JW Insider

What I like about the video is that it not only tells us about the engineer himself, but also has some of the best, easy-to-follow diagrams that teach about the engineering process and the actual physics of the designs:

This story is about a fairly unknown R&D engineer at a Japanese company. So naturally, I'll start off by somehow making this about myself. Just kidding. I'll make it about my father. Just kidding . . .well, almost. From 1964 to 1984 my father ran a couple of electronics labs for the University of Missouri. This was great fun for him and even more fun for me and my brother. The world was transferring from tubes to transistors, and my father invented a "semiconductor curve tracer" onto a simple oscilloscope screen that made testing transistors as easy or even easier than the old ways of testing vacuum tubes. The University got a patent for it. And from 1984 to 2004 he designed amplifiers and sound systems for a company in California, and also for several Assembly Halls. I had fun with the electronics stuff, but never really learned it very deeply. Mostly because I quit school when I was 15 to start regular pioneering, and then I went off to Bethel to draw pictures for the publications and then do library research. But my brother was a few years older than I was, and graduated HS and went into an electronics company immediately. He went to Bethel just after I did and he was assigned electronics projects and had a little research lab which was a mini version of what my father had. In the 1990's My father was always going on about how they make transistors and spoke about gallium arsenide "doping," silicon "doping" and other terms I had never heard of. In the mid-1990's a company sent him some blue LEDs. He said even one small one cost a few hundred dollars. Blue LEDs were a kind of "holy grail" of LEDs. If one could be made with the same brightness control and at the same cost of Green and Yellow LEDs, then any color could be mixed. (With paint and ink you can create almost any color by mixing red/magenta, yellow, and blue/cyan -- but with light you can only get any color by mixing red, yellow, and green.) My father used to try to fake the blue by putting a blue transparent plastic cap on a bright red/green combination, because red+green=yellow, and a blue cap would then make a blue-green color, but not bright enough or "true" enough to mix well with the other colors. Anyway that brings me to the video of the blue LED hero. The story would also make a great story of a working-man hero standing up against the stronger and more monied corporate powers. Someone has probably made a book about him, or they should.

I see the face of a housecat carrying a black-tailed Chihuahua-Terrier puppy in her mouth. Or perhaps it's a Great-Horned Owl that just swooped into someone's backyard to grab the puppy, probably because it was so cute, and wanted to make friends. But I have to say that, from the original full-size picture, it's easier for me to see a four-eyed KKK member in a worn-out sheet, than to see an image of Christ there.

Maybe Nathan Knorr had just a slice of that pie. Or maybe he started out with just Knorr's Wiener Schnitzel Company and then shortened it to Nathan's Hot Dogs. Maybe they should have tried my marketing idea: Pizza and Hot Dogs -- For Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner It's Always Food At The Proper Time!

For $2.99 anyone can have Knorr on their pizza!

Definitely was. Although I got mine for free. But it's hilarious. (I never knew it was that comedian who authored the book.)

At first I thought it might be Alvin. Alvin the Chipmunk:

Father Guido Sarducci on SNL had a skit called "Find the Pope in the Pizza." A woman sold her actual slice of pizza with an apparent image scorched onto the back for $28,000 on eBay. There have been similar occurrences with Jesus' face on a slice of toast, for example. https://birdinflight.com/en/world/20160525-litso-boga.html Well I had my own very similar experience today, when I sliced a pear in half.

It's 1:30 AM and I just got back from NYC and realized what I had done. My apologies for starting this post outside the JW Closed Club. I was in that club and clicked "start a new topic" although I now vaguely recall that I probably had to start the new topic a second time because I had accidentally clicked off the page, due to an oversensitive trackpad that sometimes thinks I am clicking something just because my thumb gets too close to it. Anyway, I will be restarting this topic under the JW Closed Club. Sorry about that BillyTheKid59 and your doppelganger, Alphonse.

I'd like to ramble a bit about the Watchtower Study linked here: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/watchtower-study-november-2023/You-Can-Remain-Confident-During-Uncertain-Times/ I'm often too critical, but I thought this one was excellent. I'll try to include a balance of some things I thought about and some things I questioned along with the reasons I thought it was excellent. It's a great way to introduce a past example from the Bible by tying it to our own experiences today, and they managed to include everyone with the opening: DO YOU at times worry about the future? Perhaps you have lost your job and you worry about providing for your family. You may be concerned about your family’s safety because of unstable political conditions, persecution, or opposition to the preaching work. Are you facing any of these issues? One thing I thought about first was how Babylonian Exile was presented as a punishment, just as the destruction of the Temple and removal from their land was a punishment. Still it was better than death, and Jeremiah had warned his countrymen that they should put themselves under the Babylonian yoke for safety because this destruction/devastation/desolation was coming no matter what. Yet, historically, it turned out pretty well for a lot (most?) of the Jews who were taken captive. They did well for themselves. Started businesses, etc. And when it came time to leave, they didn't want to go, mostly because (evidently) they were doing fine economically and the move would be an economic hardship: It took faith on the part of the Jews who had lived in Babylon all their lives to leave behind a comfortable lifestyle and travel to a country that most of them knew very little about. You don't often think of captivity and exile as "comfort." Clearly, the importance of going back was to re-establish a center for pure worship of Jehovah. That was the priority of the prophets, Ezra and Nehemiah and later the scribe, Ezra. When they arrived, it was not long before they were affected by unstable economic and political conditions as well as opposition. Some therefore found it hard to focus on rebuilding Jehovah’s temple. With the focus on "Remaining Confident" one might have thought this would be another article on showing confidence in Jehovah's Organization and the FDS. Not that we don't need some reminders in that regard now and then, but this did NOT focus on the leaders, it focused on the "people" the "rank and file" as it were. When the leaders are mentioned it's mostly about their encouragement and example -- and the people's response. Not about the importance of obedience. the encouragement given by these prophets proved to be very effective. Nearly 50 years later, however, the returning Jews again reached a low point. Ezra, a skilled copyist of the Law, then came from Babylon to Jerusalem to encourage God’s people to give priority to true worship. More to follow.... later. . . . I just discovered I have to go somewhere.

I thought I would need three hands: one for the bread, one for the nuts, and one for the banana. After deliberating on the process for a few days, I chanced upon a ten-step solution: Find a banana, a container of walnuts, and bread, and place ingredients in front of you. Peel a banana (requires two hands), and set it down. Dip hand into a container of walnuts to grab a small handful (other types of nuts may work well, too). Set them down in a small pile next to the peeled banana. Grab a slice or handful of your favorite bread and keep in your right hand. Take a bite of the bread, but don't begin chewing yet. Take a bite of the banana and set it back down, but don't begin chewing yet. Pick a few nuts from the pile and put them in your mouth, too. Begin chewing. Continue alternating among new bite-size portions of bread, nuts, and banana until all items are depleted.

So true. I remember my mother baking "Date-Walnut Bread" and there was nothing better than tearing a fistful out of a warm, unsliced loaf -- fresh out of the oven. To recreate this, I have my own recipe: First, I buy a container of whole, pitted dates, then I buy a loaf of Walnut Bread from a local bakery. As I begin chewing on a chunk of the bread from one hand, I simultaneously bite off pieces of the date from the other hand and chew them together. If the bakery only sold Date-Walnut Bread instead of just Walnut Bread, I wouldn't have to go through the complex procedure. Next week, I'll share my secret recipe for Banana Bread.

Thanks for pointing that out. So we were also then serving where there was a grater need.

Serving [tacos] where the need is greater. My parents moved our family of 5 from California to Missouri to "serve where the need was greater" in 1964. The first things we missed were the leeks and onions and garlic of Egypt (Num 11:4-6). I mean, of course, the tacos of California. Rather than risk turning into a pillar of sodium chloride by longing for the past, we did just fine with Missouri cuisine. And driving back to California once a year over the summer. Even though in a fairly large University of Missouri township, no local stores within 100 miles sold tortillas in 1964. By 1966, my father went to the town Kroger's and guaranteed the purchase of 2 dozen packs of tortillas if they would just order them. They never heard of them. Finally, he talked some university students into making the same request and they stocked some around '67, I think. My brother and I liked taco nights on Wednesdays and sometimes Saturdays. These were the two nights my mother gave us to cook. I became OK at cooking spaghetti on Saturday and tacos on Wednesday, and nothing else. Still pretty true even today. Back then it was frying the soft tortillas in boiling oil and then laying them out to dry on napkins. When my brother and I shared the work, we could have instant gratification by sharing the chopping of onions, tomatoes, lettuce grading some cheddar, frying the meat with some random peppers and spices that filled in for taco seasoning. Then we topped them off with Louisiana Hot Sauce. Yesterday, also a Wednesday, I fell off my typical vegetarian diet, and had just bought a pound of fresh hamburger, a couple of vine tomatoes, a small jar of salsa, a pound of mild cheddar, salad mix, sprig of cilantro, and a jalapeno pepper, and a crunchy taco kit that has 12 pre-shaped tortillas, some mild sauce and a pack of seasoning for the hamburger. Then the race begins -- this time by myself. I start the hamburger to fry, then rush to get out some bowls, and chop, slice, and grade the ingredients. I no longer use "head lettuce" but just salad mix. By the time the hamburger starts browning, I toss in a half cup of V-8 along with the seasoning mix, because the hamburger is extra lean and doesn't produce enough oil and juice to mix the seasoning. That cools the pan enough to give me a little time to finish the ingredients, and start a cookie plate of tortillas to heat in the oven. By the time the oven reaches a good temperature, the meat is done, and all is finished in less than 15 minutes. My wife eats 3 and I eat 8. This was a bigger event when the kids still lived at home with us. But I had slacked off for a few months on taco Wednesday, and am starting it up again after ditching the vegetable-based cheese and vegetable-based hamburger. Somehow it's a lot better this time. Yesterday. Good times.

Seemed like sarcasm or satire. I have never seen the magazine. But the author may have known our take on neutrality, or thought it was well-known enough to make use of as the key to the satire. If people didn't know that JWs were neutral and didn't hold political offices, then this line would potentially fall flat. To me, then, it showed that the author knew JWs pretty well something beyond no war and no flag salute. Otherwise, I was thinking there might have been something more specific in the article that tied something he said or did to JWs.

I am not trying to sell an item on eBay. This item has been listed up there for quite some time, and the seller is in the UK. I was only wondering if anyone knew why the reference to JWs was on the cover. Did he actually say something like what's on the cover? https://www.ebay.com/itm/155110296118 The description. says: The front cover features Harold Wilson - Wislon Joins Jehovah’s Witnesses. Wilson is saying: “I cannot be a Christian and Prime Minister". Note that they spelled Jehovah's Witnesses correctly, but not Wilson. The Awake! mentions him a couple of times: *** g74 8/8 p. 30 Watching the World *** Church and State ◆ The recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, now heads the (Episcopalian) Anglican Church of England. Embarrassingly, a Methodist appointed him! Why? That is the religion of England’s prime minister, Harold Wilson, whose duty it is to make such appointments. *** g74 5/8 pp. 11-12 What Hope for Britain’s Economic Recovery? *** The Campaign The Conservatives (Tories), led by Heath, campaigned under the slogan, “Who Rules Britain?” They claimed that militant union extremists were bent on imposing their will on the nation in defiance of Parliament. Heath asked the country’s voters to return him to power with a strong majority in Parliament, to give him authority to deal with the problem of inflation. His Labour Party opponents, led by Harold Wilson, lost no time in calling it a phony election, telling Mr. Heath that, in spite of a working majority in Parliament since 1970, he had signally failed to deal with inflation. They castigated his campaign against union militants as a “Reds under the bed” campaign meant to scare the unwary into line. Throughout the three-week campaign an endless stream of opinion polls consistently put Heath’s Conservatives in the lead, with Labour a few percentage points behind. An unexpected element was the steady resurgence of the Liberal Party, which, after fifty years in the political wilderness, was shown to be gaining substantial support. As an aside, this makes me wonder if the Awake! would ever return to doing long (4-page) articles reporting on various political issues and campaigns.

*** w75 9/1 p. 519 Insight on the News *** It has long been known that heart-transplant patients have a higher-than-average amount of postoperative psychiatric problems. But it seems that the same is true with regard to some other vital organ transplants, such as kidney transplants. U.C.L.A. psychiatry professor Dr. Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco is quoted as saying: “An outstanding finding following transplantation is the not infrequent occurrence of serious emotional disturbance.” One study of 292 kidney-transplant patients showed that nearly 20 percent experienced severe depression after the operation, a few even attempting suicide. By contrast, only about one out of every 1,500 general-surgery patients develops a severe emotional disturbance. A peculiar factor sometimes noted is a so-called ‘personality transplant.’ That is, the recipient in some cases has seemed to adopt certain personality factors of the person from whom the organ came. One young promiscuous woman who received a kidney from her older, conservative, well-behaved sister, at first seemed very upset. Then she began imitating her sister in much of her conduct. Another patient claimed to receive a changed outlook on life after his kidney transplant. Following a transplant, one mild-tempered man became aggressive like the donor. The problem may be largely or wholly mental. But it is of interest, at least, that the Bible links the kidneys closely with human emotions.—Compare Jeremiah 17:10 and Revelation 2:23. In the Awake! 10/221969, I noticed the attempt to make sure ALL transplant statistics showed more people dying than living. So much so that with kidney transplants they wouldn't give the actual survival rate, which had been above 50%, but instead Awake! found a segment of kidney transplant recipients (donor unrelated) where the survival rate was still below 50%. The point of most organ transplants is often not based on the idea of long-term survival. Most transplanted organs "wear out" often even kidneys after just a decade or so. No transplant offers any guarantee of long-term survival, they are merely procedures that often provide a temporary extension. In that sense they are like other potentially life-saving medical procedures. But a more complex decision than most other procedures.

(Philemon 7, NWT)  For I got much joy and comfort over your love, because the tender affections of the holy ones have been refreshed through you, brother. *** Rbi8 Philemon 7 *** “The tender affections.” Lit[erally], “the bowels.” Imagine if they had translated this literally? (Philemon 7) 7 For I got much joy and comfort over your love, because the bowels of the holy ones have been refreshed through you, brother.

But that same article about how we as Witnesses were safeguarded from the cannibalism of transplants made some curious claims about blood that cannot be restated in the literature, now that transpants are OK. *** g72 7/8 p. 28 “Keep Abstaining from . . . Blood” *** Yes, blood is a tissue, just as the heart and the kidneys are tissue. Because it is a “liquid tissue” this fact is not generally appreciated. Immunological forces, placed in the body by the Creator to protect it, oppose any foreign tissue and raise up antibodies to fight against it. That is why the popularity of heart transplants was so short-lived. . . . . quoted in previous post . . . . ‘If blood transfusions also violate the immunological principle, then why do they not prove as lethal as do heart transplants?’ you may ask. The reason is that blood is a temporary tissue. A temporary tissue? Yes, for in every second of time millions of red blood cells die and are replaced. So any ‘foreign’ transfused blood cells do not remain for long in the body. Those arguments stuck with me for a long time, and I still have a bit of trouble accepting the idea of organ transplants because of it. Yet, if the WT was wrong about it --and they say they were wrong about it-- it's the same argument that would make some of us question the arguments about blood itself.

I have a feeling I must have come across in this thread as a promoter of whole blood transfusions. But I'm really looking for clarity myself. I also hate the idea of someone's blood pumped into my veins. There was a time when I would have died rather than allow that. But then I had children and realized that even though I had every right to die for my beliefs, I better be awfully certain of my reasons before imposing a similar death sentence on my children if the situation arose. Over the years, however, I have ended up visiting worldly relatives, friends and neighbors while they were hospitalized, and even visiting a hospital where my daughter worked as part of her college work in biochemistry and pre-med stuff. I still had that same sick feeling when seeing those packs of blood. But I realized that some of the JW arguments FOR medical use of blood make sense, and I learned that there were Witnesses taking blood that had required blood from hundreds of blood donors, and it made me wonder why Witnesses could only TAKE blood from worldly donors, and never offer anything back in terms of donated blood. Then the change in the WT's view of organ transplants happened the year I got married and started thinking about children, insurance, what to do if my wife had a serious medical issue, what she should do if I had one. It was a time I studied the situation hard, and we both (wife and I) came up with the idea that we are both willing to die for Acts 15, even when it comes to fractions, but that we could not impose our conscience on our children. We realized how most of us, as Witnesses, were always anxious to discuss the medical dangers of blood, and leave it at that, as if the dangers of blood alone made us so much better than all those worldly people who were risking their lives for nothing. Focusing on the dangers was supposed to be enough so that we never had to even think about the many more positive outcomes where blood actually saved a life. It reminded me of that same time period 10 years earlier, when many types of transplants were in early testing stages and had bad outcomes. The WTBTS focused almost completely on how many failures there were. *** g72 7/8 p. 28 “Keep Abstaining from . . . Blood” *** Life magazine, September 17, 1971, showed a picture on the front cover of six persons who had received heart transplants and who seemed to be well and happy at the time. But within just eight months after the picture was taken all six of these had succumbed to their body’s efforts to reject foreign tissue. The article told how “the rejection drugs triggered bizarre acts,” and that “their ballooning faces haunted one doctor.” The author of the article, who has written a book on the subject, Hearts, also reported that the death rate for heart transplants for the first three years was more than 85 percent. One surgeon, who transplanted twenty-two hearts, had every last one of his patients die. And while he dismissed the entire matter as “a procedure which we tried and—for the time being—discarded,” the patients were not able to be so casual about it. And here again, it might be noted, that the stand of the Christian witnesses of Jehovah—that such transplants are in effect a form of cannibalism—proved a safeguard. How so? In that it spared them much frustration, grief and anxiety, which were experienced not only by the patients and their relatives but even by many of the assisting medical personnel.

It’s an old teaching..may or not be true ..I have see even studies from the world concerning this I figured that George88 was coming at this from the verses he quoted. Still, It reminds me of an old teaching once promoted by a GB member at Bethel: that it's the natural, physical heart that is the seat of motivations. In a talk I heard him give at our Assembly Hall he would say that persons who have been given heart transplants from a criminal have reported that they themselves now have criminal tendencies. It was common to see things like this in the "Watching the World" pages of the Awake! too. Later, when I worked for this brother, he had already been asked to stop giving that talk that promoted the physical heart as the actual seat of human motivation, but he asked me to always be on the lookout for any new information that might support the theory. *** g71 11/22 p. 31 Watching the World *** Disenchantment with Heart Transplants ◆ Since 1967 doctors have performed 166 heart transplants, but the initial enthusiasm is gone. Too many patients have died—more than 85 percent thus far. There were also bad side effects. There were depression, brief periods of being psychotic, memory lapses, sleeplessness and marked changes in personality. According to Life magazine, immunologists have concluded that “the heart is a peculiar, particular organ, not only a pump, but a creature of some internal, unknown majesty.” *** w81 9/15 p. 15 Insight on the News *** “Heart Overrides Everything” ● Heart specialists now believe that about one third of heart patients have emotional problems after surgery. This often begins about the second day following the operation and may last about a week. Some patients become delirious; some suffer from weird dreams and hallucinations; others have severe bouts with anxiety and depression. To deal with the emotional problems that some patients have after surgery, heart surgeons and psychiatrists around the world recently formed an international consortium. The consortium would like doctors and nurses to pay as much careful attention to a patient’s emotional state after heart surgery as they do to heartbeats. The specialists speak of the psychological significance of the heart. For example, psychiatrist Richard S. Blacher of Tufts–New England Medical Center in Boston says of the heart: “It’s a very special organ. People commonly think of it as the seat of emotions. In our minds, the heart overrides everything.”—“Newsweek,” May 25, 1981, p. 63. How true it is that the heart tends to overrule the head, the seat of intellect! In view of this, the heart, above all else, must be disciplined and trained to respond to Bible guidance. It must be taught to appreciate spiritual qualities. These qualities spring from God. “More than all else that is to be guarded,” says God’s Word, “safeguard your heart, for out of it are the sources of life.”—Prov. 4:23; compare Matthew 15:19. *** g70 10/22 p. 29 Watching the World *** Personality Change ◆ According to a report that appeared on United Press International of August 18, 1970, the daughter of Philip Blaiberg said that he had experienced a complete personality change after undergoing a heart-transplant operation. Awake! 8/22 p. 29:

I get confused when I read things out of order.

I'm assuming that these fractions refer to the fraction of the total volume. Is it the fraction after water has been removed?

I'm not even sure exactly where MIles is coming from on this topic. I thought I was more in agreement with @xero and @Pudgy on this point that we aren't really abstaining from blood if we accept almost anything made from blood. I didn't think that this was "judging," because I'm in full agreement with anyone and everyone who accepts these components based on their conscience. I would not judge anyone for taking any component of blood that they deemed life-saving. I would rather err on the side of what Jesus said about how saving a life is more important than keeping the law. And, in a similar vein, I have no problem with anyone who decides that blood is too risky and potentially unhealthy in their situation and they would rather err on the side of "abstaining." And lastly, there will be those who are ready to give up their life even in a definite situation where they are completely aware than some form of blood therapy will extend their earthly life, and they still choose to abstain, even from the tiniest of fractions. For them: R-E-S-P-E-C-T. To be honest, I couldn't quite figure out how not judging others for taking blood therapies or transplants was making me a judge of others. I hope you didn't think that it meant I was judging those who would NOT take blood therapies or transplants. Perhaps it came across as too self-righteous because I invoked the example Jesus used and made it look like others were not listening to Jesus if they didn't accept something that might be life-saving. If that was your point, then I should have, of course, included the flip-side of what Jesus also said: (Matthew 16:25, 26) . . .For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Really, what good will it do a man if he gains the whole world but loses his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life? I hadn't thought it necessary to repeat that part of the equation because that's already the subtext that is baked into all of our discussions about blood.