Bbenzon
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
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New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 6413 )
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The Apartment [Media Notes 63]
I’ve just watched The Apartment, a romantic comedy from 1960. According to its Wikipedia entry the film “has come to be regarded as one of the greatest films... Read more
Posted on 10 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Launch of the Elsie - A Ship Model by Erik Ronnberg, Jr. [building]
I've been watching a lot of videos by Adam Savage, who was a model-maker in the film industry before becoming co-host of MythBusters. Read more
Posted on 09 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It Takes a (large) 'village' of Artificial Neurons to Simulate One Real Neuron
Neurons are not like logic gates, they can only be modeled using something like 10,000 coupled non-linear differential equations. Read more
Posted on 08 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Five Food Fotos [Friday Fotos Delayed]
Posted on 06 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Decentralization in China
As of 2000, the Chinese government ranked cities on 33 indicators, and published ratings with the names and pictures of the mayors of each city. pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 06 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The State of NLP These Days
The beginning of an interesting thread about NLP: well, all true, but at least they work. like, previous-gen models *also* didn't understand meaning, and... Read more
Posted on 06 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Splish Splash
Posted on 02 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Q. Where’s Reality? A. Which One? [Howl's Moving Castle]
Back in the early days of the blog I had a lot of posts about Hayao Miyazaka. I'm boosting this one to the top on general principle. It's from August 21, 2010. Read more
Posted on 02 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Adam Savage Builds a Totoro Costume [What Costume Are You Building for the Next...
Adam Savage is an experienced special effects designer and fabricator who has a YouTube channel where he shows how to build stuff. Read more
Posted on 29 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Spacecraft 7: Muppet Star Wars
This is a documentary about creating digital characters where there had been puppets in Star Wars. Naturally, they spend a fair amount of time on Yoda. Read more
Posted on 28 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pat Metheny Discusses Music with Two Neuroscientists
Interesting, but not as interesting as it could have been if, for example, the neuroscientists had deeper practical experience with musical performance. Read more
Posted on 28 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Let's Dance
Posted on 27 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reclaiming the Future from Technology in Favor of Humans [from Homo Ludens to...
Back at the end of June Ezra Klein interviewed James Suzman on the subject of work, which prompted me to write a blog post in which I excerpted the interview,... Read more
Posted on 27 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Martin Kay, Pioneering Computational Linguist, Has Died
He was brought to this country (USA) from England by my teacher and colleague, the late David Hays. Hays was leading the RAND Corporation's effort on machine... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Blaze Away
Posted on 26 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Devastating Effects of Trauma [and the Return of Freud, Albeit Unnamed?]
Ezra Klein, This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Trauma, NYTimes, Aug 24, 2021. Klein interviews Bessel van der Kolk about his book, The Body... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Reader Response Theory to Intentionless Free Speech [AI and Intentionality]
Lisa Siraganian, Against Theory, now with bots! On the Persistent Fallacy of Intentionless Speech, Nonsite, August 2, 2021. Opening paragraph: If Siri... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Chair (How Many Women Were on the Faculty of the English Department at...
Having watched The Chair in a single sitting, I suppose I should say something. But I don’t have much to say. For one thing, I haven’t been in a classroom in... Read more
Posted on 25 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Spacecraft 6: The Child is Father to the Man
Morton begins Spacecraft by talking about his childhood as an eleven year old boy coming from a family of limited means and walking to school in the morning,... Read more
Posted on 24 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
120 Years of Faking Space Travel for the Movies
Starting at about 2:42: "Take this shot of a flying saucer in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). It's clearly just a toy on a string. But that would all change... Read more
Posted on 24 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY