Michael F. Flynn has died

Wrote (about) more than just sci-fi. His timeline of the development from heliocentric to geocentrism, &quot;The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown&quot;, is a fun read; table of contents:<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;10&#x2F;the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;10&#x2F;the-great-ptolemaic-sma...</a><p>So is his five-part series laying out Aristotle&#x27;s first way argument about the Unmoved Mover:<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;first-way-some-background.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;first-way-some-backgrou...</a><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;08&#x2F;first-way-moving-tale.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;08&#x2F;first-way-moving-tale.h...</a><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;first-way-part-ii-two-lemmas-make-lemma.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;first-way-part-ii-two-l...</a><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;first-way-part-iii-big-kahuna.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;first-way-part-iii-big-...</a><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;11&#x2F;first-way-part-iv-cascades.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tofspot.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;11&#x2F;first-way-part-iv-casca...</a>

&gt; At his death, he had a lot of tabs open on his browser, on a variety topics. He always sought to learn about different things. Some of it was for his writing, some for the extensive family research he has always done, and some of it was just because he wanted to learn more about the universe, the planet we live on, and the people around him.<p>Just a note to my descendants: do not publish my open browser tabs in my obituary.

I&#x27;m a big fan of his book <i>The Wreck of the River of Stars</i>, and think a lot of people here would like it.<p>The <i>River of Stars</i> is an interplanetary craft, originally driven by solar sail, with snazzy new fusion drives recently added. The crew combines new fusion people and sail traditionalists, and they don&#x27;t like each other. The story is part engineering, part psychology; everybody does what they think is best for the ship, but they don&#x27;t communicate well and unfortunate things happen.

Note that this is <i>not</i> Michael J. Flynn (age 89) [1], Stanford University professor emeritus and progenitor of Flynn&#x27;s taxonomy [2] of parallel computer architectures based on the number of concurrent control and data streams available:<p>- SISD: Single Instruction stream, Single Data stream<p>- SIMD: Single Instruction stream, Multiple Data streams<p>- MISD: Multiple Instruction streams, Single Data stream<p>- MIMD: Multiple Instruction streams, Multiple Data streams<p>___<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Michael_J._Flynn" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Michael_J._Flynn</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Flynn%27s_taxonomy" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Flynn%27s_taxonomy</a>

.<p><i>In the country of the blind</i> is a great speculative historical sci-fi thriller, and was how I first learned about Taylorism. A fun read.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=2MrNykSR2WkC&amp;newbks=1&amp;newbks_redir=0&amp;lpg=PA51&amp;dq=In%20the%20country%20of%20the%20blind&amp;pg=PA22#v=onepage&amp;q=taylor&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=2MrNykSR2WkC&amp;newbks=1&amp;newb...</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Michael_Flynn_(writer)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Michael_Flynn_(writer)</a>

I am sorry for your loss. I hope that you have many happy memories of your time with your dad that can provide you some comfort as you grieve.

oh no! I just read Eifelheim 2 weeks ago, it was a lovely book!

Losing a parent is a sad, sad, sad time. I admire the person that wrote this post because it would not have been easy to do so and yet it was delivered so well.

Read <i>Firestar</i> as a teenager and liked it, so I went to a meet-the-author event at a local bookshop where he was promoting the next book in that series. When he opened up for questions, he responded to mine by mocking my speech (I guess I had a nerdy voice like probably many of us here) and didn&#x27;t even answer the question.<p>Really turned me off the author. And that was before I grew older and wiser and came to realize how that series was largely libertarian agitprop and stereotypes of various demographics -- like Poul Anderson&#x27;s <i>Harvest of Stars</i> series from the same era, maybe it is something that only adolescents can really love.

&quot;At his death, he had a lot of tabs open on his browser&quot;<p>(while it is intended as a testimony to his lifelong curiosity - maybe ponder that no, you really <i>aren&#x27;t</i> going to get to all of those tabs and can let some of them go...)

Note that this is not Michael T. Flynn who is a retired general and former adviser to President Trump.