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 (578/0)
First Impressions
The age old cliche first impressions matter is no doubt true and arguably a truism. Particularly in business it is felt that first impressions are of the utmost importance, and not making a good one is said to be lethal to the potential for any future business relationship. The thing about first impressions that one needs to remember is that they are “first” and they are only “impressions.” Impressions are judgments, value judgements essentially. They are the opinion of one person at a very specific moment in time, and they are often based on the most superficial of attributes, the way a person looks or dresses or talks for instance. Being first they are also made in the absence of any specific information as to the actual content of the character of the person being judged. Thus they are almost always flawed, biased, and highly variable from person to person and situation to situation. And yet study after study shows they “matter.” How “matter” is defined is variable depending on the study and its focus, but in business it is most often defined as the desire to do further business with the other person at any time in the future. Therefore, even if we find the entire idea of spur of the moment value judgements based on superficial characteristics made in the absence of facts abhorrent (and I certainly hope most do) we must accept this small evil for the potential benefit it may bring us in terms of future business opportunity. Therefore, we work extremely hard to make a “good first impression” each chance we have to do so. The more important the outcome of the first interaction with another the harder we work to ensure all goes smoothly and our potential business partner is suitably impressed, or at least not turned off, at their first meeting with us be it in person or tele/web com or whatever. The same holds true in our daily lives and everyday social interactions. We strive to make a good first impression and try harder the more important we view the future potential of the relationship with the other person(s) to be.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Humans
Anti-Science/Scientist Propaganda Continues to Grow
From the early days of the pandemic anti-science rhetoric has flooded the airwaves and webosphere. For the most part I have ignored the ugliness and remained on the sidelines, content in the belief that the vast majority of Americans recognized this stuff for what it was, complete and total bunk, motivated by fear and political inclinations more than genuine belief. However, as the pandemic has grinded on and on, the anti science rhetoric has continued to grow, and the level of sophistication of the arguments proffered by those with an anti-science/scientist agenda has grown along with it. When my dad (a retired engineer) began texting myself and my wife, both research scientists who have and are continuing to work on Covid-19 related projects (myself in diagnostics mostly and she in vaccine development), with wild conspiracy theory tinged messages I realized I could no longer sit this one out.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Futurism
Learning About Deep Learning
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are some of the hottest topics right now and if it’s hot it’s got to be worth learning about, am I right? Get it, ‘learning’ about? Learning used to be something that only human beings and some non-human animals could do. Those days are over my friend, now even machines can learn! Read on if you want to ‘learn’ more. Oops, there I go again, LOL!
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Futurism
Greetings Subscriber
Dear subscriber #1, Thank you so much for choosing to subscribe to me. Even though I am not sure what exactly that means for either you the subscriber or me the subscribee I am sure great benefits will be upon us both. For myself, it is a major ego boost. I was beginning to think my writing was mostly just a waste of time. I was not gaining much interest or traction on Vocal despite publishing close to 100 articles in only 2 months here. This after I had published nearly 2500 in 5 years on my Medium blog until my most recent suspension. That first account suspension lasted a year so that 2500 number was actually just 4 years worth of writing. And yes, you read that correctly, I did say, "first suspension" and "most recent suspension". So two suspensions in five years, that has to be some sort of record, right? In any event that (plus $99) is what brought me here to the warm embrace of the fine folks at Vocal.media where in two months I have yet to accrue a single account suspension or permanent banning. In my defense I have had ten articles rejected for publication and one that was published for two days before being pulled by the editors for reasons unknown. I also currently have two articles that have been sitting "in review" for over a month. Clearly I am a fan favorite with the reviewing staff here. As you can see from my stats, I am most definitely not a fan favorite in a general sense. This continues my proud tradition of not being very popular as a writer, which builds upon my even prouder tradition of not being a very popular person.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Humans
Sorry Vocal But Over a Month In Review is Simply Not Acceptable
There are currently two stories sitting in my "Your Stories" submitted section that are still "under review." One of these stories entitled "Subtitle Required - The Most Puzzling, Ridiculous, and Downright Stupid Publishing Rule on Vocal" has been in this story purgatory for over a month, while the other "On the Importance of Precision in Language - Misuse and Abuse of Language is Not Without Consequences" has been languishing for 23 days now. While I have little hope the first story will ever see the light of day on Vocal given how critical it is of the site overall, accurate and factual criticisms though they may be, I cannot for the life of me understand what problem Vocal might have with the second story and fully expect it to be published at some point. Both stories have already been published on a competing web publishing platform as an fyi.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Journal
On the Importance of Precision in Language
“Many of us in the Deep Learning community know that the major models of Deep Learning, i.e. Convolutional Neural Nets, LSTM Recurrent Neural Nets or Neural networks in general have existed since the 90s. It is now that we have the data (thanks to the Internet) and the computational power that we are able to see Deep Learning making an impact on our daily lives.”
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Futurism
Subtitle Required
No matter how much I think about it, and it is actually way too much I cannot for the life of me imagine what potential justification there could be to require every article or story published on Vocal.media to have a subtitle. An article without one cannot even be submitted for screening by the censorship board (sorry I mean submitted for review to the moderators) without one. Can you imagine what the world would have been/be like if this were an ironclad rule of writing and literature and had been since the beginning of the written word? Luckily, you don't have to as I have imagined it for you below. Consider it a companion piece to my recent screed railing against the ridiculousness of a 600 word count minimum for poetry. Normally I would have ended this introductory section right there. Right at the period after the word poetry. However when I had completed the piece and did my now customary word count I realized I was only at 394 words. So, after yet another round of curses, head slaps, and sighs I had to think of a way to stuff more words into this crap fest of an article and this was the best I could come up with. Essentially what you are now currently reading are the train of thought ramblings of a mad man. In other words you are reading the words coming out of my head currently, totally unfiltered, exactly as I experience them in my head, at this very moment. Or, I guess, actually for you the reader, it will be at some later moment but hopefully you take my meaning. Now, can you imagine having to live with this person 24/7 365 days a year. Ouch, right. Welcome to my world. Do you think I have hit 600 words yet? I am gonna say no, probably another one hundred or so to go. See how I typed out the word one hundred instead of using the numerals one and zero and zero. Smart right? And then I did it again in the sentence right after the first one. I could have typed out the numerals as numerals each time but that would not have padded my word count in the same fashion as fully typing out the words that the numerals stand for, or is it the numerals that stand for the words? Hmmm. That's a weird thing to think about isn't it. Which stands for which? Wow. Got just a little off topic there. What was I talking about again? Who are you? Where am I? Gheesh wake up dummy. Oh right, I am here on Vocal.media writing some dumb article about some dumb policy and trying to pad the word count. Or something like that. And it is called stream of consciousness not train of thought you dumbass. Who is that talking? It's me dummy. Who? I gotta get out more...
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Journal
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 Junglist3 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 Junglist3 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 Junglist3 years ago in Humans