brutish Code of Honor Explains His Feud With Liz Cheney

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Harari Quotes from 21

Posted on Saturday 5 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here are some longer quotes from Harari’s book, with some comments.

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Yuval Noah Harari, 21 LESSONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (post #2)

Posted on Friday 4 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s my second concluding post about Harari’s third book.

As usual, I find it hard to condense my notes too far, when the author has so many interesting things to say, especially in this second half.

In the range of topics this book discusses, it’s one of the best books I know of that addresses the big issues of our day, and of the future. And final chapters delve into deep matters that are almost a separate topic, but worth deep thought.

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Yuval Noah Harari, 21 LESSONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (post #1)

Posted on Thursday 3 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This 2018 book is Harari’s third, of the three he’s published so far. It follows in ways from his second, HOMO DEUS (see here), in exploring some of its themes, but differs in being not a narrative, but a set of lessons, about where we are heading right now. The text is about 320 pages long; thus each lesson gets about 15 pages on average. This post covers about the first half of the book.

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Ls&Cs: Scientific Literacy and Peer Review

Posted on Wednesday 2 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Only a whiff of politics in today’s posts, about the current pandemic and public understanding of science, and the practice of scientific pre-prints.

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Ls&Qs&Cs: Fantasies and Lies and Backlashes

Posted on Tuesday 1 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s another Links & Quotes & Comments post about… recent events. What’s going on. The continued pandemic and Fox News’ complicity. How Republican strategies are making everything worse. About the suppression of Maus and its consequences. And the root of the Republican/conservative backlash: Obama.

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John Allen Paulos, ONCE UPON A NUMBER: The Hidden Mathematical Logic of Stories (1998)

Posted on Monday 31 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s another John Allen Paulos book, one from 1998, and one that I had not previously read. When I noticed it on the shelf a few weeks ago I realized this was now of particular interest, since in recent years I’ve become fascinated by the nature of stories and they mold our understanding of the world.

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L&Cs: More Misleading Maps; Piedmont Park

Posted on Sunday 30 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

More interesting juxtapositions showing how flat maps, especially Mercator projections, give misleading impressions of the relative sizes of areas on Earth.

Plus, an endpiece, about Piedmont Park.

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