Everyday Junglist
Bio
About me. You know how everyone says to be a successful writer you should focus in one or two areas. I continue to prove them correct.
Stories (715)
Filter by community
Fox News Can I Have My Parents Back Now Please?. Top Story - December 2022.
Author's preface: This is a repost of an article I published on an alternate yet eerily similar web publishing platform way back in 2017. It includes an addendum I later made to it in response to my own serious concerns about the way my parents were portrayed. I am republishing this now along with a companion post that is linked here because I think that together the two articles make for a compelling story. One (this one) a lighthearted and humorous tale that I ended up very much regretting, and the other, which describes why I felt that way and what I tried to do about it.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Families
Fox News Can I Have My Parents Back Now Please?
Author's preface: This is a repost of an article I published on an alternate yet eerily similar web publishing platform way back in 2017. It includes an addendum I later made to it in response to my own serious concerns about the way my parents were portrayed. I am republishing this now along with a companion post that is linked here because I think that together the two articles make for a compelling story. One (this one) a lighthearted and humorous tale that I ended up very much regretting, and the other, which describes why I felt that way and what I tried to do about it. Incidentally I already wrote and submitted this story to Vocal about a month ago. It has languished in "awaiting review" purgatory ever since. I finally got tired of waiting and am re-submitting to a different community or whatever dumb thing they call them.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Families
A Commercial for Dog Food as a Top Story Sets a Very Bad Tone
Let me start by saying in no way should this post be taken as a slight against the author or the quality of the "story" linked here which describes the wonderous impact of the petfood Ollie on the health of Teddy the Hollywood dog. It also should not be taken as any sort of attack on Teddy who seems to be a very cute little guy and a fairly typical small dog based on the description provided by the author who calls him a "bundle of energy" and repeatedly mentions his "high activity level." Dog Teddy, it turns out, is an actor, and is much more well known and popular than human Dan, who is not. Ironically, Teddy, like many humans, also makes more money from writing on Vocal than Dan, but that is not saying much as $47.73 over the course of 1.5 year is a pretty low bar. Teddy was apparently underwhelmed by his former diet and looking to make a change to something more fresh, wholesome, and less processed. Enter Ollie brand pet food, a "small batch" premium pet food product that no doubt costs a small fortune, but apparently has had a positive impact on Teddy's behavior and appearance. Finally, this story is in no way intended to besmirch the good name of Ollie brand pet food, a pet food brand with which I have zero personal experience and even less actual knowledge. This article was in fact the first time that I had ever heard of Ollie brand pet food. Based on the glowing testimony of the author I have no reason to question the quality of the food which sounds as if it provides a more nutrionally balanced diet for your pet than I provide for myself.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Journal
Mountain Haiku
Always in the way Majestically blocking My view of the sky Dear Vocal, If you are going to have a contest in which you promise to "suspend your normal 100 word count minimum" for works submitter to the poets community, you need to remember to reconfigure your web page word count checker so that it does not flag the story and prevent submission. Even though a word count minimum for works of poetry is one of the most bizarre, non-sensical, and downright dumb ideas I have ever encountered, you do have such an idiot rule in place and a word count checker to enforce said dumbass rule. You need to disable the word count checker for works submitted to the Mountain high ku contest. By the way clever word play. High-ku, hah! Hilarious. No one has ever thought of that before in the history of writing I bet.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Poets
It's Almost 2023 and AI Continues to Not Exist
The word of God: how AI is deified in the age of secularism A quote from the above linked (really excellent) piece by Thomas McMullan. I would be remiss if I did not point out that it seems man continues to have a penchant for deifying things which do not actually exist.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Futurism
Why You Need To Be Critical Of Technology Articles
One of my least favorite things is reading technology articles on this very website and others and pointing out the ridiculous, illogical, erroneous, and deceptive things that are written to share with people. I also hate reading articles where the journalists don’t bother doing any research or digging into the topic for themselves, but instead rely on the person/company being written about for all of the content. A lot of my articles on here are inspired by that exact bullshit content.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Geeks
The Purpose
As luck would have it I died three days later. “You again, so soon? That’s unexpected. Did you remember to bring a story for me?” I was perplexed. “Why are you surprised? You are God, don’t you know everything? Surely you must have known when we last talked that I would be with you shortly.” “I’m afraid not.” God replied. “It’s that free will thing again. Once that gift was given I lost my ability to see the future of all men. I don’t regret it for a second. Knowing the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There is no surprise that way. Life without surprise is a lot like vanilla ice cream. It’s still good but it’s awfully plain”. I chuckled softly to myself. It seemed that God was as capable of a bad metaphor as I was. For some reason this brought me great comfort. The residual fear I had been feeling at standing dead in the presence of my creator evaporated in an instant. “I don’t have a story per se, but I do have something I’d like to say to you. It’s probably more accurate to say I have some things I’d like to ask you about?”
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Psyche
The Purpose
When God revealed himself to me and confirmed that there was a purpose to each persons’ existence I was elated. All of us were put on this earth to accomplish a specific goal. To fulfill our destiny all we need do was complete this God given task in the place and time allotted for us. I had struggled for so many years with the question of meaning in my life but now had been given the ultimate gift, the knowledge that life is not just some random series of chaotic events unfolding around us in space and time over which we have no control. Rather, our fate was predetermined by God. We would spend all of our days constantly striving to complete the objective God had planned for us from the moment of our birth. Nothing was meaningless. Each day we moved closer to fulfilling our true purpose.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Psyche
Thoughts on Goodhart’s Law
Goodhart’s Law can be stated in a number of different ways; any measure which becomes a target ceases to be a good measure, when a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure, any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes (this was Goodhart’s original formulation), entities who are aware of a system of rewards and punishments will optimize their actions within said system to achieve their desired results, a policy with a purpose that can be/is measured can be manipulated once that purpose is known (my own formulation), and many others. On the face of it they all appear to state something that had been known to quantum physics since well before Goodhart published his first paper on the topic in 1975, which is that observation/measurement of a (quantum) thing necessarily changes that thing (the observer effect which stems from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle). The "statistical regularity" which is the focus of Goodhart's law is said to "collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes." i.e. once it is observed/measured. This seems analogous to the way in which the wave function of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle collapses upon observation/measurement.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Journal
