Posts by SydBarrett

50

To All Those Keen To Tell Us About Their Beliefs

by Simon in

we seem to have had an influx of religiots - the people who want to tell us all about how we / the wts / whoever are wrong, wrong, wrong about everything and how right they are.

they obviously have special insight, or voices (probably voices, right?

) telling them the real truth.. as proof, there is inevitably a wall of random scripture references and quotes.. sorry, but we're not here for that.

SydBarrett

Riley , l felt quite depressed by your comments about Evangelical Christians.
Are you American? , the use of the word Evangelical makes me think so .

I don't know if he is American, but I would guess he was using 'Evangelical' from an American or at least North American point of view.

In America it is kind of a catch all term for a certain type of poorly educated, extremely conservative religious busybody, intent on foisting their narrow worldview on the rest of the country. But, because they are good at getting their church members to vote in large numbers, politicians (mostly Republican) pander to their nonsense whether they personally find them repulsive or not. Because they bring votes.

25

All UK telephone landlines being phased out.....

by BoogerMan in

.....and replaced with voip by 2025. https://www.pmctelecom.co.uk/blog/are-landline-phones-being-phased-out-in-2025/.

just heard this on a radio station's advert..

SydBarrett

"I wonder now someone can call a KH to get info from. Is the WTS/KH going to provide cellphone numbers instead?"

No. You can still have a 'landline'. Its just that calls will be over VOIP instead of copper going through a central office and 5ESS switch or whatever is currently being used. For the few people who still only have a phone and no internet, im not sure they'd even recognize anything had changed unless perhaps they noticed a technician changing out equipment in the box outside their home or business.

29

Revelation book

by Gorb in

jw
friends

do you remember the jw.org book of revelation and how many times we had to study it?

in retrospect, all those hours turned out to be for nothing, the explanation of the prophecies is now completely outdated..

SydBarrett

"Was it 3 times we were dragged through that book?

RB"

I had to think back really hard for a minute to remember going through any other book in the late 80's. My book study memories were of just that one over and over. But then I remember at least once, going through the blue Evolution book. So my memory is Revelation, Evolution, Revelation again. I left in 1990, so maybe they did go though it a third time..

77

Biden running in 2024 🤣

by LoveUniHateExams in

i've filed this under news and world events, although i could've posted it under entertainment, lol.

apparently, joe biden will be seeking re-election for another term in the white house.. this, despite a recent poll showing that 70% of people don't want him to run again.. biden just has to be the worst president i've seen.

his gaffes, over-relience on a prompter, and, more than any other president, his refusal to answer journalists' questions, all go to make him top of the list in terms of bad presidents.. it will certainly provide entertainment, if nothing else..

SydBarrett

"It's a civil case not a criminal one and Trump has, of course, said he will fight the verdict, but as someone living outside the USA (who is frankly amazed he even came near the White House), I wonder what do our US members think will be the likely impact on his chances of being President again?"

His supporters will say, "I was with him for the vitriolic racism, the mocking of disabilities, the real estate fraud, the constant lies, the incessant abuses of power, the attempts to undermine elections, the mishandling of a pandemic , the hush money payments, the inciting of an attempted coup, and the boasting about committing sexual assault, but now that I know that he actually committed sexual assault? I’m still with him.”

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

SydBarrett

"And what is wrong with my post Syd?

RB."

Nothing. My reply was directed at anony mous, not you.

Although if I was being really pedantic, i'd mention that I don't think the B-17 was ever used against Japan itself. Didn't have the range. It was used in the Pacific Theater. The Doolittle raid on Tokyo used B-25's from aircraft carriers but was mostly symbolic. The serious bombing of the Japanese home islands didn't get underway until 1944 when the B-29 became available.

77

Biden running in 2024 🤣

by LoveUniHateExams in

i've filed this under news and world events, although i could've posted it under entertainment, lol.

apparently, joe biden will be seeking re-election for another term in the white house.. this, despite a recent poll showing that 70% of people don't want him to run again.. biden just has to be the worst president i've seen.

his gaffes, over-relience on a prompter, and, more than any other president, his refusal to answer journalists' questions, all go to make him top of the list in terms of bad presidents.. it will certainly provide entertainment, if nothing else..

SydBarrett

"The US is the leader of the free world. What goes on over there eventually comes to other countries."

No it doesn't.

25

All UK telephone landlines being phased out.....

by BoogerMan in

.....and replaced with voip by 2025. https://www.pmctelecom.co.uk/blog/are-landline-phones-being-phased-out-in-2025/.

just heard this on a radio station's advert..

SydBarrett

"i dont know anyone who does. Except businesses."

Even those are most likely VOIP. This was true 15 years ago when I worked in Telecom. Some businesses would specifically purchase an old POTS landline as a backup for alarm systems if the power went out, but that's it. Not sure how backup is done now.

25

All UK telephone landlines being phased out.....

by BoogerMan in

.....and replaced with voip by 2025. https://www.pmctelecom.co.uk/blog/are-landline-phones-being-phased-out-in-2025/.

just heard this on a radio station's advert..

SydBarrett

"BUT----I STILL have a landline phone in my residence. Because I WANT one. I still have a use for a regular land-line phone."

You still can. Sort of. The phase out doesn't mean everyone has to go buy a cellphone. For all intents, you won't notice any difference after the switchover. Pick up the receiver, still have a dial tone etc.

One drawback is that the old landlines supplied their own power, so that if the electricity went out in your home due to a storm or something, the phone generally continued to work. With VOIP, if you lose power, you also lose phone. That could be bad in an emergency for those without a backup cell phone.

But, I just did a quick mental inventory of all the elderly people I either know or who are family members. I could not think of a single person who doesn't have a cell phone. I would think the number of people who rely solely on a landline must be an extremely tiny percentage.

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

SydBarrett

"@ Anony mous -The heavy bombers used over Japan were B17's and B29's, B52's came along much latter"

There's so much wrong with his post...where to begin. The Polaris and Minuteman III currently each contain 3-5 W78 MIRV warheads each with a yield of 335-350 kilotons. Each city hit gets a shotgun effect of 3-5 strikes spaced out around the city.

I don't know where he got the idea that most only contain a 1 kiloton warhead. The only weapon i'm aware of that was so small was the 'Davy Crockett". It was basically a tactical artillery piece to presumably be used against advancing soviet soldiers in the cold war. It was taken out of service in 1971. I'm not claiming they no longer exist just because they were removed from active service,

Yes, the bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were big and heavy and required bombers. But they got much better at building the things and by the 70's, 3-5 could be carried atop a minuteman missile. Each with 20-25 times the yield of Hiroshima. Here's a pic for scale:

And here is a map showing damage of a 330 kiloton airburst over midtown manhattan. He may be correct that the area completely vaporized may be a few city blocks, but the gray circle shows most residential buildings collapse from Harlem all the way to lower Manhattan. The final orange circle shows 3rd degree burns for anyone caught in the open extending into Brooklyn and New Jersey. Perhaps he has a much more pedantic version of what 'destroying a city' means.. but anyways, this has gone way off subject from the original post.

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

SydBarrett

"Nuclear war is overblown, we barely have enough weapons to blow up the top 100 major cities"

How do you figure that? No, a nuclear war won't "destroy the earth" as in sterilize it, but a few billion dead followed by mass starvation among those left would be pretty apocalyptic, not "overblown".

Number of warheads by country:

USA: 3,750

Russia: 5,977

China: 350

UK: 260

France: 290

India: 160

Pakistan: 165

Israel: not known but estimated at around 90

I agree that it's difficult to imagine a scenario where all the nuclear powers are launching everything they have at each other all at once, but if it did happen, it would mess up a lot more than 100 cities.