Circuit Assembly Bklyn NY -Saturday 4/6/02

by worf 29 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Bodhisattva

  JT -

  If you mean that baptism is down to one third of the goal, i.e. three instead of nine, then there has been about a 67% reduction. The construction "three times fewer" is also acceptable to express one third as many. The expression "300% drop" - or any decrease greater than 100% - is not possible when something expresses only magnitude. I once saw a mattress ad touting "300% less" dust mites. Of course, 100% less than any number would be zero dust mites, which is ideal, but they really meant one third as many, or three times less. If you jumped from 5,000 dust mites to -10,000 dust mites, a 300% reduction, the question would be what is a negative dust mite? And jokes could follow.

  Of course if instead of nine being baptized, three are baptized and twenty-one announce their disassociation at the same assembly, then you would have a net loss of eighteen, or a 300% drop in the increase!

  BluesBrother: Heard about 1 only at Buckingham, PA within the last couple years.
• 

  Dawn

  TweetieBird - just give them another 5 years and they'll move on up to saying a 4 year degree is ok, but don't go any further than that!! See...it's a gradual stepping - they can't throw out major changes or they'll scare the flock. So they gradually (brain washing here...) move towards the "new light".

  As for the college education discussion going on. I also gave up the chance to go to college out of high school because that was not the thing to do. I was going to get married and pioneer full-time. So here I am, many years later. I have a good career, but am topped out until I go back and get my bachelor's degree.

  The only saving grace...my teenage son has seen what happens when you DON'T have a degree and thinks the JW's are crazy for discouraging college. And fortunately, I have been able to save enough to send him so he won't be up against the same walls I am.
• 

  singsongboi

  1. yes! i have been to a CA in the past - it was some place in south west NSW in oz.. and no one presented for baptism -- would have been in the 1960's.

  the baptism talk was re-cast as a reminder of what baptism meant to those present...

  2. kids at college!! better than you think nathan! i took a year off, 2 years ago and went to a TAFE college in sydney... to do a course. most of the kids were great- really wanted to get on...

  and i also work with a gay support group here in sydney -- most of the young guys are studying in university, and get a lot fo support from other members who are university lecturers...

  these kids are smart and progressive.

  i know there are some like u (probably humourously) described...but most are not.
• 

  TheStar

  Worf,

  Thanks for sharing. I only wish I had this on video tape or cassette tape so that I could mail it to the elder that told me my husband was sinning for going to the University. I'd love to shove this in his face.

  Dawn,

  I'm against that wall too and fear the stress of working and going back to college. I'm not lazy but I just don't need the stress in my life right now and at the same time I so desperately would like to get a bachelors degree. God if I had only opened my eyes sooner.
• 

  JBean

  Dawn & TheStar: I hear ya! I just started back part-time at night... I figured I just have to take a deep breath and do it NOW... or else I might NEVER finish the degree! It's a lot of fun if you can schedule it in... I almost forgot how much I really liked school! : )
• 

  SYN

  Xander: I wasn't saying that people who go to college are stupid! All I was trying to say is that the money paid is usually too much for what they teach you, and that teaching yourself is ONE OPTION. College is nice if you have the $$$, but my tirade was mainly against people who charge extortionary prices for things like "Microsoft Word Fundamentals" and "How to use the Left Mouse Button, Slowly Now" and "How To Read Them Computar Pages Thingies" courses.

  It really is such an amazingly beautiful series of interlocking systems that comprise what a human is. It's too bad we're working backwards from the object code, everything would be simpler with the source and a comment or three thrown in.
• 

  Shimmer

  I went to an assembly in Seattle or Tacoma (I can't remember which one) in 1987 or 1988 where nobody got baptized. They still gave the talk and said what the questions would have been had anyone been getting baptized.

  Shimmer

  Maybe being oneself is alway an acquired taste.-----PATRICIA HAMPL
• 

  Xander

  Well, SYN, over here, teaching yourself is NOT an option. At least in my area. Doesn't matter how many years of experience you have, doesn't matter that you could do the task at hand in your sleep better than all of the company's current employees. Without that little slip of paper saying you spent the money to go to school for x number of years, you get crap for jobs.

  Unfortunately, college is not just 'nice if you have the $$$'. Yeah, it takes a lot of money which is why I'm not going to a 4-year school right now - I hope to later (I had a scholarship, but had to turn it down - was going to be in bethel in 2 years, you know...)

  You just end up working your ass off to get through it, since you NEED the degree to get a decent job. Which is why I get a little peevish at people who keep dismissing it. You just TRY and get decent pay here without a degree!

  And, in any case, those courses you mentioned are targetted at people who've never used a computer before (since all colleges now require computer usage quite heavily in all classes). The actual degree courses you take get to be rather difficult.

  Xander F
  (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America - Ohio order)

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
• 

  Prisca

  I admire anyone who enrolls into a uni course later in life. It's not easy getting back into the studying mode. I'm one of those who was told to forsake tertiary education because it was getting too involved with the world. "Why join a company that's going out of business?" was the popular catch-cry then.

  At present, I don't have the resources to do a course, and quite frankly I wouldn't know what course to do, because I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.
• 

  JT

  JT -
  If you mean that baptism is down to one third of the goal, i.e. three instead of nine, then there has been about a 67% reduction. The construction "three times fewer" is also acceptable to express one third as many. The expression "300% drop" - or any decrease greater than 100% - is not possible when something expresses only magnitude. I once saw a mattress ad touting "300% less" dust mites. Of course, 100% less than any number would be zero dust mites, which is ideal, but they really meant one third as many, or three times less. If you jumped from 5,000 dust mites to -10,000 dust mites, a 300% reduction, the question would be what is a negative dust mite? And jokes could follow.

  88888

  point well taken