Everyday Junglist
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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.
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Simulationist Church Members Contact Me in Mexico
I thought I had left all of this simulation hypothesis and Simulationist church crap behind me when I left my former home to move to Baja, California, Mexico some six months ago now. In retrospect it was probably naïve to think the church would completely forget about me, especially considering how much closer I would now be geographically to their main modern day stronghold, silicon valley in the state of California. From my new home just south of Tijuana it is only about 8ookm and a roughly 8.5h drive (depending on traffic) to make it to the valley of doom as I call it. Those who know me and my writings know that I am no fan of silicon valley and in fact have delivered many a verbal beating to a place populated by some of the worlds worst people doing some of the worlds most useless and wasteful things. Of course, it is also home to some of its best people doing the exact opposite of that. Unfortunately the former outweigh the later by a large margin which seems to grow larger every year.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Futurism
6 Steps to Become a Terrible Writer with a Terrible Career
But, what about individuals who want to tweak their writing? What about individuals who want a terrible writing career? According to my knowledge, and my knowledge is vast, according to me, writing is the most crucial skill that one can have. And terrible writers do not have this skill, for that is why they are so terrible at writing. Or, if they do have writing skill, it is only the ability to be terrible at it. Hard to argue that this is a skill however, but I will concede someone could argue it.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Lifehack
Facebook Groups I Have Known and Loved
If you can slap a label on something, Facebook likely has at least fifteen groups dedicated to some aspect of it. All have their peccadillos, and generally a somewhat creepy obsession with rules and order. The number one rule of most Facebook groups seems to be "no self promotion" followed closely by "no pornography." Below I visit some of the lesser known Facebook groups I have encountered in my travels through the Facebook-grouposphere which I visit often searching desperately for friendship, love, and/or kindred spirits who share my deep love of post apocalyptic moulds. To date, I am zero for three but I will never give up hope.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Filthy
Giving Credit Where Credit is Due
From day 1 on the site, I have been a harsh critic of many aspects of Vocal. From their ridiculous and counter productive censorship policies, to their absurd 600 word count minimum for story publication rule, and most recently, their slowly backsliding commitment to publish all submitted stories within 24h of submission. This last issue had gotten so bad that two of my more recent stories had languished in submitted purgatory for 8 days prior to publication with zero communication from Vocal as to why. I have also in the past given fair credit when Vocal has shown some real guts in what they have chosen to publish, including material harshly critical of their own policies.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Journal
All* Of Your Machine Learning Questions Answered
Author's preface: When perusing the archives I came upon this classic from 2017 that I now realize I never published on Vocal. Sadly, just as true today as it was then. Note that some of the language and imagery is not for the faint of heart. Enjoy!
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Filthy
Argan Oil Does Not Cause Acne
All 29 members of Morocco's International Association of dermatology held a joint press conference today in which they announced the results of a Moroccan clinical trial aimed at determining if heavy use of argan oil, the wildly popular hair and beauty oil, and cornerstone of Morocco's economy, was to blame for a marked rise in acne globally. Harvard medical trained Dr. Abdel Adir, head of the Moroccan dermatological society with 30+ years experience as a practicing dermatologist in Morocco said the following in announcing the results. "The results of the first ever case controlled double blind randomized clinical trial looking for an association between the use of argan oil with acne proved what Moroccan's have already known for ages, argan oil does not cause acne. In fact our data suggests that heavy use of argan oil may actually have a protective effect. It is well established science that argan oil leaves the skin smooth and moisturized without feeling greasy or oily." Aksed to comment on a potential mechanism for this acne protecting effect, Dr. Adir continued. "We have hypothesized that argan oil works to prevent acne by gently coating skin pores with a naturally clean and antimicrobial oil. Once covered in a smooth film of argan oil, skin pores are prevented from future clogging by dirtier, less effective at leaving hair lustrous and soft but not greasy oils, like coconut or whatever the flavor of the month beauty oil happens to be. Once again argan oil proves why it is the superior choice for your hair, skin, nails, and overall health. These days it is all too easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer number of beauty focused oils clogging the products on store shelves. Never forget, these other oils are also clogging your skin pores, causing acne, and maybe even cancer." When some reporters raised the possibility of bias on the part of the Moroccan dermatological society Dr. Adir reacted angrily saying "I don't respond to questions clearly planted by members of the coconut oil association. They can take their coconuts and plant them where the sun don't shine." With that, he turned and walked away.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Blush
Kitten Picture Hoarder
One of my very good friends happens to be a cat breeder. Her specialty is oriental short hairs, and, in addition to breeding, is a regular at regional and national cat shows. She is fairly well known in the cat show circuit (not a very big but an extremely odd world) and a few of her treasured felines are heavily decorated champions. Her cattery is a business but it is a consistent money loser. Breeding and raising cats the right way is very expensive and even when your kittens can sell for upwards of $1,000 it is virtually impossible to turn a profit. Like almost all breeders (I wish I could say all but of course there are a few bad apples ) she is in it solely for the love of the cats and the breed. I have had the great pleasure of spending a considerable amount of time with some of her charges and they are very special indeed. I have also helped her on occasion with sales and with transfers and transport of kittens and cats between various breeders and buyers. If you are interested to learn more about the exciting world of cat transfers I’ve provided a link here about a particularly interesting case. It is a pretty funny story, truly, read it, now, go, go read it, please.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Petlife
If the Simulation Hypothesis is Correct We are All AIs
Author’s note: I have no way to authenticate the origin of the following as it arrived by email from an unknown sender three days ago with no explanation. It had the subject line of Simulatio Dubitabam (Latin for Simulation Skeptic) followed by the title of this post you see above. It was quite short and ended suddenly.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
Deprioritizing Email Has Greatly Improved My Work Productivity and Overall Job Satisfaction. Top Story - August 2022.
For as far back as I can remember in my career the first thing I did everyday upon arriving to work was check and respond to email, it was also the last thing I did before I left each day. It was also the thing I did regularly throughout the day each day of each workweek. Checking and responding to emails has always been at the very top or very near the top of my priority list at work. The portion of my work time I spend checking and responding to emails grew each year, and seemed to neatly mirror my own growth within the business where I worked. As my responsibilities grew so did the size of my inbox. I prided myself at keeping my inbox and unread emails at or near zero and always responding promptly to each and every message no matter how unimportant or trivial. In recent years as the flood of emails reached record levels I devised ever more complicated systems of rules for prioritizing, categorizing, organizing, and storing emails into folders and subfolders, groups, and subgroups. I asked colleagues to explain their even more complicated systems so that I might learn from them and mimic their best ideas. It was an ongoing, uphill, seemingly never ending, battle against an enemy whose numbers were never depleted, and in fact mustered more troops to the field each and every day. I was just one man going toe to toe against this ever growing onslaught of emails and I was determined to never give up, never surrender. All of this effort was undertaken with one overarching goal in mind, maximizing the number of emails I could receive and respond to in the shortest possible amount of time, and always in priority order. Typically that meant that priority was assigned based on the senders rank within the particular business within which I worked, with those higher up the chain being prioritized above those below. Special deference would always be given to my direct manager, who's emails (almost) always took priority over anything else from anyone in the organization, including my own direct reports. Failing to respond within hours was shameful, failing to respond in the same day an unmitigated disaster, not responding at all, well, let's just say some things were downright unthinkable.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Confessions
The Downsides of Data Driven Decision Making
In life, and especially in business it is quite fashionable these days to hear people claim that they make "data driven decisions." Making data driven decision sounds like a very smart thing to do. Certainly much smarter than its regular language translation, "using the facts to determine a course of action" which sounds awfully obvious and boring. Definitely not something one would see published in the Harvard Business Review. Despite its obviousness it would seem hard to argue with the sagacity of making "data driven decisions", after all who would not want to use all of the information at one's disposal (data) in deciding which to select of the many possible alternative options that are available (decision making) for doing whatever it is one is trying to do? Usually that thing one is trying to do is make money or some derivative thereof. Nothing gets me more fired up for an argument than a thing which is hard to argue with. Therefore, below I present to you two arguments against data driven decision making. Of course I am in general a big supporter of data driven decision making and in no way mean to suggest that it is not (most of the time) the smartest way to go about making decisions in just about any aspect of one's life or career. However, that said, it is by no means guaranteed to be the best way to make decisions or even the smartest way to make decisions in every case. As you will see if you continue on, data driven decision making has at least two highly relevant downsides that can make it the less than optimal mechanism for deciding things. Even if less than optimal in some specific instances, it is still likely never a bad way to make a decision, it just won't guarantee that you always come out on top. Nothing ever does though does it?
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in The Swamp
