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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- The Christian Authoritarian Agenda
- Skiffy Flix: The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Consensus Reality Is Disappearing Before Our Eyes
- For Certain Values of Truth
- Have There Always Been Crazies?
- October Heat Wave, and Dark Skies
- The Myths Americans Live By
- Further Notes from Our Report on the Third Planet
- Monochrome and One-Dimensional and Upside Down
- Skiffy Flix: When Worlds Collide
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Meta
Monthly Archives: November 2023
Con Men and Bespoke Realities
End of November. The sun sets early; the house is chillier. We have our thermostat set to 68. And I think I’m approaching the finishing of one of my long-term projects. And still working on another. Adam Frank on learning … Continue reading
Posted in Psychology, Science
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Bathing, Evidence, Control, Dating, Social Security
Why daily bathing (just like trying to kill every germ in sight) may not be healthy; Items about Republican admissions they don’t have evidence for their claims; how they take credit for what they voted against; how the party of … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Evolution, Politics
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Last Questions and Possible Answers, 4
This is my fourth and likely last post, following this one in March and this one in June, and this one eight days ago, in which I consider the John Brockman book The Last Unknowns, in which he gathers deep … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Human Progress, Philosophy, Religion, Science, science fiction
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I Don’t Know. Not Everything has Meaning. And Nihilism. Not What You Think.
Essay by Anne Lamott about what she’s learned at age 69; NYT’s Brad Stulberg about traumatic experiences and finding, or not, new meaning; A summary of my recent thinking about the narrative bias, metaphor, and “meaning”; Considering what “nihilism” is … Continue reading
Posted in Meaning, Philosophy
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End of Thanksgiving Weekend
Late afternoon, Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Just finished putting lights up on our two second floor balconies, that should come on automatically an dusk. — 5:10pm, they’ve just come on. Oops, except for one string that came on only half-way. … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Music, Personal history, Politics, Religion
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Just ’cause you feel it / Doesn’t mean it’s there
Comments about that article that distinguished between “liberals” and “progressives”; Yet another piece about how “voters feel one way about the economy but act differently”; An historical overview about how the US economy is no longer the greatest in history; … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, History, Music, Politics
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November Links
Catching up on unused links from the past three weeks. A couple of these I’ll return to in detail. Salon, Nicole Karlis, 23 Nov 2023: The case for bringing a dish of gossip to Thanksgiving this year
Posted in Links
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Authorities, Mythology, and Doing Your Own Research
Thomas Bulfinch on mythology vs. Scripture; How PragerU dismisses climate change; My advice: do note “do your own research”; find an authority to trust that does not lie about reality. I own books that I’ve had for decades and have … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Religion
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About UFOs and other perplexing matters
Here’s a provisional thesis (not even a provisional conclusion). The mysteries that most perplex us scientifically — like, say, the nature of consciousness, or what happened “before” the Big Bang — or that attract the most wild, often conspiracy-driven, thinking … Continue reading
Posted in Psychology, Science
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Another Clear, Crisp Day in the Bay Area
A companion to yesterday’s post about politics. Because I’m sure people are as interested in my religious takes as they are in my political takes. (What is the reason religion and politics are never discussed around the dinner table? Because … Continue reading
Posted in Morality, Psychology, Religion
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