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A Slight Change
Read more: A Slight ChangeIf you are one of the few who used to read my blogsite on WordPress over the past few years, I have news for you. That site has been shut down as of yesterday, April 27, 2024. I set up that site on May 3, 2010, while I was living in Winston-Salem, NC, as a…
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From STEM to STEAM or Pardon Me While I Water My Garden
Read more: From STEM to STEAM or Pardon Me While I Water My GardenIn recent years, emphasis in education has been put on getting science-minded students to major in the STEM studies: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. While these are vitally important to the continued success of the US educational system that trains the scientists and engineers who will tackle some of the most important problems facing us…
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WELCOME!
Read more: WELCOME!Welcome to my new website, and thanks for stopping by. There are a number of pages here that will give you a good idea of who I am and my general preferences in the world of arts and entertainment. I also write science fiction books (and a few short stories, most of which have never…
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How We Were Ready
Read more: How We Were ReadyAfter almost two years of putting up with COVID-19 and all the attendant social distancing requirements and protocols, we have come to a point of almost (I repeat, almost) reducing the virus to an endemic situation where we will have to get a COVID booster shot every year, probably for a long time. COVID-19 was…
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What Writers Can Learn From “Jingle Bells”
Read more: What Writers Can Learn From “Jingle Bells”I suspect most people in the United States are familiar with the Christmas Carol “Jingle Bells.” In fact, it, no doubt, is one of the most familiar carols ever in the US. One particular verse, actually the second, caught my ear many years ago, but just recently I realized how well and how intricately that…
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Has Evolution Shot Itself In The Foot?
Read more: Has Evolution Shot Itself In The Foot?Evolution is a wonderful thing. We humans wouldn’t be here without it. Life on Earth started around two billion years ago and through thick and thin, through disasters that several times almost resulted in total extinction of living beings, life maintained itself and changed and evolved over all those years and resulted in its finest…
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The Metric System
Read more: The Metric SystemWhen is the United States going to move completely to the metric system? You know, meters instead of yards or feet, kilograms instead of pounds, grams instead of ounces, liters instead of quarts or gallons, Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. (I’m used to “centigrade” rather than Celsius, but those two are the same thing.) Ninety-five percent…
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The Novel And Killing Your Darlings
Read more: The Novel And Killing Your DarlingsThose of you who read this blog on any regular basis (both of you) may remember that I’ve written several science fiction novels, and that I’ve been trying for a number of years to find an agent for the first (and ultimately, all three). As an update to that, I’ve almost completely given up finding…
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The Titanic–Update and Commentary
Read more: The Titanic–Update and CommentaryDid you know the Titanic is slowly disappearing? It’s been over a hundred years since the Titanic, steaming at over 20 knots in the dark in fog in a known iceberg area of the North Atlantic Ocean, glanced off the side of one of those bergs, and after staying afloat for about two hours and…
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What Should Science Fiction Do?
Read more: What Should Science Fiction Do?I’m a science fiction writer. While only a very few people have read any of my works, (mainly editors and critique group members), I do have wide-ranging opinions on the subject and have presented them in this forum occasionally over the past several years. Science fiction can be a powerful medium for examining the human…
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All The People
Read more: All The PeopleOne of the most interesting words in the English language is “people.” It can have several meanings. My dictionary (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition) has several definitions, leading with “human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest.” Fair enough. Basically, it refers to a group of “persons” who have…
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Where Do All The Writers Go?
Read more: Where Do All The Writers Go?I’ve been an aspiring writer of fiction (largely science fiction novels) for over twenty years now, and have yet to publish a book-length work. I have published a few short works, including one poem (free style), but nothing—short or long form—to a paying market. Not a particularly auspicious beginning to a writing career, especially when…