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 am Crapping My Pants in Fear About Amazon's Alexa
Author's preface. This parody article was published back in 2019. Obviously that makes a tech focused piece like this one very much dated. I still think it holds up OK and is pretty damn funny. You really have to read the original upon which it is based (linked below) to get the full effect.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in 01
Virtual/Augmented Reality (VAR) and the Simulation Hypothesis
A day does not go by that another article is not published purporting to explain why virtual/augmented reality (VAR) systems/software/applications have failed to spark much interest in the general population. Adoption rates have been way slower than many had predicted and widespread adoption seems decades away if it is ever going to happen. Many theories have been suggested and while they each have some element of truth to them they all fail to provide a completely satisfactory account of the issue. I have been puzzling over this problem in my head myself for months now. Given the bulk of the populations seemingly endless fascination with all things tech and the media’s incessant hyping of VAR as the next big thing you would think VAR systems would have exploded in popularity by now. We should already be in the price war phase with knock off brands flooding the market and VR gaming addicts passing out in neighborhood VR arcades from two week binges of non stop VR MMRPG gaming sessions. Meanwhile AR should be an option in all new cars sold and a standard feature on new smart phones. To date, none of that has come to pass.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
Control Everything
In humans, the autonomic nervous system is a control system that acts largely unconsciously (Just how largely is a subject of some debate, but almost entirely is fair to say. Traditionally, for something to be included as part of the autonomic nervous system it had to be out of the control of the conscious mind. That was "baked into" the definition. So, one could argue that as soon as we find that any particular function can actually be controlled consciously, it should no longer be classified as being a part of that system. Perhaps a new nervous system classification is needed to account for functions which are mostly unconscious but may be able to be controlled to some degree consciously in some people with extraordinary effort, and perhaps some natural genetic tendencies in that direction.) and regulates various bodily functions such as the heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual arousal. Our immune system, though not officially a part of the autonomic nervous system, is also intimately associated with it, and mistaken or inappropriate interactions between the two systems are thought to play a role in the development of many chronic diseases involving both. Although this has also been challenged by some, the immune system is also generally agreed to be entirely out of our conscious control. If we do have some conscious control over the immune system it is most likely only at the edges, and at a holistic rather than fine detailed level. Both systems are scarily complex and textbooks and research papers abound in both fields. There are undergraduate college courses and graduate programs dedicated to each, and many a Ph.D. and MD have made entire careers out of studying them. For purposes of this discussion all you need to know is that it is widely believed/understood that human life would be impossible without either or both of them.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
Future Black Slime in Refrigerator Crisper Purchased at Local Grocery
Future black slime in refrigerator crisper, currently known as green onions, were purchased at a local grocery today by neighborhood resident Ted Stephens. “I’m making Pad Thai for my girlfriend for dinner tonight and need the green onions for a garnish and to give a little color to the dish” he said when asked about his decision to purchase the future pile of oozing black mush at the bottom of his refrigerator vegetable crisper. Despite a very poor track record of using any green vegetable purchased for any meal Mr. Stephens suggested this time would be differing saying “look, I know I don’t exactly have a reputation as the biggest vegetable fan, and I have, on occasion, left a head of broccoli or lettuce in the crisper for over a month, throwing them away only when the smell from the slowly putrefying sludge like black mass became too much to bear. But, this time is going to be different. I swear. Besides, onions aren’t really a vegetable. Right? Are they a fruit then? You know I don’t actually know.”
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Feast
Understanding the Basics of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have been some of the hottest topics around for close to a decade now. 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 Junglist4 years ago in Education
Did I Just See What I Think I Saw?
Author's preface: This incident happened about three years ago. Since that time I have seen a few similar vehicles on various roadways around the country. Seems to be sort of a thing. None could compare to this, none have come even close.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Geeks
On Dating Men with Potential - Redux
On dating men with “potential” A better encapsulation of what many women find valuable about men in America has almost certainly never been written. Money in the bank, boats in harbor, kids, dreams, organized men with direct reports. Businessmen, bankers, they are the best. I guess a scientist with a big enough salary would be ok as long as he was organized and could prove that he had fulfilled at least one of his dreams.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Confessions
How Not to Compare AI With the Human Brain
It is self learning It is a computer, a machine. There is no “self” for it to learn with. It cannot learn because it is a machine. The term machine learning is composed of two words that when combined in that order result in a logical contradiction. It is a logical contradiction to say that a machine can learn because the definitions of each term preclude that possibility. If a machine could learn it would no longer be a machine. Moreover, there are many competing theories as to how the human brain/humans and some non human animals learn all of which have some valid claim to “correctness”. Therefore even if it had a “self” (which it most definitely does not) we could not say that it is self-learning since we do not even know how humans and non human animals learn.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
It is Past Time for Computer Science and Biology to Part Ways
I have spent and continue to spend a good bit of my writing career pleading with people about the logical impossibility of “machine learning” and the dubiousness of this thing called artificial “intelligence.” It has been a lonely task acting as what feels like the lone naysayer in a huge crowd of cheerleaders. Luckily, I don’t concern myself with being popular, only being right and I am still convinced I am (mostly) on target with my criticisms. Even if I am wrong it still behooves the proponents of these things to prove me so, and they have yet do so. A machine has still not learned anything and AI researchers keep saying we are only week/months/years away from true human or animal level artificial “intelligence” each time a new computer beats a human in some game. The more “complicated” for us the game the “smarter” the computer according to them. Apologies to Wittgenstein for a vast oversimplification here but what they fail to communicate is that what makes something a game is that it has rules. A game is in fact nothing more than a series of rules. Another thing that is a series of rules is an algorithm. An algorithm is identical to a game in this respect and just like an algorithm a game (with the right rules — inputs) can have totally predictable outputs (yes, even games of chance or with random/probabilistic elements if they are played over a big enough data set/number of moves). There is at least one (probable) major exception related to the physical parts of athletic contests, but that is irrelevant to the argument (though it is another argument against the possibility of non-embodied AI I do not intend to dive into here). All games with rules are at base computational equations with specific data inputs and outputs. They are fully computable and thus it is not surprising that computers can and will continue to excel at them. This does not make them smart, nor does it make them ‘intelligent’, it just makes them excellent computers. The computers that beat the best humans at Jeopardy and Go are the most excellent computers ever built and programmed at playing those specific games. Huzzah!, we have finally built computers that excel at computing. What we have not built is an artificial ‘intelligence’ nor has a machine ‘learned’ anything.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
Science, Philosophy, and Technology
As a research scientist myself nothing gets under my skin so deeply as hearing fellow scientists disparaging philosophy. Many times one hears it from the so called “popularizers” of science who spend their days not on the bench, or in the lab or the field actually practicing science, but rather on the couch or in front of a screen dispensing their wisdom upon the unwashed masses. These are the same “scientists” who praise the virtue of the technologists (who also despise philosophy for some reason(s) that make(s) no sense), and think science and technology are one and the same discipline, brothers in arms against the dark forces of religion and mysticism that threaten to overwhelm the land. In addition to their disgust with philosophy the other thing these pop-sci paragons share with the techno-elites is an ego that must constantly be fed a steady diet of adulation, praise, and recognition.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Psyche
