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 ( 7846 )
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Friday Fotos: Deep in the Garden [Hallucinated City]
Posted on 21 August 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Mix-and-match Trumpet Kit: 49,252 Trumpets Can Be Yours [anxiety]
Indirectly this is about trumpeter’s performance anxiety. At least I think it is, but only indirectly. Directly, first I tell a little about my history with... Read more
Posted on 21 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Totoro Bus Stop, for Real [sorta']
Japanese grandparents create life-size Totoro with bus stop for their grandkids https://t.co/ZF4leSBEKy vía @mymodernmet pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 21 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Peter Gunn [theme by Henry Mancini, Media Notes 43]
Peter Gunn was a half-hour detective show that aired on national TV from the Fall of 1958 through 1961. I may have watched an episode or three, but I didn’t... Read more
Posted on 20 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI Ramble: GPT-3, Chess, Disciplinary Inertia, Intelligence, and Other Things...
So...GPT-3’s got me rethinking AI and other things, like mind, intelligence, and the structure of the world. I remain convinced that GPT-3 is special, but not... Read more
Posted on 19 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Grass Bedding 200,000 Years Ago in South Africa
Lyn Wadley, Irene Esteban1, Paloma de la Peña1, et al., Fire and grass-bedding construction 200 thousand years ago at Border Cave, South Africa, Science, 4 Aug... Read more
Posted on 19 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Trouble with "top 10" Lists
From an email to a friend: I believe we’ve talked about the silliness of top ten lists and the like. Musical accomplishment is too multidimensional to admit of... Read more
Posted on 18 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The "lost Colony" of Roanoke Wasn't Lost, They Just Moved in with the Locals
Jeff Hampton, ‘The mystery is over’: Researchers say they know what happened to ‘Lost Colony’, The Virginian-Pilot, Aug. 17, 2020. Read more
Posted on 18 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A SK8 Park for Jersey City: How an Idea Became Real @3QD
My latest piece is up at 3 Quarks Daily, It took 13 years, but Jersey City finally has a poured-concrete SK8park – A story of local grass roots politics. Read more
Posted on 17 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Last Dance [Media Notes 42]
This series, now available on Netflix, follows the career of Michael Jordan by placing it in the context of his final season in the NBA, 1997-1998. Read more
Posted on 17 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Monday Morning Music Lesson: Harry James, Concerto for Trumpet, 1941
Harry James was one of the most popular musicians of his era, the 1930s into the 1940s. He was a virtuoso with well-trained classical technique and he had a... Read more
Posted on 17 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
World, Mind, and Learnability: A Note on the Metaphysical Structure of the Cosmos
There is no a priori reason to believe that world has to be learnable. But if it were not, then we wouldn’t exist, nor would (most?) animals. The existing world... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Do We Know That the Moon is Drifting Away 1.5 Inches a Year? Bounce a Laser...
Katherine Kornei, How Do You Solve a Moon Mystery? Fire a Laser at It, NYTimes, Auguast 15, 2020. The moon is drifting away. Every year, it gets about an inch... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Where It All Started, the Old Junk Spot Beneath Christ Hospital...
Posted on 14 August 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Battle is Joined: Fortnite Vs. Apple and Google
Jack Nicas, Kellen Browning and Erin Griffith, Fortnite Creator Sues Apple and Google After Ban From App Stores, NYTimes, Aug. Read more
Posted on 14 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stagnation, Redux: It’s the Way of the World [good Ideas Are Not Evenly...
Tyler Cowen has just posted a conversation with Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist interested in economic growth. That gives me a chance to revise a working... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Prestige Bias in Cultural Transmission
On cultural transmission biases shaping human cultural evolution..."prestige [bias] serves as a conditional learning strategy when no content cues [social,... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reflections on and Current Status of My GPT-3 Project
As I noted at the beginning of the month the project began with a long comment posted to Marginal Revolution on July 19 [see below for a copy of that comment]. Read more
Posted on 12 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Who Are These Guys and What Do They Have to Do with Jersey City's Berry Lane...
Posted on 12 August 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Zero- and Few-shot Learning: Transformers on the Cheap
For those of you interested in learning more about zero- and few-shot learning, I wrote up a blog post covering a few recent methods with 🤗... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
