Posts by seattleniceguy

19

Who Skypes here?

by AuldSoul in

jw
friends

.

are there any skypers here?.

auldsoul

Skype is great for long distance calls. You can lease an inbound phone number for about $4 per month (it's 10 Euros for three months), and anyone with a normal telephone can call that number like a normal line. I have a Seattle number, so my friends and family in Seattle can call me in Japan for free to them. Inbound calls to me are covered by the $4 a month. Outbound calls worldwide (to standard phone lines) are about 2 cents per minute, although a few developing nations cost more.

The only downside is that it drops calls now and then, so for business, it's still not quite there. But for keeping in touch, it's great. My total international phone bill is around $10 a month.

SNG

20

New $100 laptop could jump start education in developing world

by seattleniceguy in

jw
friends

the idea: create a crank-powered laptop that children can use to learn and communicate even in remote areas, and give one laptop to every child.. a one-minute cranking session powers the laptop for 10 minutes.

the laptops are outfitted with a wi-fi radio transmitted that allows multiple machines to become a communications mesh that can share internet connections of any member who happens to have one.

at $100, and with assistance from donors, real diffusion into poor and developing nations is made possible.

seattleniceguy

Wow, that's a really cool project, sass!

Regarding Windows on these laptops, I can see cases both for and against. First, presumably Gates would not be looking to make a profit here. Microsoft already donates many millions of dollars worth of software and computers to local schools in the Seattle area. I believe the idea would probably be to donate copies of Windows (probably stripped down for size reasons).

On the for side, it would enable people to easily write and deploy compelling applications for these kids. After all, a computer with no software is pretty useless. Technologies like the .NET Framework make it very easy to develop good applications fast. And the kids would grow up knowing a technology that would be immediately useful in their day-to-day life, should they choose to explore working in cities or developed nations. (Not a slam on Linux - it's just that desktops are obviously ruled by Windows.)

On the against side, Linux plus Java provide a very similar framework for application development, and that combination would definitely be free. Also, there would be some concerns over security update-ability of a system that is not reliably connected to the internet (although it would be a mistake to imagine that Linux and Java are immune to security issues).

Anyway, it's certainly a cool project. I'm excited to see what comes of it!

SNG

24

Did you record your hours in field service correctly?

by free2beme in

jw
friends

i always hated the shepherding call where they asked you to try and spend more time in field service, as they saw your hours turned in were low.

at a young age, i learned how easy it was to just write down what ever felt right.

i spent about 30 hours a month in field service as a pioneer for two years and never had anyone say anything to me.

seattleniceguy

I couldn't do the hour padding thing. It was bad enough that we spent 90% of the time in the car anyway. I was more content taking the personal embarassment of having a lower "score" than notching up my time.

Simply put, the ministry has become a sham for the majority of JW's. Everyone knows those hours published at the end of the year WT are completely fictitious, I mean hell, about 150 of those reported hours are mine and almost all of them were spent doing nothing or very little.

Tell it, brother. I was in the Japanese group, and "service" there was horrible. We created our territories by searching phone books for Japanese names, but the vast majority of places we called at, the person had either moved away or was a second- or third-generation American who couldn't speak Japanese any more than the guy next door. We would drive all over tarnation scratching addresses off our territory cards. If, during the course of an afternoon, someone in the cargroup talked to an actual Japanese person, it was a big deal. I remember an entire month going by where I did not talk to a single person at the door.

The waste of time and resources is simply mind-blowing. Lord, it is good to be out of that madness!

SNG

33

How big is your Ecological Footprint??...

by Frog in

since i have a little too much time up my sleave at present i thought id start a thread on a subject thats dear to my froggy heart.

for starters, here are a couple of links to on-line ecological footprint calculators that only take a couple of minutes to punch in basic data to get back a rough environmental impact assessment on how sustainable your lifestyle is.

sustainability requires decent and equitable living within the means of nature.

seattleniceguy

Frog,

Thanks for your comments. Let me start by agreeing that

I don't think we're really disagreeing in general here.

I guess it's just a question of how we get from here to there.

The global economic system is viewed as inevitable by most, and as such isn't challenged when it should be. [.. and much later...] The north/south divide is firmly entrenched and the chasm growing, cause the global economic system is set-up to keep it that way, for now anyway.

I will definitely have to disagree with you here. Globalization is a good thing for poor countries. I say this at my own pain, because globalization necessarily takes jobs away from countries where labor is expensive and moves it to where labor is cheap. So, for example, in my field, software development is moving to India. But this results in economic prosperity flowing to the place that has less. I accept the loss here because of the long-term benefit to India.

Abstractions aside, the facts show clearly that globalization has had this effect. For example, check out this article in SciAm:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000E4C4C-F093-1304-ABA283414B7F0000

And specifically, check out this sidebar:
alt

While poverty has grown somewhat in certain areas, in absolute numbers it has been in steady decline, even though the population has grown by around 25% since 1981. In other words, in 1981, we had 1.5 billion out of 4.5 billion in poverty, or 1 out of 3. Today, we have 1.1 billion out of 6 billion, or a little more than 1 out of 6. Globalization is definitely helping the situation.

You mention that humans in the developed world aren't prepared to forego the lifestyles they've become so comfortable in. Joking comments made on this thread re-inforce that fact. The point is that without major lifestyle changes, and changes to the way the global economic system is structured, life as we know it into the forseeable future cannot be sustained.

Well, that's just the point. If it can't be sustained, then it won't be, and people will be forced to make the major lifestyle changes you mention. But, activists notwithstanding, your average citizen isn't going to choose to live in a mud hut in order to save energy. However, if suddenly gasoline costs $10 a gallon and electricity from oil costs a dollar per kilowatt-hour, people will be faced with an ultimatum, and that is what will spur the large-scale changes. Fortunately, we do have at least some amount of foresight and there are a lot of brilliant people working on these problems now. I think we're approaching the tipping point.

Viewing technological fixes as the answer, and not balancing that out with a need for mass social change will inevitably lead to irreversable damage that will cause us to eat well into our future.

See, the problem is, you can't legislate an environmental morality. How would this social change be effected? Forcing people to change by decree doesn't go over very well.

Numerous technologies we need to live sustainably have been developed and yet there are too many binds for their thorough implementation. How can we as a species adapt quickly enough to our natural environment when we outright acknowledge that we know so very little about it, and the extent of the impacts we're having on it? I think perhaps that you have greater faith in human intelligence than I do to predict and respond creatively to forces we have little knowledge of, and no real control over.

I wouldn't say I believe that we have the power of incredible foresight. And I recognize that there is a possibility that our mode of life may change drastically if, for example, we do not avert climate change. But I do think that humans are tenaciously clever, and we are very good at finding a way out when we have to. Unfortunately we're not so good at planning far into the future. That's one of the reasons I see market mechanics as a much more reliable way of getting things to happen.

While I believe in egalitarian values gernerally, the idea of the developing world being excused to replicate the mistakes of western industrialisation is just plain stupid. It may be driving the push to renewables because of increased demand on fuels, but isn't it just plain sad that it always has to come down to a narrow view of cost effectiveness.

I'd agree with you there. It seems a bit unfair to ask for the developing nations not to get to do what the developed nations did 100 years ago, but clearly we do have to ask them to make at least some concessions. Perhaps a solution here would be for richer nations to subsidize adoption of cleaner technologies in poorer nations, but that's a political problem, and I'm not very good at politics. :-)

The artificial economic system has become so firmly embedded with our concept of survival, thereby limiting our response to positive change.

But really, there is nothing more natural than economics. Everything is economics. Economics just means spending your resources in the way that seems best for you and your family. From a kid deciding what to buy with his allowance to a mother choosing healthcare options for her pregnancy, every choice people make is driven by economics, cost and benefit. Even non-financial decisions are economical. Should I go to church today? I'd rather stay home and play, but I don't want to burn in hell. Cost-benefit ratio tells me to go to church. The point is, every choice we make is made by considering the costs and benefits. People will not act in a way that costs but does not give them a clear benefit.

Anyway, like you say, I think we're trying to get to the same place, but from different points of view. But hey, that's what makes the world go around. And now I should probably spend several days working to make up for the time I spent on this reply. :-)

SNG

33

How big is your Ecological Footprint??...

by Frog in

since i have a little too much time up my sleave at present i thought id start a thread on a subject thats dear to my froggy heart.

for starters, here are a couple of links to on-line ecological footprint calculators that only take a couple of minutes to punch in basic data to get back a rough environmental impact assessment on how sustainable your lifestyle is.

sustainability requires decent and equitable living within the means of nature.

seattleniceguy

Hey Frog,

The fact is that sure environmental hotspots like depleted ozone, global warming, dimming, rainforest depletion, oceans overfished, coral bleaching etc, have all been hypothesised about for decades now, and predictions haven't always been entirely accurate, but surely the point is that while the risks we can take cannot be measured surely the intelligent thing to do is to be conservative.

My point is not that the predictions are inaccurate. The reason they don't come true is that the realities force us to change. Case in point: The November 2005 Scientific American contains an article on the ozone hole. It is no longer growing. Awesome news! In response to the situation, we changed, so (fortunately) the dire forecasts of death and destruction will not come to pass.

Humans only change in very large ways when the situation requires them to. We aren't going to stop using oil until it's not cost-effective anymore. We're starting to approach that point now, which is spurring an intense drive for the next fuel source. Again, this is very cool. And it's a simple product of supply and demand.

When more people consume limited resources, there are fewer resources available for everyone. China and India ramping up their oil use takes away oil from the US. It doesn't invoke another planet and start sucking oil from there.

The test doesn't seem to take this into account. We have only one pie. The way it gets sliced is changing. Ironically, increased consumption from developing countries is hastening our need to move to a new energy source.

Sorry SNG, but your comments sound like those of the bogus in denial climatologists working for the big fossil fuel lobbies of the US.

Well, I think you're misreading me. Clearly, there are some big challenges ahead of us. But a variety of factors are converging which give me hope that things are going to work out: The developing world is developing. The global economy is lifting nations out of poverty. The internet is bringing education and information to the world. And our oil is running out.

In the long term, I think we will see fossil fuels as the necessary evil that powered us into the technology and information age. Fortunately, we got there just about the time we ran out of fossil fuels. Fortunately, because of the technology and information that the fossil fuels brought about, we had enough smart people thinking about the problem that we were able to transition into the next fuel source before we completely ran out of steam.

I guess I see it as inevitable that we will change and that the entire world will, within this century, be living at the quality of life that the Western world enjoys.

SNG

41

If spirits exist, and really communicate with some people, then why...

by AlmostAtheist in

jw
friends

if spirits really exist, and really communicate with some people, then why don't the people ever ask anything that anyone cares about?!?!.

"when did you die?".

"did you own any pets?".

seattleniceguy

LT,

Unless you're working under the assumption that "spirits" are omnipresent, omniscient and genuinely want to pass on something meaningful, why on earth should they work any differently?

Yeah, but the thing is, Dave's contention is not that spirits should know everything. It's just that, from most accounts, they don't seem to know much of anything.

I can sit down with any stranger and, provided that the stranger is amiable, have a nice conversation, learn new things, exchange ideas, and so on. I'm willing to accept the premise that spirits can pick and choose their associates. And I could accept that there are some smart spirits and some dumb ones. I could certainly accept that, like humans, there are friendly ones and mean-spirited (hee hee) ones. I have no problem with that.

The people I have known who have claimed to have spirit encounters were either high at the time, or are clearly insane. Shouldn't we expect at least some of the time that friendly and knowledgeable spirits would have a nice lucid dialog with a normal person? If I can talk to a normal old human and gain totally novel information, surely a being who has been somewhere I have never been could offer some interesting tidbits. Why do they only talk to crazy or stoned people?

It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

SNG

20

New $100 laptop could jump start education in developing world

by seattleniceguy in

jw
friends

the idea: create a crank-powered laptop that children can use to learn and communicate even in remote areas, and give one laptop to every child.. a one-minute cranking session powers the laptop for 10 minutes.

the laptops are outfitted with a wi-fi radio transmitted that allows multiple machines to become a communications mesh that can share internet connections of any member who happens to have one.

at $100, and with assistance from donors, real diffusion into poor and developing nations is made possible.

seattleniceguy

The idea: Create a crank-powered laptop that children can use to learn and communicate even in remote areas, and give one laptop to every child.

A one-minute cranking session powers the laptop for 10 minutes. The laptops are outfitted with a Wi-fi radio transmitted that allows multiple machines to become a communications mesh that can share internet connections of any member who happens to have one. At $100, and with assistance from donors, real diffusion into poor and developing nations is made possible. This would enable children who are not able to attend school, for example, to learn on their own and teach each other.

Got to admit, it's getting better.

SNG

http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/16/technology/laptop_fortune/

33

How big is your Ecological Footprint??...

by Frog in

since i have a little too much time up my sleave at present i thought id start a thread on a subject thats dear to my froggy heart.

for starters, here are a couple of links to on-line ecological footprint calculators that only take a couple of minutes to punch in basic data to get back a rough environmental impact assessment on how sustainable your lifestyle is.

sustainability requires decent and equitable living within the means of nature.

seattleniceguy

I did this test about a year ago and of course despite my best efforts I had a wickedly Western score of something like 3 or 4 planets. However, I've been thinking about this a bit more and I believe there is a major flaw in the underlying logic.

Take a look at the guilt-inducing score line:

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 6.2 PLANETS.

Actually, that's not true. We don't have 6.2 planets. We have one planet. There is no possible way to consume 6.2 planets' worth of resources. So if everyone were actually living like this person, it would mean one of two things: 1) that the footprint calculation was wrong, or 2) that we figured out better technology that allowed everyone to live at the "6.2 planet" standard-of-living while consuming less resources.

Personally, I believe that both will probably be true. Since politics are necessarily involved, the numbers are probably inflated. At the very least, when in doubt, they probably erred on the side of more resource consumption.

But think about the problem from a simple supply-and-demand viewpoint. The supply is set in stone. There is only so much resource availability. As demand grows (as it is in developing nations, especially India and China), the way the pie is sliced will change, but the total resource consumption can never exceed exactly 1.0 planets' worth. Since the already-developed world will not want to accept a decrease in standard-of-living, it will force us to find new and better technologies.

It's kind of like those dire predictions you read all the time in news magazines: "At the current rate of destruction, there will be no ozone layer left by the year 2005." If you look at 20-year-old copies of Time or Newsweek, you're certain to find scores of such predictions that didn't actually occur. The reason is simply that the reality forces us to change our rate of consumption/destruction/etc.

Obviously, consumer activism and education is one important way of changing our consumption habits. But I think that simple supply and demand will work much more effectively (and without the need for coordinated intervention) to accomplish the same thing in the long run.

SNG <------------ of the "one planet" class

26

Ouija Board

by Inquisitor in

has anyone ever played with an ouija board?.

is the game as dangerous as has been suggested by the wts all this while?

wts seems confident that all inexplicable events associated with the game comes from a supernatural source, and not a psychological one.

seattleniceguy

Bstndance,

an experiment as logical as Seattle's is the equivalent of throwing yourself off a building and saying "if there is a god, he'll save me" ain't gonna happen whether there is a god or not.

Not really. Your experiment could certainly prove God's existence if he chose to act, but no one is claiming that God routinely saves building-jumpers, so if he failed to act, it would not really tell us anything except that another one bit the dust, as usual. On the other hand, Ouija board believers do claim that spirits routinely provide actual information through the board. That claim can easily be tested.

The experiment is designed to prevent you from tricking yourself. For example, if one of the operators chooses a number in his own mind, it would be no big surprise if the Ouija board then magically produces that number, since part of the control is coming from the person who chose the number. Or he might say that the board correctly produced the number even if it's only in the general range, because obviously that's a more exciting answer. Most of us have experienced the part of us that spontaneously changes bits of a story to make it more exciting. Writing the numbers down and having the writers and the operators work separately prevents this type of cheating. That's all.

SWALKER

SNG...I have a close friend who would form a question in his mind and the Ouija Board operator would not know a question was even being asked and the Board would spell out the answer. The operator then asked "I wonder what that means" and this person said "It's the answer to the question I was just thinking." [...] This person has never lied to me and is most trustworthy, so I tend to believe it.

That type of anecdotal evidence is certainly interesting. And I'm sure that your friend is sincere and personally believes the effect to be real. But again, when you're with friends, and you're having fun, and you're trying to see some paranormal effect, and perhaps you have a bit of a nervous curiosity about spirits, there is a lot of environmental pressure to see something there. That's not to say that in such an environment it would be impossible to see things accurately. But it does suggest that there is the possibility for stories to become exaggerated, even un- or semi-consciously. My experiment is designed to remove that type of ambiguity.

...some could get it to work and others couldn't. Maybe some people just don't have the MAGIC TOUCH!

It's certainly possible. That's the beauty of the experiment. I personally do not need to have it work for me. I'd be more than content to see it work for anyone. Seriously, if you could pass this experiment and I could verify that you hadn't cheated, I'd become a believer overnight. And I think it would be spectacularly interesting. But, alas, I fear there is nothing there but our own subconscious expectations and fears.

John Doe,

I don't believe in this stuff either, but can you see an irony in your last paragraph?

Umm...I'm not sure exactly, unless you're suggesting that "rigorous method" could be a clever way to trick ourselves. :-) I know you're only joking, but just for the sake of clarifying, the best-designed experiments are simple and straightforward. This experiment is extraordinarily straightforward. The only "rigor" would come in making sure the participants didn't cheat.

SNG

26

Ouija Board

by Inquisitor in

has anyone ever played with an ouija board?.

is the game as dangerous as has been suggested by the wts all this while?

wts seems confident that all inexplicable events associated with the game comes from a supernatural source, and not a psychological one.

seattleniceguy

I don't know what it is about humans, but they're crazy about being freaked out. The Ouija board is one of those things that people love to be scared of. Personally, I don't believe in spirits for much of the same reasons that AlmostAtheist mentioned.

But, for those that do believe and have a Ouija board handy, I'm going to give you a simple experiment that could conclusively prove the reality of spirits. (I've posted this on other threads, so I apologize to the people who have already seen this before.) You can do this with three people, and as long as you perform it carefully, you could potentially provide strong, concrete evidence of supernatural communication forces. Here's what you do:

Have a friend who will not be manipulating or viewing the Ouija board write down five numbers between 1 and 100 on a piece of paper and leave it face up on the other side of the room where it would presumably be visible to any spirits in the room, but not to the Ouija board operators. This friend should never be able to view the board, lest she unwittingly give the operators hints when they get close to the right numbers.
The operators ask the Ouija board what the numbers are. The operators should write their answers down without saying anything aloud.
After completing the list, compare the the two lists.

This should be easy information for spirits to give you if they exist. If they are really directing your hands, it should be trivially easy to get all the numbers right, and in the correct order. A series of five numbers between 1 and 100 would be sufficient to rule out any possibility of merely having guessed right, as those odds would be 1 in 10,000,000,000. Therefore, this would constitute powerful evidence that the spirits are real. On the other hand, if they can't even muster the clarity of thought to tackle this simple task, I think you should seriously look at alternative explanations for what you believe you saw before.

If you do this experiment, it is critically important that you follow the steps exactly as outlined. Humans are very clever at tricking themselves. These steps prevent that from happening. If you can reliably get some results (perhaps you make friends with a cooperative spirit?), by all means let me know. I'd be willing to travel anywhere in the world to see such phenomena actually working. However, I have the feeling that when subjected to rigorous method, the Ouija board will unfortunately fail to produce any effect.

Happy testing, and let me know what you find!

SNG