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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Why the Outrage Over Michelle Wolf's Performance and the W.H.C.A. Dinner?
After all, she was hired to provide satire, and that's what she provided. James Poniewozik in the NYTimes: Was Ms. Wolf’s set vicious? Absolutely. Read more
Posted on 01 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Evolution and Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics of Evolutionary Games Christoph Adami, Arend Hintze (Michigan State University) (Submitted on 9 Jun 2017) How cooperation can evolve between... Read more
Posted on 26 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Family Life: I Don’t Understand Japanese Culture
I was looking through the video offerings on Amazon Prime and say that they had a number of Japanese programs. So I picked one, Happy Marriage!?, a live TV... Read more
Posted on 24 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Katherine Switzer, Marathoner, Then and Now
Kathrine Switzer (1947- ) USA athlete, campaigner. First woman to run the Boston Marathon, 1967. Attacked during the race by an official trying to stop her,... Read more
Posted on 22 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Machine-learning Can Predict the Evolution of Chaotic Systems
Natalie Wolchover, Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos, Quanta Magazine: The findings come from veteran chaos theorist Edward Ott and four... Read more
Posted on 19 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (at Howard’s Party)
I'd originally posted this on April 3, 2011. Last night, April 14, 2018, I attended Howard's jam, again. And we played “Knocking on Heaven's Door", just like... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh!
Netflix is currently streaming a 6-part documentary about how central Oregon was "invaded" by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers, intent upon... Read more
Posted on 14 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Common Sense in Artificial Intelligence
Sometime back in the 1970s, I believe it was, David Marr observed something of a paradox (I believed he used that word) in the development of artificial... Read more
Posted on 12 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
John Horgan Asks: "Is Science Hitting a Wall?"
Back in 1996 John Horgan kicked up a mighty fuss with The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, which was... Read more
Posted on 08 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Winsor McCay: The Pet
This post from 2012 is about one of the creepiest films I've ever seen and a classic of early animation. Winsor McCay was a cartoonist and a pioneering... Read more
Posted on 08 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Demise of the Nation State
I've been reading about this for several years now. Rana Dasguta has an article of that title in The Guardian for April 5, 2018. Read more
Posted on 06 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sales Dynamics of Best-selling Books
Burcu Yucesoy, Xindi Wang, Junming Huang and Albert-László Barabási, Success in books: a big data approach to bestsellers, EPJ Data Science 2018 7:7.... Read more
Posted on 06 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Boomer's, America's Last Common Culture?
Ross Douthat writing in the NYTimes about the (unexpected) popularity of the Roseanne reboot: So let’s try to analyze the return of the Conner family in strictl... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Generative Adversarial Networks
How do you get neural networks to crate stuff rather than simply recognizing existing stuff? The approach, known as a generative adversarial network, or GAN,... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Family Problems: From Greene to Shakespeare
This is revised and adapted, from a post I first published at The Valve and have since republished in a working paper which is available at my SSRN page HERE an... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Collaboration and Hierarchy
Alberto Antonioni, María Pereda, Katherine A. Cronin, Marco Tomassini Angel Sánchez, Collaborative hierarchy maintains cooperation in asymmetric games,... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Uses of Narratology for the Study of Interactive Stories
A couple of weeks ago Mark Nelson posted some tweets that caught my attention:Interactive narrative isn't my research focus anymore, but if I were to restart it... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Recent Posts at 3QD: Marching Band and New York 2140
Leapin’ Lizards: Three Lessons from Marching Band (April 2) One lesson is about what makes a good marching band: the groove. Another is about the balance betwee... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Population is the Main Driver of War Group Size and Conflict Casualties
Rahul C. Oka, Marc Kissel, Mark Golitko, Susan Guise Sheridan, Nam C. Kim and Agustín Fuentes, Population is the main driver of war group size and conflict... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Analytic And/vs Continental Philosophy
Gee, this explanation of the difference between "analytic" and "continental" philosophy by Gary Gutting in a New York Times "opinionator" column of 2012 is the... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
