Bbenzon
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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 ( 6820 )
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Why I Love Disney’s Nutcracker Suite
The Nutcracker Suite episode in Walt Disney's Fantasia is one of my favorite pieces of film and, I believe, one of the most beautify films ever made. Whatever... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How It All Works and the Problem of God
Thomas Nagel has recently published a slim volume, Mind and Cosmos, that's kicking up a fuss because it apparently gives and aid comfort to creationists,... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Artificial Retina
From the NY Times:The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the first treatment to give limited vision to people who are blind, involving a... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pigeon Navigation: The Sound of Distant Waves
Pigeons live in a different world, from The Economist:Pigeons form a far richer picture of the world than a person can manage, through three senses unavailable... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Race and the Cola Wars
The New York Times has an interesting op-ed by Grace Elicabeth Hale on race and the cola wars, which date back to the late 19th century. Read more
Posted on 29 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Monkey See, Monkey Synch
This is a very interesting set of observations. At the time I wrote Beethoven's Anvil it seemed as though tight inter-individual synchronization was relatively... Read more
Posted on 29 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Wilkins on Pattern Recognition
John Wilkins has an interesting post in which he argues that pattern recognition is neither induction nor deduction. His penultimate paragraph:For a half centur... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FDR SK8park in Philadelphia
It's the largest DIY (do-it-yourself) skatepark in the world: Read more
Posted on 21 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Brief for Description
Writing at Edge, Ursula Martin praises description:Once upon a time such observation, description and illustration was the bread and butter of professional and... Read more
Posted on 21 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
1980s TV and Vietnam
Just a note: I've watched a lot of TV, much of it standard network fare. Back in the 1980s I watched Magnum, P.I. and the A-Team. Both were one-hour prime-time... Read more
Posted on 18 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Philosophy TV: The Correlation of Church and State
Here's a video of a talk Graham Harman recently gave at Purdue:It's mostly about the trials and tribulations of correlationism, a topic I've never really been... Read more
Posted on 18 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Follow the Light-colored One
Posted on 16 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Computing the Brain
Here's a discussion about the possibility of computing the brain. It takes off from a note by Bruce Stirling. There are two interesting motifs in the... Read more
Posted on 14 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Aaron Swartz, Depression, and Prosecution
Writing at Question Copyright, Karl Fogel observes:There are many remembrances [of Aaron Swartz] already on the Internet, but two in particular stand out: Rick... Read more
Posted on 13 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bordwell on Early Cinema
David Bordwell has posted a Powerpoint presentation, with voice-over, about early cinema (1908-1920). It's mostly about the evolution of cinematic style. Read more
Posted on 13 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sleep Ain't What It Used to Be
Back in September I posted a paragraph from a NYTimes op-ed arguing that the 8-hour block IS NOT a 'natural' sleep pattern. It's culturally imposed. There's mor... Read more
Posted on 12 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Life of Pi a Transnational Hit
So far the film's grossed $400 world-wide, says The Guardian:But it's in Asia that the impact of Ang Lee's film ... has been truly felt. Read more
Posted on 11 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Topic Models: Strange Objects, New Worlds
In the weeks since writing about the preliminary results Goldstone and Underwood have reported of their work on topic analysis of PMLA (Publications of the... Read more
Posted on 10 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
IBM First in Patents in 2012
So says the Bits blog at The New York Times:I.B.M. collected 6,478 patents last year. I.B.M.’s patent asset generates an estimated $1 billion a year in license... Read more
Posted on 10 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
MLA 2013, Between Pain and Pleasure: Michael Bérubé’s Presidential Address
I’ve just read though it: How We Got Here. The title, as one would expect, cuts two ways. Where “here” is simply the profession of literary studies, the answer... Read more
Posted on 10 January 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY