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.
» Full Profile
» Facebook profile
Recent Posts
Categories
- Aesthetics
- Art
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- authoritarianism
- Bay Area
- Bible
- Book Notes
- Cars
- Changing One's Mind
- Children
- Commonplace Book
- Conservative Resistance
- conservatives
- Conventions
- Cosmology
- Culture
- Decline
- Economics
- Education
- Epistemology
- Evolution
- Family History
- Films
- Games
- Heinlein
- History
- Human Nature
- Human Progress
- Humanism
- Humor
- Isaac Asimov
- Links
- Links & Comments
- LIteracy
- longtermism
- Lunacy
- Mathematics
- Meaning
- MInd
- Morality
- Movies
- Music
- Musings
- Narrative
- Notes For
- Paperback Sets
- Personal history
- Pet Peeves
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Politics
- progress
- Provisional Conclusions
- Psychology
- Quote at Length
- Quotes
- Racism
- Ray Bradbury
- reality
- Religion
- Reviews
- Robert Silverberg
- Robert Wright
- Science
- science fiction
- Science Fiction Nonfiction
- Short Fiction
- Silverberg
- Skiffy Flix
- Social Progress
- Space
- Species Reset
- Spirituality
- Star Trek
- Statistics
- Steven Pinker
- Supernatural
- Technology
- Ten Commandments
- The Book
- The Gays
- Thinking
- Travel
- Tribalism
- TV Sci Fi
- Uncategorized
- Website Issues
- Writing
Archives
- September 2026 (43)
- August 2026 (33)
- July 2026 (30)
- June 2026 (29)
- May 2026 (31)
- April 2026 (33)
- March 2026 (42)
- February 2026 (28)
- January 2026 (31)
- December 2025 (36)
- November 2025 (38)
- October 2025 (31)
- September 2025 (37)
- August 2025 (29)
- July 2025 (34)
- June 2025 (28)
- May 2025 (35)
- April 2025 (33)
- March 2025 (34)
- February 2025 (31)
- January 2025 (36)
- December 2024 (26)
- November 2024 (30)
- October 2024 (32)
- September 2024 (29)
- August 2024 (37)
- July 2024 (33)
- June 2024 (25)
- May 2024 (31)
- April 2024 (25)
- March 2024 (36)
- February 2024 (32)
- January 2024 (32)
- December 2023 (25)
- November 2023 (31)
- October 2023 (29)
- September 2023 (29)
- August 2023 (31)
- July 2023 (31)
- June 2023 (30)
- May 2023 (28)
- April 2023 (27)
- March 2023 (33)
- February 2023 (29)
- January 2023 (30)
- December 2022 (30)
- November 2022 (29)
- October 2022 (32)
- September 2022 (30)
- August 2022 (30)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (30)
- May 2022 (33)
- April 2022 (32)
- March 2022 (31)
- February 2022 (29)
- January 2022 (31)
- December 2021 (34)
- November 2021 (32)
- October 2021 (31)
- September 2021 (20)
- August 2021 (8)
- July 2021 (13)
- June 2021 (4)
- April 2021 (8)
- March 2021 (25)
- February 2021 (16)
- January 2021 (20)
- December 2020 (10)
- November 2020 (11)
- October 2020 (15)
- September 2020 (13)
- August 2020 (23)
- July 2020 (27)
- June 2020 (11)
- May 2020 (13)
- April 2020 (10)
- March 2020 (8)
- February 2020 (3)
- January 2020 (5)
- December 2019 (3)
- November 2019 (7)
- October 2019 (12)
- September 2019 (5)
- August 2019 (4)
- July 2019 (5)
- June 2019 (9)
- May 2019 (3)
- April 2019 (2)
- March 2019 (4)
- February 2019 (16)
- January 2019 (3)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (5)
- August 2018 (9)
- July 2018 (3)
- June 2018 (7)
- May 2018 (6)
- April 2018 (11)
- March 2018 (5)
- February 2018 (6)
- January 2018 (3)
- December 2017 (8)
- November 2017 (11)
- October 2017 (8)
- September 2017 (14)
- August 2017 (12)
- July 2017 (13)
- June 2017 (15)
- May 2017 (21)
- April 2017 (24)
- March 2017 (16)
- February 2017 (22)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (3)
- November 2016 (1)
- October 2016 (9)
- September 2016 (3)
- August 2016 (4)
- July 2016 (2)
- June 2016 (18)
- May 2016 (11)
- April 2016 (12)
- March 2016 (9)
- February 2016 (9)
- January 2016 (18)
- December 2015 (21)
- November 2015 (17)
- October 2015 (14)
- September 2015 (22)
- August 2015 (16)
- July 2015 (12)
- June 2015 (14)
- May 2015 (14)
- April 2015 (7)
- March 2015 (13)
- February 2015 (19)
- January 2015 (20)
- December 2014 (11)
- November 2014 (15)
- October 2014 (9)
- September 2014 (3)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (16)
- June 2014 (19)
- May 2014 (34)
- April 2014 (26)
- March 2014 (37)
- February 2014 (27)
- January 2014 (19)
- December 2013 (11)
- November 2013 (8)
- October 2013 (10)
- September 2013 (21)
- August 2013 (13)
- July 2013 (6)
Meta
Category Archives: Music
Attending the Ballet
No post yesterday; we were busy attending a concert, with dinner afterwards. Yesterday we attended Oscar, a ballet at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus, staged by The Australian Ballet, on tour, with the local Berkeley Symphony playing the … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Comments Off on Attending the Ballet
Cognitive Abilities and Limitations
How AI is being used to solve math problems that humans have been unable to; How anti-vaxxers are at core angry, fearful, and despairing; NYT’s Brett Stephens complains that none of the National Book Award finalists are by or about … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics, Music, Technology
Comments Off on Cognitive Abilities and Limitations
Possibilities of Apocalypse
An essay about how the dangers of technology, like AI, have been avoided before (e.g. with nuclear technology), through various kinds of government regulations (not to mention international cooperation); And yet there are more incidents of bad AI behavior; Now … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Music, Technology
Comments Off on Possibilities of Apocalypse
Which Core Education?
Conservatives want to install a particular kind of core education in universities; Now Trump threatens to tear down the Kennedy Center, if he can’t get his name on it; Brief items about praying for political success; Trump delusionally thinks the … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Education, Lunacy, Music, Religion
Comments Off on Which Core Education?
All the Time in the World
What would you do if you had all the free time in the world? An OnlySky essay explores this question in the context of AI; How Harari anticipated this; My own answer to this question, since I’m retired and do … Continue reading
Posted in Human Progress, Music, Personal history
Comments Off on All the Time in the World
Hiking is a Modern Invention
The idea of hiking was not a thing until relatively recently; How Trump is stifling free speech; Brief items about hurricanes and methane; Nice Bruckner 6 performance by Myung-Whun Chung. – – – First, a think piece. About how the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Human Nature, Music, Politics
Comments Off on Hiking is a Modern Invention
How the Terrorists Won, in a Sense
Passing through airport security is an example of how the terrorists won, and maybe what led to MAGA and Trump; Jonathan V. Last on how terrorism sometimes works; (And how terrorists are motivated by religion); The reflecting pool contractor admits … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Human Progress, Movies, Music, Religion
Comments Off on How the Terrorists Won, in a Sense
A Defense of Evangelicalism?
Two items about an evangelist defending her faith; Mahler’s 3rd. – – – Two pieces about an evangelist who is defending her ‘culture.’ Reading them now. What is she defending exactly? Anything about her actual religion? First, from the evangelist … Continue reading
Truth, Myths, and Levels of Reality
Given inevitable pandemics and inevitable conspiracy mongering, could AI be the answer?; A new Sean Tan book, and how perhaps some truths can only be told through myth; Bruce Ledewitz at OnlySky recalls a time when the US government was … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Music, Personal history, Technology
Comments Off on Truth, Myths, and Levels of Reality
Is Science Fiction Becoming Obsolete?
Jill Lepore on how Silicon Valley misreads classic science fiction; Kibble: Trumps wants to rename everything; Reich calls Trump petty and incompetent; how the Supreme Court is less and less interested in facts; and about ICE’s new electronic glove torture … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Music, science fiction
Comments Off on Is Science Fiction Becoming Obsolete?
