Posts by MeanMrMustard

170

Sign this petition - Investigation On Jehovahs Witnesses Religious Policy That Violates Human Rights and Abuses Religious Freedom

by TJ Curioso in

launch an investigation on jehovahs witnesses religious policy that violates human rights and abuses religious freedom.

link.

MeanMrMustard

"Most of us are here b/c we are not going to shut up and go away. Did YOU go away and shut up? NO you started the biggest Xjws board on the net. Maybe you have forgotten what we all came here for?"

Starting a forum is very very very INCREDIBLY different than trying to change the situation by law. You don't have to leave the WT "alone" and "just SHUT UP AND GO AWAY"; however, trying to create a petition to get some sort of legal action 1) won't work, and 2) if it did, would have incredibly bad side-effects.

MMM

170

Sign this petition - Investigation On Jehovahs Witnesses Religious Policy That Violates Human Rights and Abuses Religious Freedom

by TJ Curioso in

launch an investigation on jehovahs witnesses religious policy that violates human rights and abuses religious freedom.

link.

MeanMrMustard

" It's a real irony that they're violating human rights by their cruel policies while they're making petitions to the K-Gov. for them to be treated better in human rights."

What "human right" are they violating? Can you define it?

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

The case of the missing A.T. Johnson could indeed be due to a disfellowshipping; I know that photos have been altered or replaced when they contain people that get DFed (like a kid who was used because he was considered a good example of a young Witness, who then turned out not to be :-). It could also be something as mundane as needing to keep the index to a certain number of pages and thinking, "No one is going to want to look up this Johnson guy from 1989".

I think he was DFed... :) There were two other guys mentioned in the articles. Their index entry wasn't removed between 2011 and 12.

BTW, how is your big project going? :)

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

@babystar_jr:

You got it!

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

@LQ: Got it! Sendspace was giving me issues there for a while, but it finally uploaded.

Sending link now in PM...

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

@slii:

Great story.

As it turns out, the NWT compare project did show the full extent of the differences - and they are extensive. However, there have been some benefits out of it. For example, we knew going into it that the NWT translation committee decided to drop brackets around words they inserted for "clarity" in the 1983 version. The diff log in the database could be used to see a list of all the words that were previously bracketed in the 1983 version, but now are no longer bracketed.

Comparing the JW texts from different years might be a useful tool here too.

And that is why I changed my focus the WTLIB itself. From year-to-year, other than the new documents (because you expect that to be different), what changes? That is an interesting question indeed.

...so I proposed that we schedule the meetings beforehand. I think they just might have read a bit too much into that :-)

Ha ha... are they coming all the time now to study that book? They should - someone could report a Bible study on their time card.

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

@leaving_quietly:

I can upload my database again. The sendspace link expired. The DB is about 135 MB. It contains both versions, and all the diff lists. It also contains the HTML markup of the diffs in verse-by-verse form and well as in book form.

It is not MySQL, however. It is SQL Server 2008. Are you ok with that?

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

This is /must be a fascinating topic , I only wish I knew what your all talking about.

Can somebody please explain in simple lay-mans terms what it all means ?

I`m sure us less technical / computer illiterates would love to know what your all so excited about . Pardon my ignorance.

smiddy

What slii is doing is a lot more complicated. But the short description is this: The thread starts out with the intent of taking the the 1983 and the 2013 version of the NWT and comparing them. We all know that they were thinking of sneaking in some changes, and we wanted to find out what the full extent of the changes might be. After all, they might change the text of scripture in more ways to support their doctrine - we call all see that happening, and so we wanted to employ the services of a computer to find the changes.

It started out trying to get the 2013 text from a PDF file, but eventually we got it from the web (which was a lot easier). Until the WTB&TS put the 2013 on the web, we were trying to get the text of the new version from the PDF and then from the android app. The day they put the 2013 version on the web was the day I cracked the andrioid app encrpytion and compression. I did this by following the decomiled java code from the app.

After we had the text from both versions of the NWT, I ran it through a diff algorithm and then created the two PDFs.

Now slii is trying to crack the format of the PUB files in the WTLIB. That is definitely a difficult task, and it would be cool if he pulls it off. I went ahead and took the easy way out and got the entire WTLIB content through the WTLIB itself by creating a program to automate a human-like behavoir of clicking each item in the wtlib one at a time and then copying the translated content (by the wtlib program itself) into a text file, one for each topic the wtlib itself lists. It's like those DVD manufacturers in the early 2000s coming up with a DVD format that could only be read by special DVD players, and thinking that they have thwarted the pirates - only to realize (too late I might add), that they would simply buy the new DVD player and plug it into the back of their computer and make a video that way.

Anyhow, more to come soon.

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

uber-geek-speak.

Most definitely. You know you like it.

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

" I guess I'm trying to figure out the format mostly out of curiosity; I agree it's likely to be much easier to get to the texts just by scripting."

That is why I am doing this too. Curiosity and I want to see if I can do it. There are some things I want to do with the text too. I did complete my automation program and it seems to have dumped out the text for the entire thing just fine - although it took about 8 hours. I did this for the 2011 and 2012 version. I have a preliminary diff going. Just some minor differences so far (still in baby stages). But interestingly enough, it seems that in the 2011 index there was an entry for a man A.T. Johnson - who was mentioned as having outstanding service in the Grenada (yb89). In the 2012 version the man is still listed in the text but his name is removed from the publication index. Wonder if he got DFed.???

In any case, that is the kind of thing I am after. I want to see what happens when I compare every entry in 2011 with 2012 and see where the differences pop up... see what they remove... what they perhaps put in??? I've ony done a few documents so far. When I complete the program, I'll let it run the entire thing through.

In any case, the automation app turned out to be somewhat of a pain. The WTLIB has a memory leak. You can see it if you watch the memory as you browse articles and topics in the library. The thing is, the average user never actually causes an out-of-memory crash because you have to visit thousands of articles- and by the time you get the info you need for your stupid bible reading, you close the WTLIB. It became obvious as I went through and tried to hit each node in the WTLib. I had to code a restart - when it crashed I had to restart it and then find the place where I left off and keep going. The WT coders probably didn't want to bother figuring out how to free all the memory needed to read the format you are trying to hack! :) They are sloppy coders.

MMM