Bbenzon

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 ( 7149 )
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By the Numbers, New Savanna and Academia, a Quick Update
Here’s where things currently stand with overall views at New Savanna: There’s that big jump for 2017. I haven’t got the foggiest idea what that’s about. Read more
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ambush in the Oval Office, Zelinsky’s Out, Putin’s in
Heather Cox Richardson, February 28, 2025, Letters from an American, March 1, 2025. Today, President Donald Trump ambushed Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky... Read more
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Groove Before the Machine @3QD
I’ve got a new article at 3 Quarks Daily: One thought for living in a high-tech world: The groove before the machine. It’s a strange one, for me, more... Read more
Posted on 28 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Sun Circuit Hoboken
Posted on 28 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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How Many Unnecessary Deaths Will Be Laid at the Feet of DOGE? [The Destruction o...
Ari Daniel, Why Dean Karlan, chief economist of USAID, resigned on Tuesday, NPR, February 26, 2025. From the article: We're watching psychological warfare... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Play Time in Northwest Hoboken
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Claude 3.7 Evaluates My Paper on Story Variations in ChatGPT
Here and there I’ve read about experiments with using chatbots to evaluate papers to be presented at conferences and for publication in academic journals. For... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Work Really the Virtue It's Claimed to Be? No! It's Time to Wake Up!
Erik Baker, Elon Musk Is the World’s Richest Man. Why Is He Sleeping on an Office Floor? NYTimes, Feb. 27, 2025. This association between incessant work and... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two-dimensional Neural Geometry Underpins Sequence Organization in Working Memory
Fan, Y., Wang, M., Fang, F. et al. Two-dimensional neural geometry underpins hierarchical organization of sequence in human working memory. Nat Hum Behav 9,... Read more
Posted on 26 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
BrainGPT, an LLM Tuned on the Neuroscience Literature, Surpasses Human Experts i...
Luo, X., Rechardt, A., Sun, G. et al. Large language models surpass human experts in predicting neuroscience results. Nat Hum Behav 9, 305–315 (2025).... Read more
Posted on 26 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Goals as Reward-producing Programs
Davidson, G., Todd, G., Togelius, J. et al. Goals as reward-producing programs. Nat Mach Intell 7, 205–220 (2025). https://doi.org/10. Read more
Posted on 26 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Upside-down World
Posted on 25 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Search as an Interface Between Informatics and Economics: How is the Distributio...
The Answer: Both distributions are highly irregular. What that means in the case of gold deposits is pretty obvious: Gold ore is a physical substance that is... Read more
Posted on 25 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Do Republican Policemen Differ from Democrats in On-the-ground Enforcement?
Bocar Ba, Haosen Ge, Jacob Kaplan, et al., Political diversity in U.S. police agencies, American Journal of Political Science, 14 february 2025,... Read more
Posted on 25 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.5 Describes a Piece by Japan Joe
I took this at dawn in Jersey City looking east. The buildings you see in the distance are at Newport. What’s in the foreground? Read more
Posted on 24 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Gloomy Sunday Afternoon with the Sun High in the Sky (behind Clouds)
Posted on 24 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Are Trump and Musk Leading a Tax Revolt by Firing 6000 IRS Agents?
Lawrence GibbsFred T. Goldberg Jr.Charles RossottiMark EversonJohn KoskinenCharles Rettig and Daniel Werfel, Trump Just Fired 6,700 I.R.S. Workers in the Middl... Read more
Posted on 24 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
There is Cultural Variability in Attitudes Toward Chatbots Mediated by...
Folk, D. P., Wu, C., Heine, S. J. (2025). Cultural Variation in Attitudes Toward Social Chatbots. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 0(0).... Read more
Posted on 24 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.5 on Bipolar Disorder
Once again we’re back to my series of reflections on melancholy and creativity. As you may recall, it started with an article in 3 Quarks Daily: Melancholy and... Read more
Posted on 23 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sunrise at 7AM and 20º F. in Hoboken, NJ, on Feb. 22, 2025
Posted on 22 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY