Bbenzon
Description
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 ( 7824 )
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This Bird Ain't Singing [I've Got My Eye on You]
Posted on 20 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Subject of Birdsong, Music Or Not? [common Glad Impulse]
Ian Rose, Every Good Bird Does Fine, Jstor Daily, July 20, 2022. Is birdsong music? The question has been around since Aristotle. One hundred years ago, in 1922... Read more
Posted on 20 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Entheogenic Walls in Process
Posted on 19 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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How to Change Your Mind [Media Notes 75d] – What's Next?
I’ve watched the last two episodes of How to Change Your Mind, devoted to MDMA, known colloquially as ecstasy, and Mescaline respectfully. Read more
Posted on 19 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
In Flow with DALL-E
Bakz T. Future, Confession: DALL-E 2's New Quotas Make it Hard to Get Into a Creative Flow State, Multimodal, 19 July 2022. The opening: When I first got... Read more
Posted on 19 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Samo Šalamon & Ethan Iverson Interview
Jul 15, 2022 New interview from the Dr. Jazz Talks interview series, this time Ethan Iverson – fantastic pianist and composer, with a great last trio album Ever... Read more
Posted on 18 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Urban Pastoral @3QD [more Examples]
My latest at 3 Quarks Daily: Some Aspects of the Urban Pastoral. * * * * Read more
Posted on 18 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Economic Growth is a False Idol; We Need a Steady-state Economy
David Marchese, This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End, NYTimes Magazine, July 17,2022. But what about the counterintuitive... Read more
Posted on 18 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Large Language Models as a Cultural Technology
https://simons.berkeley.edu/talks/large-language-models-cultural-technology AI and Humanity Recent work on large language models has focused on whether or not... Read more
Posted on 17 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
An Elevator Between Hoboken and Jersey City
Posted on 17 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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GPT-3, the Phrasal Lexicon, Parry/Lord, and the Homeric Epics
GPT-3 and Homer? You’ve got to be kidding. No, I’m not. What’s the connection? First, I look at large language models, mostly through tweets by David Chapman,... Read more
Posted on 16 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Houses in the Jersey City Heights, Plus Roses
Posted on 16 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Two Parameters: Mechread and Parset [plus a Note on E-flat]
For the last two years I've been corresponding with a friend of mine from the old days at RPI, Bob Krull. Bob was in communications and did a lot of empirical... Read more
Posted on 16 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How to Change Your Mind [Media Notes 75c] – On the Visual Style.
Chris Vognar, With ‘How to Change Your Mind,’ Taking a Trip With Michael Pollan, NYTimes, July 25, 2022. I suspected that something like this might be going... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kim Stanley Robinson on Just How Much Money Does One Person Need? [+ Drive |...
Ezra Klein interviews Kim Stanley Robinson, NYTimes, July 15, 2022. KIM STANLEY ROBINSON: Maybe I would say that it’s probably crucially important to focus on... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Liberty State Park [urban Pastoral | Hallucinated City]
Posted on 15 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Matt Ygelesias on Eroding Business Norms and Musk Backing out of His Twitter Deal
Matthew Ygelesias, Under the Tuscan mailbag, Slow Boring, July 15, 2022. The normative foundation is the idea that there is something to being a good businessma... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Virtual Co-working [work Mode]
Lora Kelley, Would You Pay $40 a Month to Have Strangers Watch You Work? NYTimes, July 15, 2022. For a monthly fee of $39.99, users can schedule unlimited... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken Pastoral
“This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” is one of my favorite poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is about the presence of nature even in the city. Read more
Posted on 14 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Will It Take to Bring the Price of This Robotic Pet Dog Under, Say, $249?
More on Japan's robotic companions. They're not all as expensive as Aibo (above). There's this story from CBS, including a story about robotic dogs in a... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
