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 Day Bob Dylan “went Electric” and Changed the World Forever
I forgot. That biopic about Dylan is out and it undoubtedly has the story about how Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and all hell broke... Read more
Posted on 23 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hossenfelder: Wake Up, People! The Private Companies That Dominate AI Are Going...
Hossenfelder: Most politicians totally misunderstand the trouble that artificial intelligence is going to bring. This isn’t a race for profit, it’s a race for... Read more
Posted on 23 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lower AI Literacy Predicts Greater AI Receptivity
Tully, S., Longoni, C., Appel, G. (2025). EXPRESS: Lower Artificial Intelligence Literacy Predicts Greater AI Receptivity. Journal of Marketing, 0(ja).... Read more
Posted on 22 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Site Preparations for Stargate's Supersecret HQ, Aladdin's Alcazar
Posted on 22 January 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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OpenAI Announces Stargate Project [not the Media Franchise]
Announcing The Stargate ProjectThe Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructur... Read more
Posted on 22 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
DOGE Unveiled
NEWS - How Elon Musk's vision for DOGE prevailed, culminating in Ramaswamy exit:- Musk Ramaswamy have had diverging ideas of how DOGE would work for months;-... Read more
Posted on 22 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Piketty and Sandel on How the Left Went Astray [Claude Summary]
New York Times Opinion, Two of the World’s Leading Thinkers on How the Left Went Astray, NYTimes, Jan. 28, 2025: Thomas Piketty is one of the world’s leading... Read more
Posted on 22 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Rubest Goldbergiest Musical Performance-cum-firing Squad You've Ever Seen
My advice: Watch the first 10 seconds or so, then skip ahead to about 10 minutes in. That's what I did. I'm sure there's some interesting stuff in the first 10... Read more
Posted on 21 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Empire State Building, Two Contexts, Two New Colorways
Posted on 21 January 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Meeting of Minds: Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Jackie Kennedy
It’s time for another MEETING OF MINDS, based, of course, on Steve Allen’s old TV show, Meeting of Minds. This is where Claude 3. Read more
Posted on 21 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Coming Soon, DeepSeek On-board! [my Current Scenario for the Future of AI]
Scaling up is NOT sufficient to get us all the way to the top of Mount AGI (whatever the hell that is). We need other techniques, other architectures. Read more
Posted on 21 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.5 Sonata Describes Two Different Photos and Approaches the Concept of...
I’ve been asking Claude 3.5 to describe photos since December 6, 2024. It’s an exercise. I’m not looking for anything in particular. I just what to see how... Read more
Posted on 20 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Yikes! 31 Thousand Photos Over 20 Years, How Do You Make Sense of It All?
With this photo I defined my style. What's in the center of the image, the focal point? Nothing really. Just space. My style's about space, and light. That’s... Read more
Posted on 20 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Empire State Building as Seen from an Embankment in Jersey City, August 27,...
Posted on 20 January 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Hot off the Presses! Claude 3.5 Sonata Explains How Shakespeare is Like...
In what way is Shakespeare like all-purpose flour? What an intriguing and creative comparison! Let me think about this... Both Shakespeare and all-purpose... Read more
Posted on 20 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music and Revelation: Is It Gone Forever?
About two weeks ago I decided to buy a subscription to YouTube Prime, including YouTube music. Since then I’ve been having a ball listening to music (I’ve had t... Read more
Posted on 19 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Delicate Matters
Posted on 19 January 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Strange Bedfellows Indeed, Trumpsters and TeamTechAlpha, a Marriage of...
The line is from Shakespeare, The Tempest: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” That’s spoken by Prospero when he finds himself shipwrecked on a... Read more
Posted on 19 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.5 Sonata Describes Salsa Dancers
What’s going on in this photo? This appears to be a street dance scene, likely salsa or another Latin dance style. In the foreground, a woman in a blue patterne... Read more
Posted on 18 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Meeting of Minds: Archimedes, Goethe, Musk
This is and edited version of an interaction I had with Claude 3.5 Sonata in which I asked it to present a conversation between Archimedes, Goethe, and Musk. Read more
Posted on 18 January 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
