|
Post by Data Cable on Sept 16, 2005 15:01:50 GMT -4
...(due to their massive built-in waffle factor)... Mmmmmmm... massive built-in waffles... <droooooool>
|
|
|
Post by ktesibios on Sept 16, 2005 16:40:37 GMT -4
Just this morning, as I was brushing my hair, Softie jumped up on the bathroom sink and kept rubbing against me, meowing and doing everything she could to get in the way. I predicted that when I went into the kitchen I would find her food dish empty, and sure enough, it was. Ailuromancy works! ;D
|
|
|
Post by turbonium on Sept 16, 2005 19:24:49 GMT -4
Regarding the much feared end of the world in 2012, due to the end of the Mayan calendar, I dare make this prediction - in January of 2013, all the books written about it will be available in a bargain bin sale of monstrous proportions!!
|
|
|
Post by rustylander on Sept 16, 2005 21:52:53 GMT -4
I agree about the bible codes. They're bogus. I saw a satirical program called "John Safran vs God" where he used other text besides the bible and got similar results.
|
|
|
Post by Obviousman on Sept 17, 2005 0:10:48 GMT -4
Safran is good. Listen to his show on JJJ, Sunday nights.
Father Bob is a cack; he's a priest I'd listen to.
|
|
|
Post by JayUtah on Sept 21, 2005 17:03:58 GMT -4
I agree about the bible codes. They're bogus.
Yup.
I saw a satirical program called "John Safran vs God" where he used other text besides the bible and got similar results.
The nice thing about working for a company that makes supercomputers is that I have obscene amounts of computing power available. I wrote my own "Bible Code" program that uses parallel processing to speed up the search for alleged matches for words and phrases.
I discovered, for example, that for a variety of alignments the word "penis" appears 8 times in the U.S. Constitution.
This isn't very different from the practice of getting low-carb recipes from Nostradamus. If you approach the text with the presumption that something significant is hidden within it, you simply throw progressively wider interpretational nets until something -- anything -- falls into it. Adopting various arbitrary "strides" when pre-processing the text simply adds dimensions of combinatorics that inflate the number of random matches. The rate of random matches are improperly assessed against the single-dimensional domain of the source text, not the multi-dimensional comain of all possible realignments and reorderings of the text.
|
|
|
Post by PeterB on Sept 21, 2005 20:02:40 GMT -4
What bugs me about the Bible Code and similar processes is that there's no mechanism to determine what messages there are that Drosnin (a) didn't find, and (b) found but didn't tell us about.
The other thing about the Bible Code was that the Bible he used was written in an alphabet which contains no vowels. I understand that a sequence of letters in Hebrew can represent considerably more words than would be the case with, say, English. Context determines which word is intended in ambiguous situations.
The best comparison I can think of is to write English without vowels. It's actually surprisingly readable, but can lead to quite a few problems. Think about the number of words you can form by adding vowels to the letters ST. I can think of eight, and they mean very different things.
|
|
|
Post by JayUtah on Sept 21, 2005 20:41:57 GMT -4
In Semitic languages you have the concept of a "root", which is a sequence of usually three consonants. That root stands for a concept, irrespective of part of speech or other grammatical nuances, and is fairly unambiguous. So the sequence ZLM refers to the notion of an "outline" or "shadow" -- and really nothing else. Putting different vowels into the root creates, among other things, the parts of speech. The vowel pattern XaXaX, where X stands for a consonant, indicates a verb. The pattern XeXeX indicates a nominative noun. So "zalam" means "he cast a shadow" and "zelem" means "a shadow, outline, or image". ZLM doesn't mean much else. Of course you have prefixes and suffixes to help flesh things out, and they can cause confusion.
Of course that doesn't really help things. Take any three randomly chosen Hebrew letters and put them together, and it can be argued that they mean something. If I say LBW in English, you might think "elbow". But if I say UJD, you'd have a hard time coming up with something. Not every sequence of letters in English can mean something. However, pretty much every three- or four-letter string in Hebrew can have a meaning. That increases the number of coherent sentences that can be expressed with a short string of Hebrew letters.
I might say M HVRCRFT S FLLD WTh LS in English, which of course means, "My hovercraft is filled with eels." Makes no real sense, but if you're in a religious mode thinking hyperfiguratively, you assign various symbolic meanings to "hovercraft" and being filled with eels. In a literal context you would reject such nonsensical sentences. But if you tell yourself that it "must" mean something, then you just keep searching for that figurative meaning.
So when you start with a language in which almost any combination of letters can have a meaning, and then you put yourself in a frame of mind where even the nonsensical is given meaning, and convince yourself that your source text must contain hidden messages, it only takes a little computer mumbo-jumbo to give you a hobby.
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 21, 2005 23:37:04 GMT -4
I found 14 from ST Asti East Sat Sate Sati Seat Set Seta Sit Site Soot Sot Suet Suit and there may be more. I got bored. I suggest that Jay dredges his hovercraft out of the river too. The Bible code is wacko, but I'm sure that Jay's discovery in the Declaration of Independance is a hidden referance to Bill Clinton.
|
|
|
Post by rustylander on Sept 22, 2005 2:32:04 GMT -4
If I say LBW in English, you might think "elbow".Actually, the first thing I thought of was "Leg Before Wicket". BTW, if I could sidetrack back to the thread topic for a moment, I see that September 19th has passed without an earthquake. An even bigger storm than Katrina is on its way. But that wasn't predicted in the list I posted so...
|
|
|
Post by sts60 on Sept 22, 2005 9:06:32 GMT -4
Thanks for bringing that up.
Rusty, quoting someone else: ...8. During that same month, on Sept. 19 an earthquake will hit St. Louis with the affects being felt in Chicago.
Rusty, commenting on the list of claims from which the above is excerpted: The acid (or emperical evidence) test of the above is whether or not an earthquake occurs on September 19th. If not, then we can dismiss it. Otherwise, we will have to give it some serious consideration.
Rusty, what do you now think of the list of claims you quoted?
There may be an assassination attempt on Bush on Sept 17th.
No such attempt was made. Comments?
An even bigger storm than Katrina is on its way
Right now, I'm glad I don't live in Houston any more. Especially as I used to live not far from JSC, which is down partway towards Galveston.
|
|
|
Post by rustylander on Sept 22, 2005 10:30:37 GMT -4
Like, I said, various predictions from about three sources. The Bush one was obviously wrong but I may have actually misheard it - it was something that was said in passing by someone.
So now we know that the prediction list appears to be unreliable, to say the least. That's fine with me.
However, the September 27th date from another source is yet to pass. I woner if that's when Rita will hit or when the devastation of it will come to fruition?
|
|
|
Post by frenat on Sept 22, 2005 10:34:55 GMT -4
Or just some random date that some nutjob threw out there hoping to hit something?
|
|
|
Post by rustylander on Sept 22, 2005 10:56:12 GMT -4
No, this wasn't a random date according to him. But he also saw the year 2007 which has some sort of association with it, though not mabe a direct one. Perhaps something will start on 27th that will cuminate in 2007 or...something else.
This same guy has predicted Dec 6th being the worst day in history - did I mention that? I can't remember if I did. However, he has no specific year for this. Maybe in 2007.
|
|
|
Post by triangleman on Sept 22, 2005 13:19:12 GMT -4
Your source can't predict the future Rusty.
STOP LIVING IN DENIAL!
(I think I'm going to start getting a lot of mileage out of this thread's title ;D )
|
|