Zixar

Ummm....yeah...I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Raf. Figures of speech are emphatic in all forms of communication. Now as to whether or not VPW's swiping of Bullinger's particular conclusions from those figures of speech are valid, that's quite a different story. The statement itself, however, is not an error, actual or interpretational.

Would it surprise you to find out the reason big screens suck at being computer monitors is that they're generally optimized for the NTSC television signal, which only has a resolution of (get this) 352x288? The reason you don't notice the horrible resolution on a TV is because it uses truly-analog color. Not just 24 million colors, but all of them. Computers use superior resolution to cover up the subtle, but discrete limitations of digital color.

Not sure about beer additives...I know some folks are sensitive to the sulfites in wines, but I don't think that's the case with beer. Personally, I think BHA and BHT got a bad rap when they were discontinued. Oh well.I think a big difference may have to do with the prevalence of a single food item in American culinary culture--french fries. In the Weight Watchers POINTS book, you can eat two whole Wendy's "Single" hamburgers for less points than one Single and an order of fries. Potatoes of any sort send your blood sugar higher than if you ate pure table sugar itself, (i.e., potatoes and white rice both have a glycemic index greater than 100) and to add all the grease from frying to that is just asking for trouble. Unfortunately, like all good little Americans, I love the damned things. It's the hardest food for me to cut out when I'm dieting, but also the food whose removal causes the most dramatic effect on my weight. I lost 15 lbs in 3 months just by switching to Diet Coke and cutting out fries at lunch.

Goey: Might be worth cross-checking that in the Septuagint.

Mike, Perhaps looking at a wider focus instead of the bar mitzvah issue will help: Has it occurred to you that PFAL doesn't have to be inerrant or God-breathed to be useful? That's really why we're torquing your lugnuts. There are a few pro-Wierwille folks here who think that PFAL was fantastic and that VPW was completely innocent of all the charges leveled against him. Not many, but there are a few. None of them, however, has gone so far as to claim that PFAL is direct revelation from God. I never even heard that during the "all-is-well" years. Wierwille himself never claimed PFAL came straight from God, so it's just unfathomable how you came up with that idea. Several folks have demonstrated that not everything VPW said was true. That's okay, he didn't have to be perfect. When he wrote “...every word I have written to you is true.” it's genuinely what he believed, but we've found out that a lot of words weren't. If you want to study Wierwille's stuff for the rest of your life, be my guest. If you take it as equivalent to the Word, though, you will be sorely deceived. Since we know not everything he wrote was true, the honest thing to do is to go back, research everything again and see what really is true and what isn't. I've done this myself with Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed. It checks out, you can punch the dates into any computer astronomy program and see that the planetary positions really are just what JCOPS says. Great! Now that's one more thing I can move into the "true" column. Remember the verse about the refiner's fire? Purified seven times and so on? Outside verification is just refining the gold from the dross. You want to live the truth; that's admirable. Real truth has nothing to fear from test and scrutiny. The Pythagorean Theorem really does hold true for all planar right triangles. Test and measure over and over again, with a billion different instances, and it doesn't change the truth of the Theorem one bit. If all of what Wierwille wrote in PFAL was direct from God, it should be absolutely unfalsifiable. It isn't. If some of what Wierwille wrote was from God and some was from human error, then we absolutely have to examine everything bit by bit to separate the two, without the fear that the scrutiny will expose something we don't want to believe. I'll leave you with this thought: if VPW was taking dictation from God, then there would be no need to "master" PFAL. Wierwille would have said what he meant and meant what he said, in our language, so that there could be no misunderstandings in our day and time. Hence, all we would have to do is "read" it.

Good grief, Sudo, using your logic, I should "tolerate" those people who still think human sacrifice is a good idea, too. Tolerance and acceptance are not synonymous. You tolerate a screaming child on an airplane, but it's not something you'd necessarily approve of or encourage. I would have an easier time accepting Mike's beliefs if he could at least back up what he's saying with the thought process that led up to it, and had any sort of credible defense for the process under challenge. I'm not asking for irrefutable proof of his entire belief system, just for validation of some of the points that are verifiable. It's like trinitarians--at least they can point to verses like "my Lord and my God" to show where they're coming from, even though their conclusion is debatable. Ditto with the Friday-Sunday "three days and three nights" bit. Mike has reduced his claim now to just the PFAL Foundational book as being God-breathed, not the IC or the AdvC, so he's not entirely immovable. Yet, he still refuses to entertain the possibility that anything in the orange book is a factual error. I'm not talking about differences of opinion or interpretation questions, I'm talking Rafael's "actual" factual errors. Wierwille says illegitimate Jewish boys were bar mitzvah-ed at twelve. Hope finds a Jewish text that shows Wierwille's statement to be extremely unlikely, if not impossible. Mike cannot produce anything to bolster Wierwille's claim except his own belief that the orange book was God-breathed, yet it is certainly a point that is not open to interpretation. If it's right, there should be something other record to at least support the claim, even if his other supporting text were debatable too. As for the Noah account you bring up, you're building a straw man to attack. You don't even know what I believe about it, but you throw it in my face as if it were some sort of smoking gun of my hypocrisy. Frankly, I think it's hypocritical for you to be intolerant of my beliefs while at the same time accusing me of intolerance!

This is ridiculous. I can just imagine someone's math class: M: The Pythagorean Theorem is false, a subtle twisting of mathematics for evil purposes by unsuspecting orthodox mathematicians. Z: Wow! Where'd you hear that? M: Professor W wrote it in his math textbook. Z: Did he prove it? M: Certainly, he wrote it, and it took him forty years to come up with it. Z: Um, no, I mean, did he give an example of why it was false? M: Sure, Chapter 9, Problem 2: "If we llok at a triangle that has each side 6 feet long and apply Pythagoras' False Theorem, we find out that 6 squared plus 6 squared should equal the other side squared. Since 6 squared is 36, that would make Pythagoras' Theorem say that 36 + 36 = 36, when any fool can see that the answer is 72." Z: Um, dude, Prof. W misspelled "look". M: So? That was a proofreader error. Professor W's book is perfect as it was written ORIGINALLY, you see. Z: So the Pythagorean theorem of a^2 + b^2 = c^2 is false? M: Certainly. Irrefutably so. Professor W spent forty years writing it, and I spent five years reading it, so it is unquestionably true. Z: Uhh...here's a triangle whose sides are 3, 4, and 5 feet long. 3 squared is 9, 4 squared is 16, and 5 squared is 25. Now the last time I looked, 9 + 16 = 25. M: See, that's only an APPARENT contradiction, if you read Professor W's book FAITHFULLY and MASTER it, you'll see it is no contradiction at all. Z: Huh? Here's another, with sides 5, 12, and 13 feet long. Are you going to tell me that 25 + 144 does not equal 169? M: Only if 36 plus 36 doesn't equal 36! {laughs condescendingly} Z: But 36 + 36 doesn't equal 36... M: EXACTLY! See? That's just what Prof. W wrote!!! Praise Math! Z: So you're telling me that 25 + 144 is not equal to 169, then. M: It's as clear as the nose on your neck! Z: You do realize that Pythagoras' Theorem only applies to right triangles, ones that have at least one 90-degree right angle in them? M: I've heard that, yes. Z: Then you see that Prof' W's example could not have been a right triangle? If all three sides are 6 feet long, then all interior angles are only 60 degrees. It's an equilateral triangle. M: Doesn't matter. 36 + 36 never equals 36! Z: Pythagoras never said it did! M: Don't get hostile...here, read Professor W's glorious book again and you'll see he's right. Z: Changing the subject, what's 69 - 44? M: Uhhh...25. Z: So that makes 25 + 44 + 100 = 69 + 100? M: You're trying to trick me. Professor W wrote that there would be some who would deceive the enlightened ones. Z: Do you believe everything you read? M: Only if it's that book by Professor W, that's the only one that the brain of Isaac Newton communicated to him across time via painstaking research in his bathtub with a rubber duck. Z: Isaac Newton....right. M: Are you trying to tell me you know more about mathematics than the great Isaac Newton? Z: Isaac Newton knew what 25 + 144 is, I'll bet. M: Professor W never recorded what Isaac Newton thought 25 + 144 was, so we cannot guess. Z: Sheesh....okay, what's 9 + 16 then? M: Uhhh...25. Z: So if 9 is 3 squared, and 16 is 4 squared, and 25 is 5 squared, then 3 squared plus 4 squared equals 5 squared, right? M: You just don't understand math like Professor W did. Z: I certainly hope not, thank God... M: Thank who? Z: Never mind...

Mike. Look. I'll say this s-l-o-w-l-y. I'll even bold it for you. Unless you can independently verify a piece of Wierwille's research, especially those he claims he got from another source, you DO NOT KNOW WHICH BITS ARE FITS AND WHICH ARE ACs. Wierwille made mistakes in his research. This is not opinion, this is demonstrable fact. Since he was NOT infallible, his work alone is NOT sufficient proof for his doctrines. READ THIS CAREFULLY: If you can independently verify a piece of Wierwille's research, then that piece, and that piece alone is credible. It will probably shock the hell out of you to find out that even Rafael Olmeda doesn't reject ALL of Wierwille's doctrines. Matter of fact, he went through every chapter of the blue book and pointed out what was RIGHT in them as well as what was wrong. He's a lot more objective in the matter than most people here, believe it or not. Do not be so blind in your worship of Wierwille that you swallow a lie of the Adversary.

The charge is clear to everyone but you, Mike, but I'll give you some help. Wierwille says illegimate Jewish boys were bar mitzvahed at 12. To successfully uphold Wierwille's finding, producing any of the following will suffice: - Any Old Testament scripture that directs Israel to do this. (Don't waste your time, it's not there.) - Any Jewish tradition record like from the Talmud. - Any secular record of the time, like from Josephus. - Any book apart from TWI publications that supports this theory could only help. Please produce a title, author, and ISBN number if available.

Congratulations you guys! Good show!

John: POPFile works by analyzing the occurrence of all words in emails you throw into the various buckets. It learns quickly how to classify emails before passing them on to Outlook. What you do is set up folders in your inbox with the various bucket names. I have Personal, Spam, Good-Ads, and Porn set up as examples. The first time I get a batch of emails, POPFile just passes them through, but keeps a record of them. You log into the POPFile process and sort them how you would classify them. The next time you get emails, it tries to classify them. You go into POPFile again and correct any it misclassified, and so on. It doesn't take many iterations of the process to build up a surprisingly accurate classification system. I think I've gone through 30 emails and it already has a 79% success rate which will only go up with time. Even closely-related categories, like my "Good-Ads" and "Spam" are no problem for POPFile. It learns I want to keep Amazon ads in Good-Ads and Buy.com ads in Spam. This is all without setting up all those message rules that only look for specific words. You train POPFile a little, and it sorts through everything before it even hits your Outlook rules. Once you have the accuracy good enough, you reroute unwanted mails to the trash can instead of their own folder. I don't have to block every African country now to get rid of those annoying "let me transfer $25 million through you" scams. POPFile learns the similarity between Senegal and Sierra Leone all by itself. Extremely cool! :)-->

WordWolf: Galadriel now gives Merry and Pippin elf-knives in the restored Gift scene in the Green Box Edition of FOTR.

You know, you could even run the GSC archives through it and tell if certain posters used to use other handles by analyzing new posts... :D--> Bayesian analysis--math that is actually good for something! :)-->

It's definitely how American food is constituted. I had a friend in college from Italy, and he looked like a GQ model. That boy could go into a restaurant and eat three complete meals with dessert. (no lie--I saw him do it.) He could eat an entire loaf of sandwiches. I outweighed him by 50 pounds, but I couldn't keep up in sheer consumption. He wasn't particularly athletic, although he did play rugby from time to time. Giulio said they ate like that all the time in Italy. By the time I left college though, he'd gained forty pounds. The difference between Italian and American foods did him in. Food for thought, Zix :)-->

Serotonin-altering antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil, Effexor, etc., can curb carbohydrate cravings. Start with small changes rather than going whole-hog to start. Skip the fries, switch to diet drinks, leave the cheese off that hamburger. If you get a baked potato, use the sour cream and throw away the butter. You're much more likely to have success with gradual eating habit changes than sudden ones. Don't eat when you aren't hungry. Don't watch the clock for lunchtime, let your stomach tell you. If you get hungry at 10am, eat a snack, then go to lunch at 1 or 2. Half a piece of pie tastes exactly the same as a whole piece of pie. The Weight Watchers POINTS system can really work, but you have to be willing to keep up with the record-keeping and the cost.

Garth: I'm surprised how fast it "learns." I set up different buckets for Personal, Good-Ads, Spam, and Porn emails, and POPFile is already at about 70% accuracy with only twelve emails sorted. It just gets better as it goes. Very neat!

Dot: No, I was referring to Yanagisawa's lament over being mistaken for Tim Curry.

I found a new spam killer last night called POPFile. It's an email proxy server that filters messages by content using Bayesian analysis techniques. You have to train it, telling which emails you want to filter into what categories, but it learns surprisingly fast how to categorize email based on the content. You don't have to set up a block list or filter specific words and all their misspellings, POPFile scans the headers and HTML source if any and uses that for more analysis. As each message comes in, you move the mis-sorted ones into their proper "buckets" and the program learns to watch for words common among spam, porn, your personal friends, whatever. It's free. www.sourceforge.net/projects/popfile

You might also check with your vet. Sometimes a vet will have a stray or an abandoned animal living in the office. We got our two oldest cats, Sunny and Buster, from a vet when we had to have a kitten put to sleep. (Feline Infectious Peritonitis--deadly.) Sunny was a stray and Buster had been abandoned--which was odd, since he's the most easy-to-get-along-with cat I've ever had. My wife only wanted Sunny at first, but I guilted her into getting Buster as well, since they were now playmates. She didn't think she could handle two cats in the house. We now have FIVE... :)--> The vet gave them all their shots and neutered them for free because we gave them a good home. They're now happy and healthy.

At least they don't think of you as the doctor from Hunt For Red October...or Mr. French from UPN's revival of Family Affair...

I think Andy Serkis really deserves at least an Oscar nom for his portrayal of Smeagol/Gollum, since he did really act the whole thing with the other actors in a motion-capture/greenscreen suit.

Of course, a REAL geek would roll his own LED controller... :)-->

Dot: "Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar..." Sigmund Freud. :)-->

Dot: It's like searching for meaning in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"--there really isn't any. Unlike "Monty Python's Life of Brian", which explored the silliness of blind faith in anything, Holy Grail was just one big long MP skit. Same with RHPS. It's just meant to be a farce, poking fun at self-important Hollywood musicals and ridiculous B-movies at the same time. No deep meaning, just silly fun.

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, And other science facts (la-la-la!) Just repeat to yourself 'It's just a show... I should really just relax'...--Opening theme to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" Rocky Horror was originally a British stage musical, written by the actor who plays Riff Raff in the film. It's just a farce really, nothing more. It's really more of a filmgoing experience than a decent film in its own right. The audience is frequently funnier than the dialogue, and the whole thing is best thought of as one tremendous in-joke. Watching it on DVD, you may feel it's a waste of time. Seeing it in a theater with a bunch of silly folks participating is fun.