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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Green Onions, Korean Style
For comparison, here's the original, from 1962: One of these days I'll have something to say about the fact that a Korean woman, Luna Lee, in the 21st century... Read more
Posted on 06 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Flowers in Orange and Yellow
Posted on 06 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Limitations of Scale in Deep Learning
The power of scale is a blessing for ML. Indeed, scale has been the tool behind most major advances, starting with AlexNet. But it is also a curse: it is... Read more
Posted on 05 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
My Trip into the Suburbs for Barbeque on the 4th
Posted on 05 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why Are Symbols So Useful to Us? [Relational Nets]
I’ve been participating in the discussion of Yann LeCun’s recent position paper, A Path Towards Autonomous Machine Intelligence. My first comment was a long one... Read more
Posted on 05 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Different Versions of Hoboken Peek-a-Boo
Posted on 04 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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A Recent Victory for Right-to-repair
Cory Doctorow, A Win For Harley Riders, Medium, June 26, 2022. He opens: Right-to-Repair is a no-brainer. You bought a thing, you want to fix it — or nominate... Read more
Posted on 04 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Let's Cool It
Posted on 03 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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What Do Rock Guitar Gods Want Most? Sex with Women Or to Impress Other Guys?
DeLecce, T., Pazhoohi, F., Szala, A., Shackelford, T. K. (2022). Extreme metal guitar skill: A case of male–male status seeking, mate attraction, or byproduct... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
3-D Printing Comes of Industrial Age
Steve Lohr, 3-D Printing Grows Beyond Its Novelty Roots, NYTimes, July 3, 2022. DEVENS, Mass. — The machines stand 20 feet high, weigh 60,000 pounds and... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the (Hoboken) Waterfront
Posted on 02 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Carefully Curating Your Data Makes for More Efficient Machine Learning
1/Is scale all you need for AGI?(unlikely).But our new paper "Beyond neural scaling laws:beating power law scaling via data pruning" shows how to achieve much... Read more
Posted on 01 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Just What is Intelligence, Anyhow? [Is It Simply a Matter of Scale?]
The Aaronson/Pinker debate on AI scaling generated a lot of commentary, including some from me and some from NYU’s Ernie Davis, who works closely with Gary... Read more
Posted on 01 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Which One Doesn't Belong? [flowers]
Posted on 01 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Steven Pinker and Scott Aaronson Debate Scaling
Scott Aaronson has hosted Steven Pinker to a discussion at Shtetl-Optimized. Pinker on AGI: Regarding the second, engineering question of whether scaling up... Read more
Posted on 30 June 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hot! Hot! Hot!
Posted on 30 June 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Gary Marcus and Our Innate Linguistic Capacity [Relational Net Primer]
During the period that I had been writing my primer on relational networks and attractor landscapes, Gary Marcus had taken to Twitter to challenge the deep... Read more
Posted on 29 June 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken Peek-A-Boo
Posted on 29 June 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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“Kubla-Khan” in Light of the Relational Nets Primer
This is another post in my series of post-Relational-Net-Primer reflections. “Kubla Khan”, as I’ve explained many times, originally in this piece first publishe... Read more
Posted on 28 June 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Views of Pier 13 in Hoboken
Posted on 28 June 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
