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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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen [Media Notes 46]
What’s this movie about? More generally, what are movies like this about? Here’s what Wikipedia says: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also promoted as... Read more
Posted on 07 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nearest Neighbor Machine Translation
For a state-of-the-art German-English translation model, kNN-MT improves performance by 1.5 BLEU by searching for neighbors over only the training data. Read more
Posted on 07 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
House Recommends Anti-trust Action Against Tech Giants
Cecilia Kang and David McCabe, House Lawmakers Condemn Big Tech’s ‘Monopoly Power’ and Urge Their Breakups, NYTimes, Oct 6, 2020: “Our investigation leaves no... Read more
Posted on 07 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once Again, It's a Big Mac Attack! The "genius" Prizes Have Been Announced for...
The Big Macs are so predictable from year to year that I'm not bothering to write original prose this time out. This text has been revised from last year's. Read more
Posted on 06 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Refutation of Facebook's Claims on Its Behalf (contra The Social Dilemma)
1) Facebook builds its products to create value, not to be addictive. FALSE. As @bengrosser's Facebook Demetricator shows the metrics Facebook developed such... Read more
Posted on 06 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Ancient Roots of the Anthropocene
Lucas Stephens, Erle Ellis, Dorian fuller, The Deep Anthropocene, Aeon. ArchaeoGLOBE reveals that human societies transformed most of Earth’s biosphere much... Read more
Posted on 05 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is the Cultural Evolution of Technology Cumulative Or Combinatorial? [Both,...
A new preprint by yours truly: Is the cultural evolution of technology cumulative or combinatorial? https://t.co/toK5pMXYqc Comments and feedback would be much... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Facebook Critics Form Their Own Oversight Board [Facebook Objects]
Olivia Solon, While Facebook works to create an oversight board, industry experts formed their own, NBC News, Sept. 25, 2020 Some of Facebook's most vocal... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Genotypes of Predomestic Horses Match Phenotypes Painted in Paleolithic Works...
The dotted horses are one of the most popular images of Palaeolithic Art. Two opposite horses are filled with dots and surrounded by hand stencils. Read more
Posted on 04 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Heart of Darkness 6: Some Informal Notes About the Nexus
Another surprise. This post has just over 3800 views, and it's mostly descriptive. No theory at all. It's relatively old, having been originally published on... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Spatial Codes in the Hippocampus
Spatial representations in macaque hippocampal formation. New #preprint shows complex spatial codes in #hippocampus of freely moving macaqueshttps://t. Read more
Posted on 04 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
SK8 [Berry Lane]
Posted on 04 October 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Is the White House Unaware of the Purpose for Wearing Masks? What About NYTimes...
While a mask will provide the wearer some protection against Covid-19, masks are more effecting in protecting others from being infected by the mask-wearer. Read more
Posted on 03 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Default Mode Anticipates Anticipated Events
#Dark #control paper with @dohmatobelvis @introspection:Our #Markov #Decision #Process account: *how* may brain activity in the default network subserves... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nǚshū 女書 / 女书, a Women's Script in China
Victor Mair has a fascinating article in Language Log about a women's script, Nüshu, used primarily in Jiangyong County in Human Province. Read more
Posted on 03 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How COVID-19 Progresses in Individual Cases
This answers many of your questions. The next ten days will determine President Trump's future.Realize the percentages on that red line are LOT higher (worse)... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: The Silos at Berry Lane Skate Park
Posted on 02 October 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Life in Sag Harbor [whose Child Are You?]
Sag harbor is a black enclave on Long Island. Sandra E. Garcia writes about it in the NYTimes. The whole piece is worthwhile, but I was struck by the second of... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Another Approach to Meaning in Large Statistical Language Models, Such as GPT-3
I've recently been writing about meaning in AI engines, such as GPT-3, in particular, What economic growth and statistical semantics tell us about the... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Edo Art
Hokusai Katsushika - The Fuji from Kanaya on the Tokaido #japan #japaneseart #hokusai #ukiyoe #浮世絵 #日本美術... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
