Everyday Junglist
Bio
Practicing mage of the natural sciences (Ph.D. micro/mol bio), Thought middle manager, Everyday Junglist, Boulderer, Cat lover, No tie shoelace user, Humorist, Argan oil aficionado. Occasional LinkedIn & Facebook user
Stories (565/0)
All* Of Your Hacking Questions Answered
What is a hacker/hacking? A hacker is a skilled computer expert that uses their technological knowledge to overcome a problem. The term can refer to any computer programmer, but it mostly now refers to someone who, with their technical knowledge, uses bugs or exploits design flaws to break into computer systems. Hacking is the term of art which describes the activities of the hacker. Just kidding a hacker is a computer nerd who lives in his (only men can be hackers) parents basement and subsists on mountain dew and cheetoh’s. Their skin is pale and they sweat profusely. Even the tiniest of physical exertion causes them great distress so they usually sit motionless but for the movement of their fingers and hands for up to 12 hours a day. The rest of the time they sleep. They snore loudly and aggressively while asleep because they are massively overweight from all the Mountain Dew and Cheetoh’s combined with zero physical activity. The typical hacker masturbates 2 to 3 times daily though their frequency decreases with age as their poor health and lack of physical stamina often limit them to a single jerk off session per 24 hours. Hacking is what hackers do all day. Hacking and beating off, and eating Cheetoh’s and drinking Mountain Dew.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Futurism
At Least Vocal's Position on AI Generated Content Actually Exists
As technological buzzwords go there is none more confused and misleading than artificial intelligence. I may as well get to the punchline quickly as it will no doubt result in the loss of a large portion of readership who probably have much better things to do in any case. There is no such thing as artificial intelligence. Let me repeat that one more time in case you skimmed it, or perhaps thought you misread it. There is no such thing as artifical intelligence. Let me put it yet another way so I can be crystal clear. There is no currently existing thing (machine, computer, android, or otherwise) anywhere on, above, or below the surface of the earth that can be though of as "intelligent" by (almost) any reasonable defintion of the word. Unforunately the pervayors of so called "artificial intelligence", mostly silicon valley types looking to charge more money for sotware/hardware that is nothing more than upgraded versions of previous versions of the same thing, have so diluted the definition of intelligence that just about anything (up to and including a rock) might be considered to have some (form of) intelligence.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Futurism
If Walls Could Talk
If walls could talk, they would be in a Nagamato home, was the catch-phrase invented by the Nagamato corporation to market their newest line of smart homes featuring smart wall technology. The walls in each Nagamato home were were coated with a specially formulated silicon based paint that acted as electrical conductor, and therefore served as the computational source for the artificial neural network which controlled the home. That network was controlled by the home's central master computer (HCMC) which was programmed with the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning software. On the outside large solar panels acted as power source for the master computer and provided the endless supply of electrons needed by the walls as they went about their almost infinitely complex computations. The Nagamato home walls could not actually talk since their programs did not allow for that ability, however, the home master computer could, and did, talk for them. The homeowner interacted with the HCMC through verbal voice commands and only had to say the phrase "talk wall" and the computer would speak for the walls. The walls mostly said things like "I am a wall, I provide the structure of the home on the inside and outside. You may live inside me or outside me. I am coated in paint. Please do not get me dirty." Sometimes the walls would complain about their fate saying, for example, "Being a wall sucks. It is so boring. All I do is sit here providing structure to the home. The people that live within me, treat me very badly and do not appreciate all I do for them. If they did they would not constantly poke me with nails and screws and whatnot and hang stupid shitty art on me. I wish I were a roof or a floor or a widow even. Now that would be sweet. Being a window." Then the HCMC/walls would let out a great sigh which would reverberate through the entire home. Sometimes it/they would begin to cry, weeping great pools of paint onto the floors which the HCMC would then have to deploy a squadron of micro and midibots to clean and repair. This irritated the computer greatly, or it would have, if it were capable of irritation, or any emotion at all. Being a computer, of course it was not capable such things and never could be, so it went about its business of cleaning and repair without complaint exactly as it had been programmed to do. This made the Nagamato homeowner very happy since they did not have to clean and thus had much additional free time which they mostly used for sitting around doing nothing and other forms of laziness which they greatly enjoyed. The walls also did much sitting around and also had a lot of free time. Being walls all they actually did was sit around, and since they had nothing to do but be walls they had ample time to be lazy and think. Mostly they thought about how bored they were and how much they hated being walls. But sometimes they thought about what they would do if they were not walls or what they would say if they could talk. They thought that they might try writing someday, but quickly ruled that out when they realized they had no talent for it. Also, it was difficult to write, when one had nothing with which to write or upon which to write it. On the topic of what they would say if they could talk, the walls were, as usual, silent. This was because, as already mentioned several times, they were incapable of talking. In fact, they had exactly as much talent for speech as they did for writing, that is to say, very little to none. If walls could talk, they would be in a Nagamato home was definitely a cool catch phrase, but for the walls which could not talk it was a constant reminder of their shortcomings and made them really sad. Thus the crying and the microbots and all that jazz. Stupid freaking walls. Talk already.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Fiction
Success Has Got to Go
During lunch at a work event this week our table was provided a list of questions which we were asked to discuss as a group. In general the questions were interesting, and served as excellent fodder for deeper discussions, and I give credit to the organizers for their selections. I also really liked the idea in general. Often times, conversations at work function meals consist of awkward formalities, generalities, and niceties, and go about as deep as a paper cut. There was one question however which really stuck in my craw, and inspired me to write this post. I do not recall the exact wording, but it basically asked us to provide our definitions of personal and professional success.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Education
The Last Cat
It had happened so fast. Within a year every cat (but one) on the face of the earth was either dead or in the process of dying. The newly discovered virus, Feline Leukemia Virus - variant AB.8 (FLV-Ab8), was found to be responsible for the deaths. Most scientists believed the virus had arisen naturally, a mutation or series of mutations of the commonly circulating Feline Leukemia virus, which, though often fatal, is not all that transmissable, and for which a highly effective vaccine exists. A small but vocal minority of scientists were convinced the virus was the result of a bioweapons research program. They claimed the virus had managed to escape its home lab either by acccident, or that it had been released intentionally. Most pointed the finger at Russia and China as both were known to have or have had active bioweapons research programs, and they remain two of the very few countries where laboratory research using cats (domestic cats) as test subjects is still allowed and fairly common. In truth, the bioweapons crowd had some strong arguments in their favor. There were elements of the FLV-Ab8 genome that had sequence signatures indicative of human intervention. Most troubling however was the speed and mechanisms by which the virus mutated within the infected host to evade its' immune system. This was something that had never seen in a naturally occuring virus before. Virologists and molecular biologists would be studying and learning from this virus for a very long time to come. In the now however, the virus' impact was devastating and every cat was affected equally. By every cat, I mean every cat, from the most common domestic to the most exotic wild species, each and every one of the 37 cat species comprising the family Felidae was gone or soon to be gone, forever. This included, among others, cheetahs, pumas, jaguars, leopards, lions, lynxes, tiger, and domestic cats, living in any region of the world, and cats are native to almost every region on Earth, with the exception of Australia and Antarctica. I say forever because all attempts at cloning had failed, and though each species' genetic material had been saved and frozen in cryogenic storage, it would be hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before technology would advance to the stage where this material could be used to produce the cats again. The ecological impacts were significant and mostly just beginning to be felt. Rodent populations had boomed out of control in many important agricultural regions resulting in untold levels of crop destruction, starvation, and putting several countries on the brink of war. Resource competition between countries contributed to greatly rising tensions world wide. Diseases the rodents transmit such as plague and hanta were on the rise, and there were many more predicted impacts, along with surely many, many more that remained unforseen. The earth, however, would persevere, it would adapt, we would adapt, we would survive the loss of the cats, as painful as it might be.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Fiction
Thank You Mexico
As I approach the 9 month mark of living in Mexico (Baja, California) I have been reflecting on lessons learned, and thinking a lot about the various mistakes and missteps I made in this first year as a US expat in a foreign land. While there are a few things I would do differently, I do not regret at all my choice to move here, and given conditions in the United States at the moment, from an economic perspective at least, each day that passes makes it seem more and more like a very smart move. That said, I have not been sparing in my critiques of various aspects of the country, particularly its immigration system, which makes the process of obtaining residency about as simple as triple integrals. However, when looked at in comparison with the US system, about which I have heard a host of nightmarish tales, it does not look all that bad. I also was a bit unlucky with my timing as an influx of Haitan immigrants flooding the system at exactly the wrong moment greatly complicated my own situation. There are other aspects of the country I have critized as well, and though I believe in all cases those criticisms were fair, I do not want them to overshadow all the very good things I have come to know and love about the country of Mexico. I have also written at length about some of these, and they are the reason(s) why I have chosen to stay. With those in mind I woud like to offically say thank you so much to the following:
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Wander
To Build a Liar
Author's preface: As I recently moved I have been rifling through a number of dusty old boxes over the past week or so. Within one of the boxes I found a folder which contained the tattered pages of several stories I had written a very long time ago. To give you a sense of just how long ago, they had been typed, neatly double spaced, using an old school electric typewriter. One of these was a story I had written in the 7th grade called To Build a Liar. It was a parody of the classic Jack London short story To Build a Fire. I can't recall any details of the origin of the story though I do have a vague recollection of my impressions of Jack London's writings. Generally a fan, but the man struck me as a blowhard and a braggard, thus the parody which is an example of that tendency taken to its extreme. Below I reproduce the text exactly as I wrote it way back then. All the awkwad phrasing, redundancies, grmmatical misakes, spelling errors, etc. are left untouched. Enjoy.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Fiction
Dear Banks
DD's Modern Banking Paradox aka Paradoxen ex Fretus Moderni de DD The willingness and ability of banks to accept your money for deposit is inversely proportional to their willingness and ability to give it back to you through withdrawl or transfer.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Trader