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 ( 7817 )
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Kiddie Lit
Back in the middle of 2006 I’d blogged about Kiddie Lit. I’m republishing that post because it’s relevant to my interest in Disney’s Fantasia and, in particular... Read more
Posted on 19 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
First CAD Drawing at Boeing Were Scratched on Aluminum Sheets by 3D Milling...
One for #plottertwitter: Norman Sanders describes how the first satisfactory hard copies of CAD drawings were in fact engraved onto sheets of alumin(i)um, at th... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Lolita" – in Life and in Fiction
Bindu Bansinath writes about how Nabokov's Lolita gave her a script which she followed to escape her molester. A few paragraphs: Over time it became harder to... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Notes on the Inspired Insanity of Mnozil Brass
I don’t know when I first discovered the Mnozil Brass, but I’ve been listening to them for a number of years now. They’re brilliant, but just what they do,... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
State-dependent Cognition and Its Relevance to Cultural Evolution
Daniel Nettle, State-dependent cognition and its relevance to cultural evolution, Behavioural Processes, Available online 5 February 2018: Abstract:... Read more
Posted on 11 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Rebirth of Mind and Society: Jaynes and Nietzsche
The passage that follows is from the opening of Chapter 10: “Music and Civilization” of my book, Beethoven’s Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture (pp. 222-226). Read more
Posted on 09 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
SpaceX Synchronized Booster Landing, Amazing!
Wow. SpaceX boosters successfully return to base, and in perfect synchrony. Oh, and there's now a Tesla Roadster in space. https://t.co/Kjf4pMJnaw.... Read more
Posted on 07 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The BBC Reports, Women Are Saying...
A simple message to the world from every woman ever... 👊#TheMashReport @EllieJaneTaylor pic.twitter.com/lt2oke7E05 — BBC Two (@BBCTwo) February 5, Read more
Posted on 07 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Which Neoliberalism Do You Mean?
"Neoliberal" has become the catch-all curse-world of the political left. But it has a complex genealogy dating back to the late 19th century, which is sketched... Read more
Posted on 05 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ritual in Apocalypse Now
This is one of a number of old posts on Apocalypse Now (which I've listed at the end of the post). I've collected them into a single downloadable PDF: Apocalyps... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Cleopatra's Pump, Grid Edition
Posted on 02 February 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Will in the Nervous System, and Its Consequences
This is a passage that didn’t make the cut for Beethoven’s Anvil. It’s about the will, its footprint in the nervous system, and what that means about our... Read more
Posted on 02 February 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Visual and Auditory Brain Areas Share a Neural Code for Perceived Emotion
Beau Sievers, Thalia Wheatley, Visual and auditory brain areas share a neural code for perceived emotion, bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10. Read more
Posted on 31 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Whoops! Deep Learning is Easily Fooled (Surprise! Surprise?)
Max Little at Language Log, Adversarial attacks on modern speech-to-text: Accumulated evidence over the last few years shows that empirically, methods (such as... Read more
Posted on 30 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stories of Good Vs. Evil: A Product of Nationalism?
Catherine Nichols in Aeon: Stories from an oral tradition never have anything like a modern good guy or bad guy in them, despite their reputation for being... Read more
Posted on 29 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music Universals?
In The Atlantic: Even without unlimited resources and an omniversal traveling machine, they managed to amass songs from 86 cultures around the world—all... Read more
Posted on 26 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is the 3D Transportation Geometry of New York 2140 Feasible?
One of the problems that was in the back of my mind as I read New York 2140 was: Is the transportation system geometrically feasible? Read more
Posted on 26 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Some Mechanisms
One thing all of these devices have in common is some kind of rotary motion. Read more
Posted on 26 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Effects of Population Size on Language Structure and Vocabulary Size
Florencia Reali, Nick Chater, Morten H. Christiansen, Simpler grammar, larger vocabulary: How population size affects language, Proceedings of the Royal... Read more
Posted on 25 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Black Box" AI, Feature Or Bug?
In 'old school' symbolic AI, the system reasoned using rules and structures 'hand-coded' by humans and often derived from protocols where human experts would... Read more
Posted on 25 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
