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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Everyone Poops: Graffiti on the Psychoanalytic Tip
Take a quick look at this photo and then close your eyes and think about it a bit: I’m guessing that your overall impression is that it’s a mess, just a lot of... Read more
Posted on 16 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Shaky Cam Comparison: Light Vs. Paint
For this shot the shaky cam was deliberately pointed at lights in the sky: In this shot, the camera was pointed at paint on a wall and it shook of its own... Read more
Posted on 16 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Crazy-ass World of Bad Debt
From the NYTimes: The notion that a portfolio of debt could be stolen may seem improbable, but plenty of debt brokers are all too willing to sell “bad paper. Read more
Posted on 15 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Five Friday Fotos: Shaky Cam 2
Shaky Cam 1 HERE. Read more
Posted on 15 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Macroanalysis 5: An Interlude on Scale: Micro, Meso, and Macro
Before moving on to the last two major chapters, “Theme” (8), and “Influence” (9), I want to pause a bit and think about scale as I discussed it Toward a... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Taking AI to the Next Level?
Viv is from the creators of Siri. Siri can't learn, Viv can:As Viv’s knowledge grows, so will its understanding; its creators have designed it based on three... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Connected Courses
Here's what they say about themselves: Mission Connected Courses is a collaborative network of faculty in higher education developing online, open courses that... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Self-Organizing Robot Swarm
M. Rubenstein, A. Cornejo, R. Nagpal, Programmable self-assembly in a thousand-robot swarm, Science, 2014, DOI: 10.1126/science. Read more
Posted on 15 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Evolution in Action in Our Time
From the NYTimes: Evolutionarily speaking, coyotes diverged from gray wolves one million to two million years ago, and dogs from wolves roughly 15,000 years ago. Read more
Posted on 14 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Macroanalysis 4: On the Matter of “the”
Chapter 7, “Nationality” is pretty straightforward. I don’t have much to say about it except for a puzzle that Jockers presents at the beginning. Read more
Posted on 13 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Abstracts & Links: Cultural Evolution and Complexity
Sociality influences cultural complexity Michael Muthukrishna1, Ben W. Shulman, Vlad Vasilescu1 and Joseph Henrich1 Proc. R. Soc. B 7 January 2014 vol. 281 no.... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Macroanalysis 3.1: Style, Or Measuring the Autonomous Aesthetic Realm
Yesterday I posted on Chapter 6, “Style,” in which Jockers argued, in effect, that insofar as we can measure (or estimate) the factors that affect a text’s... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Close Reading" R Us & the Protocols of Distance
Franco Moretti coined the term "distant reading" in 2000 to indicate a type of literary analysis that subsequently became greatly facilitated by computer tech,... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Macroanalysis 3.0: Style, Or the Author Comes Back from the Dead
I’m going to devote two posts to Chapter 6, “Style.” In this post I’m going to present what I take to be Jockers’ main result, that authorial identity is, in... Read more
Posted on 11 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Patterns: Hillis Miller on Burke and Derrida
J. Hillis Miller on Kenneth Burke: Burke came to Harvard when I was a graduate student and gave a lecture about indexing. What he was talking about was how you... Read more
Posted on 11 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
MES PFE Details, GV003, Fairmount Ave. Jersey City
Posted on 11 August 2014
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Solitaire (in Retirement)
The New York Times just ran a piece on retirement coaches, professionals who help retirees figure out what to do with their lives now that they don't have work... Read more
Posted on 11 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Daniel Levitan on Modal Control
That's not how he puts it, Levitan talks of attention, but his recommendations, as in the following paragraphs from his piece in the NYTimes, are about... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken Ghosts: Washington Street at Night
Posted on 10 August 2014
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Group Minds at Wikipedia?
Group Minds and the Case of Wikipedia Simon DeDeo (Submitted on 8 Jul 2014) Abstract: Group-level cognitive states are widely observed in human social systems,... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
