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 ( 7808 )
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Amazing: Wet Seal+ and Chuck Close Does Philip Glass
For some reason this photo has proved unusually popular in the last however many hours (it's 4:08 PM, Mar. 10, 2015). Why all the views all of a sudden? Read more
Posted on 10 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Makes an Interesting, Perhaps Even a Good, Photo?
Here are two recent photos, both of which I like a lot: The first of those has gotten a bit of praise over at Facebook. I haven't even posted the second to... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
3QD Politics & Social Science Prize (Vote for Me)
Voting is open for the 5th Annual 3QD Politics and Social Science Prize. The rules are explained HERE. Public voting will close on 11 Mar 11:59 pm EST. Kenneth... Read more
Posted on 09 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Software Mysteries: Roll Over Beethoven, Let Satchmo Come Over!
I spent a fair amount of time in the last decade of the previous century working in the software industry (see this post for example) and reading popular... Read more
Posted on 09 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Seeing the Elephant"
Ringling Brothers has decided to retire their elephant acts, ending a 200 year long tradition in American entertainment. Traditionally, elephants have been... Read more
Posted on 07 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The East India Company: Capitalism and Colonialism Hand-in-Hand
William Dalrymple in The Guardian, on the East India Company: For the corporation – a revolutionary European invention contemporaneous with the beginnings of... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Note on Dennett’s Curious Comparison of Words and Apps
I continue to think about Dan Dennett’s inadequate account of words-as-memes in his paper, The Cultural Evolution of Words and Other Thinking Tools (PDF), Cold... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Galen Strawson on Consciousness: the Problem We Face is Simple, We...
Writing in TLS Galen Strawson runs through the history of philosophical struggles with consciousness from Descartes to the present day. It's a fascinating read. Read more
Posted on 06 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Thursday Evening in Hoboken
Last week I went for the photos that were most popular on my Flickr page over the last half day of so. Today I'm posting photos I took last evening in Hoboken... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Myth-Logic and a Lady Librarian in The Rockford Files 2
This is a follow-up to my previous post about “The Return of the Black Shadow”, an episode of The Rockford Files. If you’ve not read that one, you may want to d... Read more
Posted on 03 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Place in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is another post that’s primarily descriptive in character and is in response to a paper by Per Aage Brandt, Forces and Spaces – Maupassant, Borges,... Read more
Posted on 02 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Photos
This is the third most popular photo over the past half day or so (the top two were in my most recent Friday Fotos): I'd almost forgotten about this one (from... Read more
Posted on 01 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Replication of Experimental Results and Cultural Evolution
Replication of experimental results has become a hot issue in the behavioral sciences and medicine. While some some of this reflects fraud, its mostly about... Read more
Posted on 01 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Machine Translation and Artificial Intelligence, a Quick and Dirty View
The folks at Language Log have been having an interesting discussion about machine translation, "They called for more structure", that was started by a passage... Read more
Posted on 01 March 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jersey City Gets $25K from Tony Hawk Foundation for a SK8 Park
Thank you @tonyhawk for giving #JerseyCity this awesome #skate park. Nice post! @terrencemcd @JC_Gov pic.twitter.com/x5ZGrcGRVL — Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop)... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Frank Foster Burns It up in Front of the Basie Band
I went to graduate school at SUNY Buffalo in the mid-1970s. I was getting a degree in English, but I hung out in the Music Department studying jazz improvisatio... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Myth-Logic and a Lady Librarian in The Rockford Files
I’ve been working my way through The Rockford Files on Netflix. As many of you know the show originally aired in the later 1970s and is about a private... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Current Flickr Favorites
Generally I've opted for some kind of thematic order for my Friday Fotos. Not so this Friday. Today I'm letting visitors to my Flickr page pick the photos. Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Hottest Man in Siam
Another working paper on a classic Walter Lantz cartoon from the 1940s. Download from: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2569130 https://www.academia. Read more
Posted on 24 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Case of Biased Technology: Photographing Black Skin
In a NYTimes article on the photography of Roy DeCarava, Teju Cole makes this observation: All technology arises out of specific social circumstances. Read more
Posted on 22 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
