Jehovah's Witnesses WorldWide Budgeting Meeting 2016-2020

[Anna]

12 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

this year's Watchtower Study Editions they have prominently mentioned the baptism Dedication Oath , and ONLY cited the FIRST of the two questions? 

This might be another topic, but yes, I noticed that, therefor after the meeting I immediately asked an elder who was sitting in front of me. I said it was odd, why mention two questions and then only talk about one. (At that point my husband fled). He said because the second question would be off topic, since the discussion was about dedication to Jehovah. So I said sure, but without answering yes to the second question you couldn't get baptised. He said the second question would probably get discussed in the next lesson. I told him no, I looked. So he said not to worry, it will come up sometime....

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

1 hour ago, Anna said:

This might be another topic, but yes, I noticed that, therefor after the meeting I immediately asked an elder who was sitting in front of me. I said it was odd, why mention two questions and then only talk about one. (At that point my husband fled). He said because the second question would be off topic, since the discussion was about dedication to Jehovah. So I said sure, but without answering yes to the second question you couldn't get baptised. He said the second question would probably get discussed in the next lesson. I told him no, I looked. So he said not to worry, it will come up sometime.... ?

....perhaps tomorrow ......

The Wizard of Oz_ Pay No Attention.mp4

.... perhaps 20 years from now ... on a windswept plain next to a dried up lake in New York State, next to some crumbled buildings giving silent testimony to the greed of man, in a collapsed water damaged building .... on a bookshelf ... the books eaten by worms.

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

20 hours ago, JW Insider said:

when my friends from IBM back home got brought in to Bethel in the new computer department, they claimed that it was a constant fighting match that wasted millions on bad decisions

Publically, IBM said quite the opposite: (ga 84 4/22)

In Brooklyn the team developed excellent programs, or software, using principally IBM equipment, or hardware. IBM later called this program the “Integrated Publishing System,” or IPS. The respected Seybold Report on Publishing Systems, Volume 12, No. 1, September 13, 1982, commented:

“IBM is trying once again to increase its presence in the industry, and the vehicle by which it hopes to do so is an interesting package called the ‘Integrated Publishing System’ (IPS). IPS was not developed by IBM,” the report acknowledges, but “[by] Watchtower, the publishing arm of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, where it was created primarily for their internal use.”....

In concluding its report, Seybold said: “We have nothing but praise for the enterprise, initiative and insightfulness of the Watchtower people. There are few today either ambitious enough or courageous enough to undertake such an application, especially virtually from scratch. . . . We don’t know just how the credit should be parcelled out, but they all deserve a lot of kudos.”

[JW Insider]

4 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Publically, IBM said quite the opposite: (ga 84 4/22)

Not really. You are mostly quoting what Seybold said, not IBM. The relationship with IBM soured quickly and often. One high-level IBM executive who could interface with IBM was a JW and a local brownstone-style apartment/house was made available to him. Any JWs who had worked for IBM or had programmed in Assembler on IBM Series 1 or IBM 360 equipment were invited to apply to Bethel and lived like all other Bethelites. My own brother who had no interest in applying to Bethel was asked to come in due to his work programming microprocessors and he stayed for 2.5 years. Non-JW IBM experts were called in to meet and discuss the project all along, and they were constantly frustrated by the decisions of Bethel overseers.

Meanwhile there was a separate project going on up in Wallkill creating the pieces of the MEPS typesetting system. I drew up a couple of Greek fonts for it, and three years before they would ever see a part of it, I was even sent (alone) to the Athens Branch to help them set up a small pre-press facility so that they could ramp up to handling their own translating and page preparation there in Athens.

One problem was that MEPS was all proprietary, and neither IBM nor IBM-trained JWs, could ever figure out how to get the IPS to talk to MEPS. After a few years either one could do a few things very well, but IPS (with IBM) faltered - and it was too expensive to get IPS to handle non-Roman fonts. MEPS, which had been assumed by many not to be the ultimate winner, was given free rein, no one to really watch over them, and the "kids" up in Wallkill made their own decisions about it.

In 1977 there was already a non-working MEPS prototype up in the Factory 1 building, on the 9th floor (of an 8 story building) where the new computer department was. Wires fed down to a phototypesetting machine in a darkroom in a graphical arts department on the 8th floor. That never worked, at least not for 4 or 5 more years. But they were still able to use some of what they bought, like a large stat cameras in the darkroom had the ability to manually shine light through a negative with a font on it, which would then enlarge, one letter at a time, onto a piece of film below. So for years we could at least use it to make headlines in all kinds of fonts of any language, including Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Greek, etc. It's just that it took about 5 to 10 seconds to line up each letter. Until then, fancy fonts were done by hand -- calligraphy and calipers and French curves and Koh-I-Noor ink pens.

It was Seybold, not IBM, who came in to see demonstrations after several years when the equipment became useful. They were rightfully impressed, especially by the MEPS. By 1982, after 5 years, both were useful. IPS had allowed several dozen typesetters to sit in front of terminals instead of hot lead. We were still using molten lead for some typesetting, but that phased out completely by about 1982, I think. It was better than the first commercial hit, Aldus Pagemaker, and ready two years prior. Of course, Pagemaker and other solutions were widely available in 85 and took off with the Macintosh. Much cheaper versions had already been made for Apple II, IIe,  and IBM PCs, but these all suffered from pixelation, as no true raster-based fonts were integrated at that time. By continuing the work on the MEPS we never had to go with a commercial solution.

[TrueTomHarley]

I do recall an announcement, I think quoted quite  publically, as at a district convention or circuit assembly, around 1980, to the effect that Bethel just finished massive expenditures on letterpress upgrades just before the entire industry switched to offset printing, making much equipment instantly obsolete.

I hate to think how of you will hand me my head on a platter with that one.

[JW Insider]

49 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I do recall an announcement, I think quoted quite  publically, as at a district convention or circuit assembly, around 1980, to the effect that Bethel just finished massive expenditures on letterpress upgrades just before the entire industry switched to offset printing, making much equipment instantly obsolete.

I hate to think how of you will hand me my head on a platter with that one.

I think you are right. It was around 1980. And remember that team (group) mentioned in the Awake! magazine you quoted?

*** g84 4/22 pp. 22-23 MEPS—An Exciting Leap Forward in Publishing ***

• Industry Changes That Led to MEPS
• As many readers know, the publishing industry has been revolutionized by new methods of production during the past 20 years or so. Ever since the last century, operators of linotype machines turned hot, molten lead into single one-piece lines of metal type. These lines of metal type, called slugs, were then arranged into pages by a compositor. From these pages of metal type, molds were made for casting heavy lead printing plates that were used on rotary letterpresses.
• In the early 1960’s, by far the majority of newspapers, magazines and books were printed on letterpresses. Today practically none are. The method of printing with type produced from hot lead became obsolete almost overnight. Any factories using hot lead, if they wanted to continue printing, were soon forced to change with the industry. Thus practically all printing of newspapers, magazines and books is now done on lithographic offset presses.
• In January 1978, printing on rotary offset presses was begun at the headquarters printery of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York. The first publication was the color-illustrated My Book of Bible Stories. In offset printing the image to be printed is not raised as it is in letterpress, but it is on the same plane, or level, as the surface that surrounds it. This method of printing is accomplished by taking a photograph of the printed page and then using the film produced to make thin offset printing plates.
• To make these thin offset printing plates to produce My Book of Bible Stories and other literature published by the Watchtower Society, photographs had to be taken of proofs of linotype-produced pages. The film negatives were then merged with negatives of the pictures or illustrations. It was this slow, mechanical, prepress system of producing type from hot lead that needed to be replaced by some faster method. A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses investigated how to do this.

That investigative "group" was pretty much completely disfellowshipped. T.Cabeen, R.Watters and a lot of their pressroom friends had the nerve to bring rosy reports about offset, plus the very successful experiment with the "Bible Stories" book that their same team had finished. This angered C.Chyke, R.Wheelock, M.Larson, etc. It meant that a younger generation was about to take over. By 1978, there was a bit of a backlash already, and then it also was known that Tom Cabeen, who spearheaded the offset printing work, was a good friend of R.Franz -- and B.Schroeder and T.Jaracz and G.Smalley were already gunning to get R.Franz and friends out of there after the success of the Aid Book. So as this younger group was pushing for further expansion of offset, some of the old guard wanted to prove them wrong and make some more of the biggest investments ever in letterpress. To them it would be like proving Jehovah right and proving Satan wrong. By late 1979, however, they finally took the biggest prize embarrassment (the world's largest letterpress press) off all factory tours so that no one would get a picture of it. It's mention was removed from the printed tour brochure.

[TrueTomHarley]

Sigh...I'm not even going to go there with my cute story of how I wrote my friend a 'happy anniversary' card, and it was the GB member of the same first and last name who sent me a gracious, chatty reply. You will probably tell me that he wrote it from prison.

[Anna]

On 6/6/2018 at 1:41 AM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I find on tax rolls in Colony Park, about 28 miles from the WHQ, multi-million dollar houses in residential areas owned by the WTB&TS, and right outside the gate of the WHQ massive tracts of land are owned by members of the Governing Body,

Well yes. But we still don't know for what purpose these properties were purchased. Opposers would have us know that these properties are for the private use of the GB, in other words they live in them. However, I don't think so. I believe they have apartments at HQ as they have always done in the past. I think if they did live there, and travel to work at the HQ, it would become common knowledge, and I have not heard anything. Real estate is good investment. Perhaps that's the reason why WT has acquired these properties. Or perhaps they want to turn them into apartments (one of those properties is actually an apartment block) for those who are visiting....perhaps they were donated.....who knows. I won't be too concerned about it until each member of the GB lives in their own sprawling mansion with ocean view, helipad, and yacht in the harbor, all paid for by donated funds....

[JW Insider]

42 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Sigh...I'm not even going to go there with my cute story of how I wrote my friend a 'happy anniversary' card, and it was the GB member of the same first and last name who sent me a gracious, chatty reply.

That would have been either William Jackson or John (Jack) Barr, the only two GB members with other Bethelites there at the same time with the same name. Since it was chatty, it would more likely be Brother Barr. I liked them both.

[Anna]

On 6/5/2018 at 10:17 PM, JW Insider said:

• So imagine they would make up false accusations, with false witnesses and false testimonies and all the newspaper would talk about how the GB was arrested for stealing billions of $$ to their followers. How would you react when coworker talk about it? Be ashamed? Would you believe it? Well Satan will attack us using lies. Lying about our high morality.
• Maybe they will accuse us of covering child sexual abuser. Would you believe it? Surely we know those lies come from Satan."

This is not really a response to you @JW Insider but to the quote. Although Jesus was supposed to have entrusted the Slave with spiritually feeding his flock, there is no guarantee this will always be done in a perfect way. Our first and foremost loyalty is to Jehovah and Jesus. So if the GB do or say something that is out of whack with Bible principles then we are under no obligation to obey, or believe. (Acts 5:29). So even if the GB were found to be doing those things then it shouldn't make any difference to us. As for being arrested and falsely accused, well that wouldn't be the first time.

On 6/5/2018 at 10:17 PM, JW Insider said:

Both issues, the "confiscation" of billions of dollars, and accusations of covering child sexual abuse, might well be based on false accusations, but BOTH these items have already been dangerously close to becoming full-blown legal cases, class action and otherwise.

Perhaps this is the reason Br. Jackson mentioned it. To let everyone know those are false accusations. But even if they were true, why should that affect us. No one can take our personal relationship with Jehovah away, regardless of what the GB do or don't do.

[JW Insider]

55 minutes ago, Anna said:

Perhaps this is the reason Br. Jackson mentioned it. To let everyone know those are false accusations. But even if they were true, why should that affect us. No one can take our personal relationship with Jehovah away, regardless of what the GB do or don't do.

That's the only good reason to share such "items" in the first place. I think it's why Br. Jackson himself evidently mentioned it. All of us could use a reminder now and then about where our true foundation lies. When and if a rug is pulled out from under us, we have a should have a cushion to fall back upon. That "cushion" would be our relationship with Jehovah upon whom we can throw our burdens.

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

That would have been either William Jackson or John (Jack) Barr, the only two GB members with other Bethelites there at the same time with the same name. Since it was chatty, it would more likely be Brother Barr. I liked them both.

My friend is a private person. He no doubt wants to live his life in peace. it would be most innapropriate for me to identify him. No. I will not. His identity is safe with me. 

But the name of the GB member was John Barr.