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 ( 7356 )
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Synchrony and Sociality Observed in Mouse Brains [neuroscience Beyond the...
Virginia Hughes, Scientists Drove Mice to Bond by Zapping Their Brains With Light, The NYTimes, May 25, 2021. Late one evening last March, just before the... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Neighborhood Pizza Joint in Hoboken
Posted on 25 May 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Hoboken Waterfront
Posted on 24 May 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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There Are Two N-words. The Difference is Subtle. Don’t Confuse Them. [John...
For the purposes of this post I am going to spell them out in full, both of them: “nigger” and “nigga.” In so doing I am only mentioning them, I am not using... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Population Growth is Slowing Down
Damien Cave, Emma Bubola, Choe Sang-Hun, Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications, NYTimes, May 22, 2021. Read more
Posted on 23 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and the Word Illusion
Something has been bugging me about my use of the term “word illusion.” Though I know how I mean to use it and why, it always seems a bit awkward and roundabout... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Large-scale Cooperation in Ancient Fission-fusion Societies
Robert Boyd, Peter J. Richardson, Large-scale cooperation in small-scale foraging societies, preprint: Abstract: We present evidence that people in... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stump the Machine [chess]
10 Positions Chess Engines Just Don't Understand https://t.co/GG4NQbhJtO— Bill Benzon, aka The Danish Space Laser (@bbenzon) May 22, 2021 H/t Tyler Cowen. Read more
Posted on 22 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Views of Little Island [the Thing up on the Mushroom Stalks]
Posted on 22 May 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Do Computers Do It Like Humans? [speech Recognition]
Are deep nets good brain models? Psychometric testing of automatic speech recognition systems shows they're not like humans, yet. Newer ones getting closer,... Read more
Posted on 21 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Paul "charter Cities" Romer Has Reservations About Big Tech [tax Those Digital...
Steve Lohr, Once Tech’s Favorite Economist, Now a Thorn in Its Side, NYTimes, May 20, 2021. Paul Romer was once Silicon Valley’s favorite economist. Read more
Posted on 21 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Waffles at the Malibu Diner
Posted on 21 May 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Plastic Chairs
Posted on 20 May 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Jon Stokes Has Doubts About Software Being Able to Write Software
Jon Stokes, When software writes the software that eats the world: The muse learns to code, doxa, May 19, 2021. Here's the opening of his latest newsletter:... Read more
Posted on 20 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mega-corporations as Pseudo-governments [virtual Feudalism]
Binyamin Appelbaum, Why Are Tech Companies Pretending to Be Governments? NYTimes, May 19, 2021. Philadelphia spent almost half a million dollars wooing... Read more
Posted on 20 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japanese Illustrated Books on Line
The Met Puts 650+ Japanese Illustrated Books OnlineMarvel at Hokusai’s One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and More https://t.co/EX4zxlb8Rs pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 20 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kids and Music 6: Henry Lau’s Freestyle Express [Born to Groove]
Let’s pick up where we left off with my previous post on Lau, Born to Groove, Kids and Music 3: Henry Lau has a good heart knows how to work with kids... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bleg: International Hit Tunes Arising Outside the American Hit Machine [Media...
And I don’t mean the Beatles or Abba. The oldest example in my memory is something that went by the name of “Sukiyaki” in the English speaking world. It’s a... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pynchon Meme in UK
Muted Posthorn symbol in its natural environment, here on the Riverside Bridge over the River Cam at Logan's Meadow, Cambridge, UK. #RiverCam #Cambridgeshire... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Explanation in Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence
I've now turned this into a PDF file which you can download here: https://www.academia.edu/37815917/Mind-Culture_Coevolution_Major_Trans... In the early 1970s... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
