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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The Hallucinogenic Mushroom Industry Needs to Take Food Safety Seriously
Hallucinogenic mushrooms are now legal in California and poised to become legal in Colorado in 2024. The details of both laws appear to be substantially similar. Each considers hallucinogenic mushrooms as therapeutic drugs and allows for their cultivation, possession, and distribution as thearupeutic agents. In a strange, logic defying twist, neither allows for their advertisement or sale. Those activities both remain illegal. It appears that many in California have chosen to ignore that particular aspect of the law as hallucinogenic mushrooms can be found and ordered with relative ease online, and the sellers are using sophisticated marketing and slick packaging that certainly look a lot like advertising. I have no desire to debate the merits or demerits of the state laws and will leave it to others to decide who may or may not be breaking them, and with what practices. Meanwhile, hallucinogenic mushrooms, like all hallucinogens, remain illegal at the federal level, and you can be arrested and go to jail for a significantly long period of time if caught growing, distributing, or even just possessing small quantities of them. I think it is fair to say the feds and the states disagree on this question, and I am fairly certain there are many in the federal government who view the laws in California and Colorado as direct challenges to their authority, and potentially dangerous. Both of those beliefs are likely incorrect, however, they are genuinely believed, and thus the feds will be looking for any angle to stop or at least slow down the hallucinogenic mushroom movement in any way it can. If they cannot do so through the usual law enforcement channels another option would be through the federal regulatory agencies with law enforcement authority, this includes the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Feast
Raverstrike Attack
Damn you Elyria, where in the seven hells are you. I need you.... now. Baj's mind raced as he tried desperately to find a way out out his current predicament. The creature he faced had hurt him badly. He was cut in at least ten places, one of which was a very serious deep slash wound to the calf that had nearly taken off his right foot. That wound was bleeding so much it had already caused him to slip twice, and had almost cost him his life the last time he lost his footing. He knew he was outmatched. The creature, known as a raverstrike was a favorite assassin of the Gods and possessed divine strength, speed, and stamina. His expert level hand to hand combat and weapons skills, obtained through years of torturous training at the academy, were all that had kept him alive this long. However, he knew they would not be enough to defeat the raver, only his Goddess could save him now. That thought caused his fury to rise and he screamed and cursed even as he watched his life's blood drain from him. The raverstrike looked at Baj with its large black eyes which had rolled forward in their deeply recessed sockets on each side of its vaguely horse like head. Long arms protruded from each side of its massive seven foot tall well muscled trunk. Each ended in a single razor sharp curved claw, both of which were soaked in Baj's blood. That blood dripped down slowly toward the ground from along the length of each claw and the creature's long tongue protruded outward to lap it up out of the sky as it fell. It was a grotesque sight and when it spoke the tone of it hurt Baj's ears and caused his head to ache and his heart to freeze in his chest. "Your bitch Goddess can't save you human. Loki himself has ordered your death, and I am here to see that his will is done." As it spoke it moved slowly toward Baj maneuvering to within striking distance of its claws, raising one giant arm to throw the killing blow. It was so close now that Baj could feel the heat emanating from the monsters body like a furnace.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Paradigm Rift
Thomas Kuhn first coined the terms paradigm and paradigm shift in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the most important books in the history and philosophy of science. Paradigms are shared worldviews that structure the way science is done. They are broad in scope, impacting many aspects of a given scientific discipline or many disciplines. They function for a very long time (i.e. generations) and never change overnight or even in a year. Despite their modern usage, in their original conception they were solely applicable to the natural sciences. There are no paradigms or paradigm shifts in business, nor in technology, or in anything else. Paradigm shifts happen when over time a “sufficient number of anomalies are identified, which lead to the replacement of one paradigm by another."
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Reduced Speed
Author's preface: I was home visiting my parents recently and had the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with a friend who was the protagonist of a story I wrote many years ago titled "Reduced Speed". Seeing her reminded me of that story and so, out of curiosity, I went back and read it again. Turns out I still really like it. It is disturbing, sad, and glum, but with a wistful tone that somehow feels almost a little (very little) hopeful. It is also powerful and emotionally impactful. Maybe those feelings are amplified for me since I am a part of the story and 'Shannon' (not her real name) from the story remains my friend to this day. Moreover it was written not long after the sudden and tragic death of my wife of only two years, Victoria. Anything I wrote at that time effects me greatly today no matter what the topic. I am republishing it with only a few minor changed from the original.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Donnie Mellons
"Whenever you are buying a used car from a person, there are two things you need to pay the most attention to. The headliner and the trunk. People that take care of their cars, that really love their cars and care about them, always keep the headliner and trunk clean, and in good condition, those who don't, don't. If I see a beat up, dirty headliner or trunk, I walk away." Donnie paused for a moment, furrowed his brow, obviously deep in concentration then continued. "And, oh yeah, don't forget pet hair. If you see any pet hair, it's not necessarily an instant walk away, but you better believe I am knocking the price down by 5-10% off of whatever I was already thinking about offering." Thomas thought about what he had just heard, and it seemed to make a lot of sense. Then again, anytime Donnie said anything it seemed to make a lot of sense. He spoke with an air of authority about any topic, and for both Thomas, and just about everyone else, it made it very hard to question the correctness of anything Donnie ever said about anything. The fact that Donnie had two Ph.D.'s in the biological sciences added a ton of credibility. It was a classic case of authority bias, one of Donnie's favorite cognitive biases, and, one, he never failed to use to his advantage.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Simulationalism
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 in full here. Below I present only the first three maxims of the creed.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Computomorphism
The tendency to use analogy to computers and computing to explain and simplify complex biological systems and phenomenon is a recently acquired tendency of human psychology and is seen most often in pop culture writing about technology and neuroscience. The application of computomorphism in neuroscience gave rise to the compulogical fallacy. In their classic work, The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, M.R. Bennet and P.M.S. Hacker gave the name mereological fallacy to the logical disorder plaguing much neuroscientific thought at the time. Then, and still to this day, neuroscientists commonly assigned various cognitive attributes to the brain that can only logically be attributed to a whole human being. Examples include things like having memories, desiring things, seeing, tasting, judging, evaluating, etc. Their intent was to show the logical contradictions that arise as a result of this erroneous view of cognition.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Yokonomatopoeia
"Am I the only person on the planet that thinks the Beetles kind of sucked?" Steve asked rather loudly to no one in particular only moments after Sergent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had begun to play from the stadium loudspeakers. His opinion did not appear to be widely shared by the large crowd as many had begun to cheer and dance the moment they recognized the tune. They sung along raucously to the well known lyrics, clapping and smilin as they sang. Joe looked at Steve, his face a mixture of disdain and irritation "I doubt you are the only asshole out there who thinks that Steve, but there can't be very many."
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Cheapening
"You're crazy Tim. Nobody designs products intentionally to fail. With the amount of competition out there it would be suicidal for any business. Why would anyone do that?" Tim lowered his head slightly and frowned, paused a moment to gather his thoughts, then replied. "Greed brother. You are so naive, think about it. How many tubes of caulk have you had to throw away and replace because after you used it once, there was no easy way to seal the tube back up, and it completely dried out? In Mexico every tube of caulk comes with a plastic replaceable cap, completely solves the problem at virtually zero cost. The exact same caulk in the States, no cap." Joe looked at Tim a look of obvious confusion on his face. "So?" "Without that cap the caulk dries out in the tube after one or two uses and needs to be replaced which sells more caulk. In Mexico the caulk never dries out, and the entire tube gets used. Less caulk is sold overall and a lot less waste. A win win for the consumer and the environment, but not as much profit for the caulk manufacturers. That is just one example out of hundred I could give you. So many technical problems related to storage and stability have been solved but solutions are never implemented because it means things last longer and so less of them are sold." Joe looked at Tim and smiled as he said "You are crazy man."
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Technonomatopoeia
There can be no doubt that modern technology is noisy. From the dings and blings of cell phone notifications to cshooooooooos, bwaaaa-bwaaaaa-eeeeerrr of old school internet connections, technology has brought us a huge number of new sounds, many of which are difficult or impossible to capture in words. The sound made when making a selection on a touch screen cell phone is a good example. I think it is intended to be a click, similar, but not exactly the same as the click of a finger on a physical keyboard. To me however it sounds more like an abbreviated snick. Actually I would say it sounds like a depressed version of the famous snikt sound made when Wolverine unsheathes his adamantium claws in the X-men comic books. Really it is SNIKT! because it is always written in all caps and emphasized with an exclamation point and a hyperaggressive font choice. Comic books have brought us a huge number of onomatopoeia. Batman is well known for having introduced Pow and Ka-pow into the lexicon along with hundreds of other words for noises. Today, technology like cellpnones and computers bring us access to comic books and graphic novels of a seemingly infinte variety. The graphic medium forces the onomatopoeia on those works. If one wants to make sounds in a visual medium, one has only words to work with. Technology itself however has brought us very few. I think that should change and technonomatopoeia is what those words should be called.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Microfiction is My Favowrite Genre
Like just about everyone else these days my attention span is only a Plancks length long. In case you don't know, a Plancks length is the shortest measurable unit of distance, in other words, very short. Focusing on any one thing for more than 5-10 seconds really stresses me out, so, when I learned about the exciting and fun world of microfiction I knew this genre was the one for me. At last I had found a place where I could churn out hundreds of shitscicles for publication and/or read hundreds of other people's crapstorms in mere moments. Microfiction allows me to scratch my reading and writing itch without all the investment in hard work, thinking things through, and whatnot that comes along with reading and writing in all those other "boring" genres of yesteryear. I mean, who has time for long form fiction? Snoozefest. Even so called 'short' stories take so much freakin effort, and time I just don't have to spare. My job as an app developer for a major silicon valley corporation keeps me so busy I barely have time to stop for a massage in the office spa more three times a week, let alone to read or write a 3-10 page epic, that is probably about as exciting as whatever non exciting thing I would use as an analogy if I were not such a terrible writer with such a short attention span, which, it should be obvious by now that I am.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
Nefall
Roughly speaking the Japanese written on the headstone in the small Tokyo graveyard translated as follows. Here lies Shinzo Ito, the man who never fell. Born Oct. 29, 1900, died Sept. 3, 1981. Shinzo is believed to be the only adult on planet earth who never once, from the time of his first steps as a toddler in Nagasaki, to the time of his death in Tokyo, fell out of control down to his knees or worse. He was not a particularly athletic man, nor was he particularly clumsy. He was not particularly intelligent, nor unusually dull. He was not extremely handsome, nor was he considered ugly. He was not rich, nor was he ever poor. In fact, he was average in almost every measurable way, but for one, he never fell once in his life; from the day he drew his first breath to the day he breathed his last, dying peacefully in his sleep at age 81, after lying down under his own power to go to sleep for the night. Shinzo died unaware of his amazing accomplishment. His wife reported that his last words whispered to her as he fell asleep the night of his passing were, goodnight honey, I love you. Shinzo is survied by his wife Anyi, two adult children Akira and Akima and three grandchildren all of whom, like every other adult human known to exist on planet earth, have fallen at least once in their lives.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
