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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Friday Fotos: The Ways of the Iris
Posted on 24 May 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Living in Elon's Orbit
Christopher Hooks, Try Living in Elon Musk’s Company Town, NYTimes, May 24, 2024. Note that Hooks is an Austin-based writer. The article opens: Just after 7 a.m... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fast Weights, the Recent Past, and Transformers
Jimmy Ba, Geoffrey Hinton, Volodymyt Mnih, Joel Z. Leibo, Catalin Ionescu, Using Fast Weights to Attend to the Recent Past, arXiv:1610.06258v3 [stat. Read more
Posted on 23 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What is Eric Jang up To? All Roads Lead to Robotics
Eric Jang (1X Technologies, formerly Halodi Robotics), from his blog post of Mar. 3, All Roads Lead to Robotics. He links to this video: He comments: Because... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
To Swerve Or Not to Swerve: What Should an Autonomous Car Do in Various...
Habla, W., Kataria, M., Martinsson, P., Roeder, K. (2024). Should it stay, or swerve? Trading off lives in dilemma situations involving autonomous cars. Healt... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Alliums and Others
Posted on 22 May 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Ezra Klein and Jim Pethjokoukis on Macro Factors in Economic Growth [why Not...
Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews James Pethokoukis, NYTimes, May 21, 2024. EZRA KLEIN: I mean, but take South Korea, take the U.A.E., take China. I mean, you... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
American Fiction [Media Notes 121] {the Revenge of Double-consciousness}
I’ve been intrigued by American Fiction ever since I read the first reviews. It finally made it to streaming, Netflix, and I watched it last night. I liked it. Read more
Posted on 22 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Platonic Representation Hypothesis
Minyoung Huh, Brian Cheung, Tongzhou Wang, Phillip Isola, The Platonic Representation Hypothesis, arXiv:2405.07987 [cs.LG] Abstract: We argue that... Read more
Posted on 21 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Haven't Seen These Before [irises]
Posted on 21 May 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Waterfront [Hob Oken]
Posted on 20 May 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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How Smart Could an A.I. Be? Intelligence in a Network of Human and Machine Agents
This continues the line of thinking I began with Intelligence, A.I. and analogy: Jaws Girard, kumquats MiGs, double-entry bookkeeping supply and demand,... Read more
Posted on 20 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Natural Concepts and the Economics of Cognition and Communication
Peter Gärdenfors, Natural Concepts and the Economics of Cognition and Communication, Philosophia, March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-024-00734-4... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Orange, White, and Red
Posted on 18 May 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Conceptualizing the Chess Tree, a Moment in Cultural Evolution
I’ve been thinking about the chess tree. As I pointed out in an earlier post, Wikipedia informs us that Ernst Zermelo published his proof about the formal... Read more
Posted on 18 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Crane, Branches, Mist, the River, and the City
Posted on 17 May 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Hollywood Vs. Bollywood: What Themes Are Important? Wealth Vs. Gender
In Hollywood movies, the most shameful thing is to be poor. In Bollywood movies, the most shameful thing is to be unmanly or unfeminine.... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What’s Been Going on at New Savanna Over the Last Year?
Here’s the action at New Savanna over the last year: Notice the large increases in August and September of last year and in March through May of this year... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Irises, Yellow & White, with Cars
Posted on 17 May 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Globally, Songs and Instrumental Melodies Are Slower and Higher and Use More...
Yuto Ozaki, Adam Tierney, Peter Q. Pfordresher, et al. Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: ... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
