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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I Took My Third COVID-19 Vaccine Shot Today
Shortly since receiving my second dose of Covid-19 vaccine (Pfizer) I have been fortunate to have been able to monitor my neutralizing antibody titer against the original SARS-CoV-2 Washington/Wuhan outbreak strain, and two of the most commonly circulating variants today, B1.1.7 (UK) and B1.351 (South African). Like everyone else from whom this data has been collected I have seen my titer dropping with each successive test. While my numbers still sit above the threshold for protection, if the trend continues I will be totally vulnerable to the South African variant in 1 to 2 months, and vulnerable to UK some 3 months or so later. Unfortunately, I have not yet had the opportunity to determine my titer against Delta, the newest and scariest variant yet, though I should have those numbers sometime in the next few weeks. However, given the seriousness of the Delta variant, and the news that several persons I know may have Covid-19 caused by delta, I do not intend to wait and decided to take a booster dose of vaccine today. If I have been exposed to Delta in the past few days, a booster dose now will do me no good, however, I have to operate under the assumption that I have not and plan for future potential exposures by doing everything I can now to protect myself and my loved ones. In fact I am recommending to all my friends and family and anyone that will listen that they should get third vaccine doses now. Do not wait. Especially for those who were vaccinated among the first wave, healthcare workers and the like, many of them are likely completely unprotected and anecdotal evidence suggests unsurprisingly that Covid-19 cases are on the rise among this cohort.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Longevity
The Omega Option
What if I told you there were a way to get everybody vaccinated for COVID-19 and end the pandemic within a few short months if not sooner? No doubt you would first call me crazy, but then of course you would ask how such a thing might be possible. Is it actually possible? It absolutely is and the technology and knowledge required to do so exist today. In fact if the right resources were allocated to the job I estimate the omega option could be deployed within one to two months and the pandemic ended within a few short months after that. Sounds too good to be true you are probably thinking. What's the catch?
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Humans
Is It Really Possible To Have No Sense of Humor?
A writing colleague on the site recently published a piece in which she commented on her “lack of sense of humor”. This statement stuck in my head, and for the past few days I have been ruminating on the question trying to determine if such a thing is actually possible. To start let’s just rule out the unusual cases, the medical oddities, brain injuries, etc. No doubt there are certain disease states or brain injury patterns which can result in the total or almost total erasure of the ability find anything funny. Truly that would be a sad fate, and my heart goes out to any such persons that may be alive out there. I intend to restrict my question to the mentally stable, mentally healthy, or at least as mentally stable and healthy as it is possible for anyone to be in these times we live in. The question is for a person of sound mind and body is it possible to lack a sense of humor? I believe the answer is no, it is not possible, and in the following discussion I will attempt to show why this is the case through the method of logical analysis. Ironically, logical analysis is the least humorous method of doing anything, which is why I think it is perfect for this particular task.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Humans
The Argan Oil Chronicles
Author's preface: By popular demand I will be republishing all 18 articles in my award winning series featuring argan oil, the world’s greatest hair and beauty oil, and Morocco’s trump card in their secret plot to control the worlds dwindling supply of hair oil reserves. If you are reading this you can’t say you were not warned. The series is presented in chronological order (or close enough) for the argan oil chronicles completist. Part I - The early years features some of my earliest forays into the exciting, humorous, and hair frizz free world of argan oil. Thank you country of Morocco for being such a good sport about the whole thing. I do very much admire your country and would love to visit someday. Enjoy!
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Fiction
It is With Much Regret That I Must Inform You I Cannot Accept the Position of Your Boyfriend
Author's preface: While digging through my vast archives I stumbled across this humor piece from 2018. It was a response to an article in which the author informed a sometimes hook up partner that she would accept him as her boyfriend were he to meet a series of very specific requirements. She wrote it in the form of a job acceptance letter in which she was the company CEO and he the job applicant. It was hard to tell if she was being serious or if it was all tongue in cheek. In any case I had to respond in kind and what you see below is that response. Unfortunately I cannot locate the original article upon which this was based and did not link it for reasons I cannot recall, but most likely simple laziness. This post was particularly popular (for me) and it spurred a lot of discussion in the comments section. Not sure if this is going to make the 600 word cutoff or not so going to pad this preface with just a couple of sentences worth of nonsense in order that I might play it safe. Hmmm. Maybe just one or two more filler sentences and then I should be good. This would be the second filler sentence. And, to play it really safe, here is the third. Thank you six hundred word count minimum for another waste of thirty seconds of mine, and whoever is reading this, day. Dumbest rule, ever. In any case, enjoy!
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Filthy
The Simulationist Church
Author’s note: I just can’t get away from this stuff. I haven’t written anything about the simulation hypothesis in over a month and sort of figured I was basically done with it. The weird phone calls from unknown numbers and strange emails with domain names I don’t recognize had stopped as well. It seemed all the nutjobs had given up on messing with me. Then a voice recording from a number I did not know came through on my personal cell phone. With the recording was a text which read — “listen SH quit” My transcription of the voice recording is below. The man reading the message sounded quite calm and completely rational, maybe a little sleepy, but it was not a voice I recognized. It ended suddenly as these things seem to always do.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
What is Evolution For?
Author's preface: This story was originally spiked by Vocal's censors and not approved for publication due to "religious content" As I have pointed out over and over again Vocal's censorship policies are absurd, unjust, and unsustainable and they must end eventually. However, until that day, if one wants to continue publishing here, one must abide by the will of the censor. I have "adjusted" the original article to remove any "religious content", or at least, I think I have. It is impossible to know for certain as what exactly qualifies as "religious content" is wildly debatable which is an example of just one of the reasons Vocal's censorship policies are unjust. In any event, read on and see if you can spot the altered content.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Earth
The Simulationist Church
A translated excerpt from the Italian Codex Simulationista (S1.s3.2) Transubsimulation is defined in the Simulationist faith as the point in time at which the base code that makes up/represents/is the universe in which all simulations (ourselves included) reside became/becomes real/simulated. Unlike the concept of transubstantiation in the Catholic faith, which occurs every time the wine and eucharist is made real (into the blood and body of Christ) during the Catholic mass, transubsimulation only occurs once (per level of the simulation, if such levels actually exist/are simulated). Some Simulationists have argued that the concept of time itself is only relevant in the simulation, and therefore to suggest that transubsimulation occurs at a point in time is incorrect. For these atemporal transubsimulationists the “birth” of the simulated universe occurs at no time but instead represents the first moment of (simulated) time itself. The correctness of either view may be impossible to ascertain until the coming of the Simulator(s).
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
The Simulationist Church
There are a group of people for whom the simulation hypothesis is no longer a hypothesis. They believe with their entire beings, their whole hearts and minds, that we are indeed simulated beings living in a simulated world. In the mid to late 1980s, some of them, how many it is impossible to say, banded together to found a church, the Church of Simulationalism also known as the Simulationist Church. Through the process of simulational submersion (also known as transsubsimulationtiation or just transsubsimulation for short), in a sop to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, they come to know of our “real” position in this universe as simulated beings living in a simulated world. The Simulationalists have borrowed heavily from Catholic tradition for their “faith” as you will learn if you read more on the topic. This “religion” was founded on a set of 18 core principles, their foundational maxims or Simulationist’s Creed, which are published below as part of an introduction to the church, and as a first entry in what will be a series of stories on the topic. If you need some grounding or a refresher on the simulation hypothesis parts of my extensive (non-church based) collection of writings on the topic can be found here (Currently all you will find is message describing that my account has been suspended. Hopefully that will change someday but until then I plan to post a few articles here on Vocal that discuss some of the basic aspects of the simulation hypothesis at some point. When that will happen I cannot say.)
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
The Simulationist Church
We the people of the Simulationist church [Church of the Simulator(s)] having met on Feb. 1, 1999 within our level of the simulation on the planet designated earth, city of San Jose, State of California, and having duly debated, have agreed upon the following political principles to guide ourselves in all manner of civic life within the simulation.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Humans
