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 ( 6446 )
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Will AOC Win the Internets?
Kara Swisher, NYTimes: Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has done live conversations that include both cooking tips and policy pronouncements, has posted stories of her... Read more
Posted on 10 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Where Have All the Monarchs Gone?
From the NYTimes: They arrive in California each winter, an undulating ribbon of orange and black. [...] This year, though, the monarchs’ flight seems more... Read more
Posted on 10 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Skateboarding as a Way of Life
A, O, Scott reviews Minding the Gap: They grew up together in Rockford, Ill., three boys united by their love of skateboarding. Read more
Posted on 10 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Criticism and Theory
I appreciate this defense of "criticism"—especially in its artistic ambitions, which I think we should acknowledge more often and cultivate—but I don't... Read more
Posted on 10 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Visualizing Algorithms
Mike Bostok wrote an interesting post about visualizing algorithms back in 2014. Here's the opening paragraphs: Algorithms are a fascinating use case for... Read more
Posted on 09 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Quick Note: "Into the Spider-Verse"
I went to see it last night. It was a lot of fun. A.O. Scott in the NYTimes: My point here is that this animated reworking of the Spidey mythos is fresh and... Read more
Posted on 09 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Digital Edition of Jean Toomer's "Cane"
Hi folks, I put together a bare-bones digital edition of Jean Toomer's "Cane" (1923). https://t.co/4YwJm8oYWAI hope to improve it soon with more annotations,... Read more
Posted on 08 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Video Clip of Young Child Drawing Cats(?)
🤗 pic.twitter.com/EVcrAipBab — Köksal Akın (@Koksalakn) January 7, 2019 This is fascinating. Look how the child grips the pen with the whole hand. Read more
Posted on 08 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Further Thoughts on Mind and Corpus in Digital Criticism [DH]
There is my recent working paper: William Benzon, Toward a Theory of the Corpus, Working Paper, December 31, 2018, 46 pp. Academia, https://www.academia. Read more
Posted on 07 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FDR Skatepark at 3QD
I’ve gathered some of my recent FDR material together and crafted a post for 3 Quarks Daily, Is FDR the capital of the SK8board nation? What are we to make of... Read more
Posted on 07 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Maybe It Wasn't an Asteroid Impact That Killed off the Dinosaurs
Bianca Bosker, The Nastiest Feud in Science, The Atlantic, September 2018: But [Prof. Gerta] Keller doesn’t buy any of it. “It’s like a fairy tale: ‘Big rock... Read more
Posted on 07 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Feynman on Physics (and More Generally, Intellectual Exploration): Maybe It's No...
From an interview in Omni Magazine back in 1979: OMNI To someone looking at high-energy physics from the outside, its goal seems to be to find the ultimate... Read more
Posted on 06 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Freedom and Equality
Nathan Heller, The Philosopher Redefining Equality, The New Yorker, Jan 7, 2019: At fifty-nine, Anderson is the chair of the University of Michigan’s... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Personality, Understanding, and Anxiety as the Driver of Cultural Evolution
This is another excerpt from David Hays, The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks (1995). This is from Chapter 5, “Politics, Cognition, and... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Blockchain and Trust
Arnold Kling responds to Andreesen and Horowitz on a variety of issues. Here's his comments on blockchain and trust: Andreessen and Horowitz are bullish on... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Leaves
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What is the Mind (and What Can We Know of It)?
In a recent working paper, Toward a Theory of the Corpus [1], I suggested that we think of the mind has a high-dimensional space of word meanings. Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FDR 4: What About the Indians?
Let’s pick up where we left off, with Trump. Consider this tableau: There’s Trump on the side of that column at the right. Look at the face of that column. Read more
Posted on 03 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Rise of Condensed Matter Physics [Is Particle Physics Over?]
Condensed matter physics, what's that? Well, think about it. As far as I know, which isn't very far, matter exists in various forms, solid, liguid, gas, and... Read more
Posted on 03 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Veggie Virtuosity
Just skip over the preliminaries about making the instruments. The performance starts at 1:39: I was hoping to go to Juilliard on a tuber-and-cucurbit... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY