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 ( 7163 )
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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
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GPT in the Classroom, Part 3: Omega Or Bust!
In playing around with chatbots, first ChatGPT and now Claude 3.5, I found that the most interesting way to get it to create poetry is to give it a rich prompt. Read more
Posted on 22 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Magic of French Toast Returns to New Savanna
Posted on 22 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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The USA Doesn’t Pay Public School Teachers Enough
Bayer, Patrick J. and Blair, Peter Q.. and Whaley, Kenneth, Does the United States Spend Enough on Public Schools?. Available at SSRN:... Read more
Posted on 22 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.5 Sonata Describes a Japanese Maple in the Fall
What’s in this photo? This image shows a Japanese maple tree (Acer palmatum) with striking red and burgundy-colored leaves. The leaves have the characteristic... Read more
Posted on 21 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Table-top Views
Posted on 21 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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I’ve Gotten a New Computer, My 10th Since 1981
I bought my first computer in the spring of 1981; took out a small bank loan to get it. It was a North Star Horizon. “A what?” you ask. A North Star Horizon. Read more
Posted on 21 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY