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What do students, teachers and parents think about their school districts?
That's the topic of a survey underway at schools throughout Illinois.
Beginning Feb. 1, students and teachers were given the first statewide opportunity to weigh in on learning conditions and school climate.
The Illinois State Board of Education joined UChicago Impact at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute to provide the online survey, called the Illinois 5Essentials Survey.
"As educators, we have long understood that test scores alone do not represent the full scope of school life and learning," said State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch. "The Illinois 5Essentials Survey will finally help us paint that fuller picture of learning conditions and guide local and state improvement initiatives, so that every student has access to a world-class education."
The survey will be administered between Feb. 1 and the end of March to all certified kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers and students in Grades 6-12 across the state.
Local schools are completing the surveys on different timetables, and superintendents have varying opinions on the survey's value.
At Princeton Elementary, Superintendent Tim Smith said about half of the teachers had completed the survey with the rest scheduled to complete it by Friday.
Smith said the junior high students will complete the survey during ISATs, which are scheduled for March 4-15.
Smith said parents were informed about the survey through a letter that was sent home the first week of February. A reminder note will be sent during the first week of March. Smith said the survey is another example of the state thinking there is a "one size fits all formula."
"This University of Chicago survey was initially created for Chicago Public Schools and is now being applied statewide," he said. "Last I knew, CPS was hardly a model district."
Smith said some of the questioning is not relevant to downstate schools.
Smith also had concerns about the cost.
"Our state funding has diminished greatly, yet they implement programs that continue to draw on money we do not have," he said.
At Hall High School, Superintendent Mike Struna said more than 90 percent of staff has participated. He said students will be given time to go to the computer lab during homeroom to take the survey.
"Our goal is at least 80 percent participation from students," he said.
Struna said he will notify parents through his quarterly newsletter, which will be sent out March 1, and he hopes at least half of the parents will participate.
Struna said he believes the survey could be of value.
"Anytime we can get more data from parents, teachers and especially students, we can benefit," he said. "The survey data will be one more piece in the puzzle that we can use to improve Hall High School."
At Bureau Valley, Interim Superintendent Jim Whitmore said 54 percent of the district's teachers had responded as of Feb. 15.
Whitmore said they notified parents about the survey through emails, letters and building newsletters, but he has his doubts about the value of the survey.
"It's more data that won't lead to any measurable improvement," he said.
At Malden, all 26 students and 10 teachers who were required to take the survey have done so, said Superintendent Mike Patterson.
However, despite a letter sent home to parents, none had yet participated. Patterson said it's hard to say what the value of the survey is until the process is complete, but he does have many concerns.
"The survey created by the University of Chicago has many questions that are irrelevant to small rural schools," he said. "Students taking the survey often have only attended one school which means they have no point of comparison. I would contend that their responses will reflect what their general feelings of school are rather than their attitude of their particular school."
Patterson said another problem is that there is not a filter for who takes the survey.
"It is possible for individuals to take the survey even if they do not attend the school," he said.
In DePue, Superintendent Randy Otto said they haven't done anything with the survey yet, and they don't plan to promote it to parents.
"I am not sure what the value of this is going to be until we see the results and how it is used," he said. "This also matches my concerns. The state is wonderful about saying one thing on how something is going to be used and then doing the opposite."
Comment on this story at www.bcrnews.com.


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A third defendant has been sentenced in connection with the murder of a St. Robert woman in 2013.
A third defendant has been sentenced in connection with the murder of a St. Robert woman in 2013.
Anthony B West, 50, of St. Louis, was sentenced to four years in prison for hindering prosecution of a murder that took place last summer in St. Robert.
On July 15, 2013, Laila D. Carpenter, 33, of St. Robert, was found shot to death outside Alpine Haus Motel & Apartments.
A few days after Carpenter's murder, West was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and first-degree assault.
Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Hillman said that West's charges were reduced due to to his cooperation with law enforcement and attorneys and evidence not matching up with previous charges.
"Mr. West fully cooperated with us by providing us with needed information which allowed us to get a life sentence on the shooter in the case, Charles Howard," Hillman said. "We also became convinced based on the evidence, that Mr. West's involvement was simply driving to and from the scene."
"This agreement was done with consent of the victim's family as they understood his cooperation was key to bringing the shooter to justice."
In May, Charles D. Howard, 29,of St. Robert entered a plea of guilty to murder in the second degree and armed criminal action for his role in Carpenter's murder.
Judge Gregory Warren sentenced Howard to life in prison for the murder charge and 10 years on the armed criminal action charge. Howard will not be eligible for consideration for parole until 2043, according to Hillman.
Hillman stated that Howard was the primary suspect in this case and had previously admitted to shooting Carpenter with a 9mm handgun over a dispute between Howard, Carpenter and several other people.
Libby Charles, 43, of St. Robert, was sentenced to four years in prison for hindering prosecution for a felony in conjunction with this case in April.
Police documents state that the homicide occurred after an ongoing dispute between Howard's and Carpenter's family members, as well as Brian T. Haggard, 32, of St. Robert, who was also fired upon by suspects.
Carpenter was 33 at the time of her death and was the mother of three children.

subset: commoncrawl


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Justin Timberlake has skills you don't even know about
Justin Timberlake has skills you don't even know about
It's well known that Justin Timberlake has mad skills when it comes to singing, dancing and acting, but that's not all he's good at.
The entertainer recently made a half-court shot not once, but twice. He posted videos to Instagram to prove his feat achieved at the Staples Center.
"Still got that range," Timberlake said about the first shot. He then posted the second "just in case y'all thought it was a fluke."


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The process of buying a new GMC car or truck can seem overwhelming if you don't know where to begin. Edmunds.com can get you started on the right track with a convenient directory of GMC car dealerships in and around North Brunswick, New Jersey. Compare online price quotes on the new or used car, truck, SUV, minivan, or wagon of your choice to locate the best deals. Edmunds.com makes it easy to find trusted GMC car dealers in North Brunswick, saving car buyers time and money on what will be an important purchase.
Non Display Review Name "I had the great privilege to work with Flo and Cathy at Perrine Buick GMC. The entire process was completely flawless and enjoyable. After purchasing "... Read more Review by: bmccourt
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Dear visitor, welcome to SPRINKLER TALK FORUM - You Got Questions, We've Got Answers. If this is your first visit here, please read the Help. It explains how this page works. You must be registered before you can use all the page's features. Please use the registration form, to register here or read more information about the registration process. If you are already registered, please login here.
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Beautiful, happy, major key, motivating light rock track. Clean guitar somehow creates an warm atmosphere of summer or spring, staccato violin gives track some edge and pleasant feel, piano being on the second plan helps the track to sound even more happy, soft bass guitar with simple riff greatly fits with drum patern. Hope you will find this track useful in Your production. Enjoy & Use it
Good luck on your current project! Don't foregt to comment and rate


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PA Office of Administration Launches Online Orientation for New Employees
Jan 10, 2013, 11:18 ET
New Onboarding Process Saves Time, Increases Efficiency
HARRISBURG, Pa., Jan. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Secretary of Administration Kelly Powell Logan today announced the launch of an online orientation process for newly hired employees that will generate an estimated $433,000 in annual savings and productivity.
The new process, known as onboarding, provides new employees with a standard, online orientation. New hires can read and acknowledge workplace policies, set up direct deposit, enter emergency contact information and enroll in medical benefits – all before they ever set foot in the door for their first day.
"The executive branch hires 2,500 to 4,500 employees annually and devotes, on average, three hours preparing for each new hire," Logan said. "Using technology, we can streamline the process for dozens of agencies and free-up HR staff to focus on strategic functions, such as workforce planning and employee development."
The onboarding system is also used to initiate the creation of employee email accounts, badges and other credentials.
The new onboarding process utilizes E-Verify, a federal system that compares information from an employee's I-9 Form, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility.
"These innovations will allow new employees to become productive in their new jobs more quickly and reduce the amount of time spent on administrative tasks associated with the hiring process," Logan said.
The new onboarding process is managed by the commonwealth's HR Service Center. Launched in 2010, the center provides common human resources, benefits and payroll services and information to employees of agencies under the governor's jurisdiction. The HR Service Center saves nearly $3 million annually through the reduction of human resources staff and the efficient delivery of standard HR functions.
Media Contact: Dan Egan, 717-772-4237
SOURCE Pennsylvania Office of Administration


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Rana L. Cash Sporting News
The New England Patriots need pass-catchers as badly as any team in the NFL. So, you never pictured Tim Tebow reaching up and grabbing balls? Perhaps Bill Belichick, in his own mind's eye, has.
Tebow is taking part in catch-and-run drills in these early days of training camp. Resist the urge to read too much into it, but know that Tebow is an athlete first and foremost.
Tim Tebow has been sighted catching passes in Patriots' practices, but the truth is, not much should be made of it. He's spending 99 percent of his time at quarterback. (AP photo)"He's just practicing his open-field running," Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels told the Boston Globe. "We know Tim has a skill set that some of these other guys don't possess in terms of his ability to run with it, scramble with it when he has it in his hands."
MORE: Armond Armstead has surgery | Vince Wilfork tries out Boston accent
Based on reports, Tebow is actually spending 99 percent of his time at quarterback—both on the field when running the third-team offense, and in meetings.
McDaniels added that Tebow is putting in "a lot of time and effort to improve his individual skill set to play the position of quarterback in our offense."
That doesn't mean he couldn't and wouldn't be used elsewhere.
It's not a stretch to envision Tebow lining up at tight end, especially in this offense that so desperately needs them. Aaron Hernandez is history. Rob Gronkowski is out indefinitely as he recuperates from surgeries on his arm and neck.
The current tight ends on the roster: Jake Ballard, Daniel Fells, Michael Hoomanawanui, Brandon Ford and Zach Sudfeld.
With that lineup, why not Tebow, at least sparingly? It will take a big group effort to make up for the 106 catches for 1,273 yards and 16 touchdowns that Hernandez and Gronkowski combined for.
McDaniels said that he has in the past used quarterbacks Matt Cassel and Doug Flutie in catch-and-run drills, too, because of their running ability.
So, don't make too much of the Tebow pass-catch sightings. The Boston Globe reports that he spends five minutes on the drill during each practice. It's designed to help ballcarriers elude defenders and protect the ball.
"It's a normal procedure we go through in training camp," McDaniels said.


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NAEP Staff
NAEP field staff go into schools across the nation to administer assessment exercises to students who are part of the NAEP sample. Teachers and principals are asked to complete survey questionnaires to provide context for student results. The NAEP field staff are responsible for conducting assessments and an extensive quality-assurance program.
NAEP field staff, who are responsible for all assessment day activities, are trained to collect and safeguard NAEP assessment data to guarantee its accuracy and integrity as well as to provide support to and reduce the burden for participating schools throughout the assessment process. The NAEP field staff receives extensive training in administering NAEP assessments. Such training includes (but is not necessarily limited to) learning about procedures to do the following tasks:
NAEP field staff sign and observe The NAEP Code of Ethics
(35 KB). This Code defines the principles that are the foundation for fair and accurate test administration and data collection.
NAEP School Coordinators
Individual schools participating in NAEP designate an in-school staff member to be the school coordinator. The school coordinator collaborates on assessment activities with NAEP professional field staff. School coordinators achieve the following tasks with the help of the field staff and the NAEP State Coordinator:
If you need additional information about NAEP administration from the administration manuals, please send a description of the type of information needed (including the year and the assessment) using the form for ordering NAEP publications. If you are interested in becoming a NAEP field administrator, please check for
available opportunities.


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Doctor Who: Planet of the Spiders (UK - DVD R2)
Good grief! The Wilson Bros reverse the polarity of the neutron flow for this one...
Doctor Who had seemingly been in crisis – when producer Barry Letts was brought into the show, the ratings were – by his own admission – "so low they had dropped off the graph"; the show had gone through this cycle before with both William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. The gamble of having Jon Pertwee's Doctor exiled on Earth had paid off initially, but public interested waned and when Letts was in the producer's chair, The Doctor's exile ended and he was free to roam time and space.
Pertwee's final season, season 11, was certainly something of a mixed-bag, with good stories such as The Time Warrior (which saw the introduction of the Sontarons) and Death To The Daleks (arguably the only decent Dalek story of the Third Doctor era) interwoven with stinkers like Invasion of the Dinosaurs (an interesting idea torpedoed by over-length, laughable effects and a superfluous sub-plot about pseudo-Scientologist nutters) and The Monster of Peladon (the perfect example how reusing props and costumes to save a few quid isn't necessarily a good idea). The final story for Jon Pertwee's Doctor would be pitched somewhere inbetween the great and the downright awful...
Planet of the Spiders sees disgraced former UNIT captain Mike Yates (Richard Franklin) trying to penetrate a dark, mysterious circle, stumbling upon sinister goings-on of a cult behind the closed doors of a spiritual retreat. Discretely recruiting Sarah-Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) to help him expose the truth behind the seemingly normal Buddhist retreat at which he's has been recuperating, just as event begin to escalate.
Fairly soon, it dawns upon The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) that the crystal he appropriated from the planet of Metabelis III is being targeted by the spiders (referred to locally as the Eight-Legs) that inhabit that planet, using the cultists and the gem as a inter-dimensional passageway between worlds. With events becoming evermore critical, The Doctor eventually realises that he might have to take on the arch Eight-Legs herself, The Great One, and make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the universe...
Planet of the Spiders had the production code ZZZ, and there are few Doctor Who serials more deserving of that particular code, as it is a six-parter snooze-a-thon, something that could have easily been told in four-parts and would have been far more entertaining. Structurally, it is similar to The Time Monster, with a fair bit of it taking place on present-day Earth and then switching to somewhere else entirely for most of the second half. The first half of the story is more interesting, as the use of location footage, rather than a dull, studio-bound alien world, has more of a sense of excitement about it, rather than use of Colour Separation Overkill... sorry, Overlay.
Planet of the Spiders features the dullest regeneration to date on Doctor Who (Colin Baker's one may have been a fudge-job because of his understandable reluctance to participate in it, but at least they attempted something innovative) – just having Tom Baker lying in exactly the same position and then quickly dissolving between the two is remarkably unimaginative. We should point out that some fans have posted their own enhanced versions of this regeneration and that some of the results are most impressive.
Barry Letts' Buddhist beliefs take centre-stage in this story, with the whole thing centring around the strange goings-on that the disgraced former Captain Yates discovers at a Buddhist retreat in the West Country. What is a little puzzling is that it seems to show such Buddhist groups as being the centre for something sinister, as the one seen here is depicted as a cult. Even when the leader of such cults, which hide behind legitimate established religions to conceal their own agendas, are depicted as rogue lunatics or just plain evil, they can still do a fair amount of damage to the religion they have been hiding behind. Letts was one of those directors who didn't like to stay in up in the gallery, as he liked to be on the studio floor when things whenever possible, but you have to wonder if he was directing part of this story whilst standing on a soapbox. Speaking of which, there is a scene where The Doctor tells Sarah-Jane about some more of his pivotal moments as a young person, and says that when he looked in to the crystal, he saw the face of his old teacher - it's quite likely that in a past incarnation, he bore a remarkable resemblance to Barry Letts...
What is also quite a major strike against this story is the decision to cast an occidental actor as an oriental character. The same thing would be done a few years later in the otherwise wonderful The Talons of Weng Chiang, but this would be fairly more successful that what was in Planet of the Spiders. Actor Kevin Lindsay had previously played Sontaron Linx in The Time Warrior (and would also appear as Styre in The Sontaron Experiment shortly before his premature death in 1975), and here he plays Cho Je, a Buddhist monk who is hiding a great secret. Lindsay is a good actor, but all of the make-up and acting prowess in the world can do little to disguise the fact that he clearly ISN'T Asian and that he's only a couple of rungs up on what we like to call (inspired by the infamous Benny Hill character) the "Sirry Pirrock" scale. At the time, there was seemingly a scarcity of Asian actors working in the UK, but there must have been at least one who was competent enough to portray Cho Je and give him the necessary gravitas that was lacking due to having a white actor playing the role.
There's no getting around it - Planet of the Spiders is a bloated, over-padded story, which was pretty much in keeping with many of the stories from Pertwee's tenure. Though the main motivation to have longer stories was due to budgetary constraints (i.e. longer stories would mean fewer stories in a season and less new props and costumes to shell out on), much of episode two of this story sees Jon Pertwee embark on a chase that practically runs for the whole of the episode and has him pursue his quarry on land, water and air. This stuff must have cost a packet to stage and was only granted as a thank-you to Pertwee, as it was his final story and he had a love of various forms of motorised transport, including Bessie, a gyrocopter, the Whomobile and a speedboat. With the ante continually being upped by the various vehicles, you expect a Yellow Submarine to break up through the concrete road and join in the pursuit. The Whomobile has all the grace of movement on the road as a Thundersley Invacar, and sports a circular aerial which looks uncannily like the antenna on an old portable TV we used to have, right down to the block at the bottom containing a connector, but it's still a pretty cool beast, even when used just for the sake of it. OK, so the whole chase is gratuitous and doesn't serve the story in any way whatsoever, but you have to hand it to Pertwee for taking a much greater part in events than many other of the other actors who have played The Doctor would have agreed to. What is seen in this episode is almost pornography for petrol-heads, who will doubtlessly be having a quick two-stroke whilst watching it...
The cliff-hanger to episode four is one of the weakest that we can recall in Doctor Who history (well, apart from a certain one in Dragonfire), with The Doctor entering the chamber where Sarah-Jane is being held prisoner, raising her hopes of rescue, only to have them dashed when she realises that her would-be rescuer is himself captive; this works on paper and would have made for a good, maybe even great, episode closer but the previous scene had clearly showed that The Doctor had been outnumbered by adversaries and that no amount of Venusian Aikido would have gotten him out of it. This could have been remedied by cutting slightly early and making it not so obvious that it was a hopeless situation, particularly Pertwee's line that acknowledges defeat. Such retro-editing doesn't help matters and that ineffective cliffhanger will always remain so, and must be judged accordingly.
Pertwee seems more relaxed in this story; perhaps it was because he knew that he was about to leave the show and was less proprietorial about the role, seeing as he was about to hand it over to a little-known Liverpudlian actor. Out of all of the actors to play the role, none seemed to be more possessive of the part than Pertwee and certainly showed on-screen - lets' not forget that Pertwee released the single "I Am The Doctor", though there are probably quite a few people still trying forget this. A warmth and a sense of charm (maybe he was able to persuade Barry Letts to write some in for him) seems to emanate from Pertwee that feels more genuine and less "actorly" than in much of the other stories during his time on Doctor Who. It also goes without saying that this story sees Pertwee's barnet at it's most bouffant. Certainly one of our favourite Pertwee moments comes on his first scene, where he and Courtney are sitting though an awful, low-grade comedian at a club, with an excellent air of indignation practically hurled at such club entertainers of the seventies.
The late Nicholas Courtney is also very good in this and seeing him and Pertwee playing their characters in a social setting is lovely, with the two of them having a rapport that is also absent from previous stories; the relationship they have is not too dissimilar to that of Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant at the start of the Trial of a Time Lord season, where time has moved on and they are friends, rather than Doctor and companion. The rapport between Courtney and Pertwee is wonderful during the scenes in episode one where they are in the theatre waiting for the psychic to appear on stage. Tom Baker may have been the superior actor, but Pertwee paired up much better with Courtney, as the Third Doctor and the Brig were brittle in personality and always trying to push each other's buttons. Naturally, Courtney is still required to do his blustery shtick in this story, but he does it so well that you'd miss it if he didn't do it. Speaking of Mr C - isn't the Brig's hair a bit too shaggy for an military officer in this one? More on that below, but it's nice to hear the name "Doris" casually mentioned, as this particular acquaintance would later turn up in the Sylvester McCoy story Battlefield as the Brig's good lady wife. With The Doctor about to regenerate, there is a moment when the Brig exclaims "good grief!", which is Pertwee's second most popular phrase after "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" - maybe The Doctor had a premonition that he was about to move onto his next incarnation and mentally bequeathed one of this catchphrases to The Brig.
Elisabeth Sladen also gets a chance to shine in Planet of the Spiders, whilst wearing what could be viewed as one of her signature garments (the Andy Pandy outfit from The Hand of Fear would be THE definitive costume), the stripy top that looks good with a spider on the back of it; whilst we're talking about appearances, Sarah-Jane Smith has thankfully allowed her hair to grow out a bit, losing the "I'm a card-carrying, right-on, bra-burning feminist" look that she had when she first signed on. Sladen seems to be more of the investigative journalist in the first couple of episodes, being invited to snoop around the retreat to good effect. The on-screen chemistry that she shares with Richard Franklin is most pleasing, as they seem to bounce off each other very nicely and makes it all the more convincing that Yates is trying to redeem himself for that whole betraying UNIT incident a few stories back.
This was Richard Franklin's last "proper" appearance in Doctor Who; though he would turn up again for a cameo in The Five Doctors, Yates was merely an illusion to trick The Doctor and even though he took part in the Children In Need story Dimensions In Time, most Doctor Who fans would probably prefer to pretend that it never happened. Franklin's Yates in this story is a different animal to his previous portrayal; the noble officer from the UNIT family is long-gone and he is no longer the traitor he turned out to be in Invasion of the Dinosaurs - the Yates here is more level-headed, but still something of a broken man who is seemingly searching for redemption.
Of the guest cast, John Kane really shines as Tommy, who starts out as a kind of prototype Benny, but rather than being a handyman at the Crossroads motel, he is a handyman (of sorts) at the Buddhist retreat. Unlike Benny, he doesn't vanish after climbing a ladder, but he is exposed to the mysterious powers of the Metabelis III crystal and before you can say The Lawnmower Man, he finds his intelligence vastly increased. A combination of great writing and an enchanting performance from Kane (who's method acting got him into a bit of an embarrassing situation - see the special features for more about this), that make the character one of the most overtly sympathetic in Doctor Who history. The scene where Tommy begins to properly appreciate literature and the change in his response to such things is simply wonderful. The only issue we have is that the usage to which his new-found abilities are put toward the end of the story just aren't played up enough - he has the ability to be immune to the blue lightning/lasers that the spider-affected members of the retreat fire at him (they decide to chant in unison to get more power - they were probably looking for more "ohms"); ultimately, it feels as though Barry Letts (or co-author Robert Sloman) watched a late-night screening of the Edward D Wood film, Bride of the Monster and saw Bela Lugosi turn into a bullet-proof atomic superman and thought "hmm, that gives me an idea..."
John Dearth is suitably slimy as would-be super-villain Lupton, who happens to be just another in the long, sad line of megalomaniacal characters who crave power so badly that they are prepared to ally themselves with any old passing ruthless race in order to use them as muscle to get what they desire (not to mention thinking that they can hoodwink them once their objectives have been reached); Lupton joins Mavic Chen, Tobias Vaughn and many others in that league of misguided madmen, with Dearth playing the character for all it's worth, though during the last couple of episodes when Lupton sees himself trying to bargain with the Eight-Legs (as the spiders are known on Metabelis III), he looks as though he has had a few and seems as though he is about to put his arm around one of the spiders and say "you're my bestest mate, you are".
Gareth Hunt puts in a good performance as Arak, showing more depth that you would expect from a man who frequently played glib or smug characters (or making a certain hand gesture in those eighties coffee ads that many thought was an appropriate description for Hunt himself), but here is outfitted with a West Country accent - as are all of the human inhabitants of Metabelis III - and he makes a good fist of trying to act seriously whilst sporting facial hair and shaggy mop which answers that eternal question of "How do you turn Gambit from The New Avengers into Jason King?"
Something that is touched upon in the first episode is the idea that having psychic abilities is not so much a blessing, but more of a curse. One has to wonder if Barry Letts (or co-writer Robert Sloman) had a gay subtext in mind when writing the script, as it seems to play out in a similar manner to that of the Bryan Singer directed X-Men films, where having mutant powers was a thinly-veiled metaphor for being gay. The clairvoyant Professor Herbert Clegg (Cyril Shaps) trumpets his psychic abilities professionally, but when questioned privately by The Doctor and the Brigadier, he insists that his abilities aren't real, but eventually cracks and confirms - almost with a sense of shame - that he has extraordinarily strong psychic powers. If Letts or Sloman actually had this in mind when writing, then it was an exceptionally bold move for a family show, especially given the era in which it was filmed, when homosexuality had been decriminalised, but homophobia and social stigma attached to it were still rife.
If we were to delve even deeper into metaphorical waters, then one could interpret the concept of the spider on the back as being representative of a penis; something that talks to you and only the person it is attached to can hear it and constantly tells you to do things against your will and you almost invariably obey it's orders despite how much your conscious mind objects. To journey even further into the ridiculous, the crystal can be viewed as a vagina, being something that the spiders pursue in a determined, relentless manner and will grant the successful questor greater knowledge and understanding. Perhaps this analogy says more about us than anything else, but we thought we'd throw it in anyway. If you wish to be critical of the having spiders as adversaries, then this notion is rather subjective, as although fear of the eight-legged monsters is common, arachnophobia is not a universal phenomenon. At the risk of sounding flippant, along with the Menoptra, this is possibly the only adversary for The Doctor and his companions which could easily be killed by the careful application of a can of Raid.
When viewing this story with the benefit of hindsight, there is a sense of it being the end of an era, not just with the departure of Jon Pertwee, but also because this was the beginning of the end of the UNIT family, as it would be gradually be moved into the background by incoming producer Philip Hinchcliffe before going out with a whimper in The Android Invasion. The UNIT family played a significant part in the success of the Pertwee era, and even when The Doctor had been given his freedom to roam the galaxy once more, there were still stories that brought him back to his favourite blue-green planet to help UNIT defeat some menacing unearthly force.
It would have been nice to have had the option to view Planet of the Spiders with some CGI footage; the prospect of having some of the arachnids replaced with computer-generated ones was a most pleasing one, but sadly this isn't possible here. The spider shots are pretty inconsistent, with some of the more static shots being pretty good, even if they look like the puppet ants from The Young Ones ( "Did you know that humans can actually build bridges?"), and have the appearance of being nailed to the platforms on which they are standing, and look like they are desperately trying to free themselves from their impalement. Some of the shots where the spiders move via CSO are pretty toe-curling, as the legs are continually winking in and out of existence in an orange blur, which distract from the storytelling, or at least shatter any kind of suspension of disbelief that had been created.
There is the odd nod to events of the day, with the a few references to popular culture cleverly worked into the dialogue, with the most notable being when Pertwee asks the psychic Professor Clegg if he feels up to bending a few spoons, obviously a nod to Uri Geller and his famed ability to bend spoons as the world marvelled. This reflection of the times extends to a primary plot element, as the concept of gurus and Asian spirituality was all the rage during the sixites and early seventies, but given a typically Doctor Who twist by meditation being used as a conduit for invading forces.
As touched upon a couple of times above, many of the cast sport hairstyles which come as a bit of a shock when going back to watch Pertwee's final bow as The Doctor, and how just the title character himself. Richard Franklin has a shaggier mop than before, Elizabeth Sladen still has her overgrown flapper "do" which was tamed during her time with Tom Baker, and Nick Courtney possesses curiously long hair for an man of his rank, and give the time Planet of the Spiders was made, he was seriously in danger of beating himself up.
Trivia fans will note the mentioning of future companion Harry Sullivan, which served as an interesting way of easing in a new character by establishing him (albeit in a very minor way) before the new actor to play The Doctor slips into the role.
OK, we're going to be a little controversial here and say that we're a little disappointed with how Planet of the Spiders looks on DVD. We accept that there are limitations as far as what the Doctor Who Restoration Team had to work with (and it's almost certain that the original film elements for the location work no longer exist), but other stories from the same era have looked better than this once the RT had worked their magic on them.
Much of the studio footage was shot in dark locations, so the video footage was going to be grainy anyway, but there just seems to be something preventing it from shining as magnificently as, say, The Mutants on DVD. There has certainly been restoration work carried out - you just have to look at the omnibus version of Planet of the Spiders to see how it looked before it was spruced up - and the upswing in quality is noticeable, but this is one of the few times where we have been a little disappointed with the results of the Restoration Team's efforts.
Nothing to complain about, as usual - the mono Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is perfectly fine, with Dudley Simpson's music score being particularly pleasing to the ears.
Audio Commentary: Producer/Director Barry Letts, Script Editor Terrance Dicks, along with actors Nicholas Courtney, Elisabeth Sladen and Richard Franklin all join in the good-natured fun for this commentary, which is poignant not only because Barry Letts is no longer with us, but more so because Nick Courtney left the party very recently. We recall reading that actor Gareth Hunt was supposed to participate in this audio commentary, but was apparently taken ill just before the recording was due to take place and sadly passed away shortly afterwards.
Terrence Dicks expounds upon the use of the "Rule of Three" in dramatic writing, this time employed for when The Doctor is scanning the stones he intends to use. He also spits out the term "arc" when referring to the change of a character over the course of a story, Dicks clearly not too happy to embrace new terminology. "It's a good job he [Tommy] picked William Blake, who's out of copyright…" when watching the character's transformation from idiot to intellectual, which illustrates the whole tone of the track which makes you most welcome - Dicks is a real character and always wonderful to listen to; he really should be treasured and appreciated whilst he's still around.
Dear old Barry Letts informs that as bad as the "Comedians" style comic was at the beginning of the story, they originally had an intentionally terrible ventriloquist in the proceedings, but was so awful that they couldn't use any of it. The scrapping of a monkey-ventriloquist is a tragedy in any language or culture, in our opinion, and a strike against the powers-that-be on the show at the time.
Certain motivations in the screenplay are picked apart by those watching, with one sequence almost drawing exasperation from all concerned, that being when Lupton puts the crystal in a place where it can be easily stolen. The reaction runs like this:
Franklin: "Don't put it over there, you daft h'apoth, somebody'll nick it."
Dicks: "A shade careless to put it by an open window…"
Sladen: "Yeah".
Dicks: "…and then turn your back on it for long periods".
Sladen: [/i]"Open window… you know something's going to happen. Especially when it's a long-shot!"[/i]
They couldn't do a commentary for Planet of the Spiders without mentioning a few of the bones Pertwee was thrown, which most others would read as "indulgences", including the obvious use of the vehicles in the second episode and the instances where Venusian Aikido gets the Dandy Doctor out of a scrape. Speaking of all things dandy, as mentioned above, Planet of the Spiders is a great showcase for some very dated haircuts, and this doesn't slip by the participants here, as when the four cultists join forces against Tommy, Sladen points out that it's: "…a line-up of seventies haircuts again."
The only minor criticism about this offering is that there are maybe a few too many participants, which results in some of the more dominant people present to talk over those who like to be quietly witty. No names on this one, but you can probably work out who's who. It's entertaining stuff, topped off by a couple of mentions about how Planet of the Spiders was intended as a "thank-you-and-goodnight" performance from Rodger Delgado as The Master which, according to Letts, involved his demise by "exploding in the middle of a supernova".
The Final Curtain: This is a pretty comprehensive - not to mention deliriously enjoyable - 37 minute look at the making of Planet of the Spiders, featuring contributions from Producer Barry Letts, Script Editor Terrance Dicks, Effects Designer Matt Irvine, Designer Rochelle Selwyn, New-Who Writer/Actor Mark Gatiss, Actor Richard Franklin and - most surprisingly, Jon Pertwee himself, who appears in an interview recorded the year before he died. This is a breezy, but very informative look at the Third Doctor's final story, explaining the genesis of the script (especially how it was originally supposed to be a final showdown between The Doctor and his old nemesis, The Master, but fate stepped in and Roger Delgado's tragic death put the mockers on it); this documentary also examines Pertwee's reasons for leaving the show and most would agree with his reasons, especially the gradual break-up of the on-screen troupe (Delgado's death, Katy Manning's leaving and the downplaying of the UNIT family), along with the fear of typecasting, but it was the request for more money being turned down that was probably the final straw (no Worzel Gummidge reference intended). Pertwee's participation is bittersweet, as seeing an older Pertwee for a moment almost makes you think that he isn't dead and that he is actively participating in this documentary - it genuinely comes as a bit of a jolt when you first see him; he imparts some amusing and informative anecdotes, matching some of the tales told by others in this documentary.
Dicks has a couple of chuckles at Barry Letts' spiritual beliefs, along with the always-welcome Matt Irvine, who speaks of some of the problems associated with mechanical spiders. The warmest and most vivid contributions come from Gatiss, who is always great to listen to, as he was a Doctor Who fan who grew up to be involved with the show in various ways - his experiences watching Planet of the Spiders and the Third Doctor era in general make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Designer Selwyn speaks of her despair at how awful the lighting was for the Metabelis III sets, complaining that they were lit like a light entertainment show, rather than a drama series - was John Nathan-Turner skulking around the studio during the filming of this story...? Nick Courtney and Lis Sladen are conspicuous by their absence and whilst it would have been nice to see them speaking of their feelings concerning the end of the era, they are both on the audio commentary for this story. The Final Curtain is a wonderful way to close the Pertwee era, and whilst a documentary containing an overview of Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who career would have been nice, this is a great way to spend 37 minutes of your life. Fittingly, Jon Pertwee gets the last word, giving an amusing response when asked about his successor...
John Kane Remembers Planet Of The Spiders: The actor who played the televisual precursor to Benny from Crossroads reminisces about his role in Jon Pertwee's final story. He's a pretty genial guy who seems to have a pretty good recollection of his time on Planet of the Spiders and recounts in great detail the embarrassing incident on the first day of recording at Television Centre, where he stayed in character as Tommy and fooled the taxi driver taking him there that he was going to meet Doctor Who and had to keep this illusion up to the security guard on the gate, who was somewhat disgruntled when he revealed himself to be in character. What really was the most startling revelation in this interview was that Kane conceived and developed a sitcom in the seventies, which was kicked around a bit and was written with Roy Kinnear in mind to play the lead; the thing eventually surfaced in the early eighties and turned out to be that most bland and inoffensive of sappy, cosy, middle-class comedies, Terry and June! It's a pity that Kinnear didn't get the gig, as he would have been able to steer the thing in a more interesting direction than the way it turned out. Even though Terry and June probably ended up rather different to how Kane envisioned it, there are still some who would wish to see the actor who played Tommy imprisoned in a giant wicker Volvo and then see it set alight as the first golden rays of the dawn appear over the horizon.
Directing Who With Barry Letts: This 14 minute featurette consists of the late Mr Letts speaking of his time as a director (and obviously crossing over into the producing area, as they happened to intertwine on several occasions), including how he got started after trying for several years to be enrolled into the Beeb's directing course and the televisual directorship map that led him to a certain popular science-fiction series. Letts is a good speaker with a relaxed voice that is easy on the ear, yet is able to convey urgency or drama when required (this was probably due to him being an actor before he went behind the camera) and Letts rattles off a number of interesting stories during this pleasing whistle-stop tour of his directorship on Doctor Who, including the fact that was unhappy that the only surviving episode of his Who directorial debut, The Enemy of the World, just happens to be a dull and padded episode in an otherwise exciting and action-packed story.
[/i]Now & Then - The Locations Of Planet Of The Spiders: This is another in the occasional series that takes a look at how the locations seen in [i]Doctor Who appear in the present day, contrasted by clips from the stories themselves. This fairly short (seven minutes) featurette is presented in a jaunty, bouncy style and is great fun to watch as the places where Planet of the Spiders was filmed are revisited; most of the locations haven't changed much, particularly those seen in the extended chase sequence, many of which look pretty much identical to the way they looked nearly four decades ago.
Trailer: Included for your delectation is a preview of the omnibus version of Planet of the Spiders that was broadcast the day after Boxing Day, 1974. It plays more as a collection of scenes to whet the appetite, rather than what most people these days would call a "conventional" trailer. It's still nice to have it included, though.
Om-Mani-Padme-Hum-nibus Version: To have included the trailer and NOT have thrown the in the thing that it was advertising wouldn't have been the done thing. So, for your viewing pleasure - and also for those of us who continually moan that six-part stories would play better in a more abbreviated form - we have the shortened version of Planet of the Spiders that played over the Christmas period in 1974 whilst Doctor Who was off the air. Let's face it - most four-plus part Doctor Who stories would benefit from some judicious pruning here and there - there are those who think that the original six-part Genesis of the Daleks is a bit of a drag, but see the truncated version that eventually surfaced as the real masterpiece.
The omnibus edition has around 45 minutes excised from the original running time (with around seven minutes removed from the first episode alone), and jumps straight into the action, removing the scenes of The Doctor and The Brig at the music hall. The end result is pacier than the six-part version, but purists will complain that it misses out the sort of character moments that Doctor Who is known and loved for; for a story that drags considerably, the edits generally work in the omnibus version's favour and also removes the ghastly cliffhanger from the end of episode four, showing The Doctor being confronted by two guards and when it cuts back to him next, he's cocooned alongside Sarah-Jane - it really works!
This version of Planet of the Spiders is unrestored and looks considerably rougher than the episodic version; there is a noticeable softness to the image that almost makes you feel as though you are watching a VHS copy of this story (we used to own the VHS Planet of the Spiders and viewing this shorter version, it really seemed like a trip down Memory Lane); there is also a fair amount of damage to the copy, with drop-outs on the studio sequences and print damage on the filmed material. Despite these minor gripes, it's great to get the chance for Doctor Who fans like us - who were too damned young to see the omnibus version of Planet of the Spiders at the time it was broadcast (we were only one year old at the time) - to be able to see the thing. Great stuff!
Photo Gallery: Clocking in at over five minutes, this is a compilation of images from Jon Pertwee's final story, all set to the strains of Dudley Simpson's music score and Dick Mills' special sounds. As with some of the more recent photo galleries, there has been a bit of movement added to give the images a bit more vitality and make them less of a chore for the casual viewer to watch - purists may be a little miffed that they aren't getting to see the full images, but the little bit of panning and zooming that has been applied here makes for a more satisfying and entertaining experience. There are a nice selection of colour and monochrome pictures, combining publicity stills, candid snaps and production photographs - it is worth pointing out that there are no images that show that Jon Pertwee is going to regenerate, presumably because the production didn't want anything to leak out to the press and the fans. We can also confirm that arguably the most famous image from Planet of the Spiders, the shot of Lis Sladen trying to look over her shoulder when the spider is on her back is included here - there would have been a mini-riot if it hadn't have been.
Info Track: It's time to unload the sack of superlatives once again, in the same way Ron Jeremy was guaranteed to empty his every time. Rather than just being reliably excellent, nor a another text-book example of how an information track should be done, but with Planet of the Spiders such a significant story in the run of the show, we are given one which rates among their very best.
Right off the bat we are given fascinating information with the benefit of a knowing wink, where it's revealed that the opening scenes of Mike Yates investigating around the grounds were shot at dusk because the originally scripted manoeuvres in the dark, and efforts to keep the disgraced UNIT officer were thwarted by Doctor Who's old nemeses, lack of lighting equipment.
Even at the time, it was a poorly kept secret that The Doctor's days of looking like a tall light bulb were numbered, and every knew that a change of actor was going to take place at the end of the final episode, but there was more to it than that. It adds so much more when the track informs of just how much Barry Letts was keen to utilise Buddhism once again, as he did with Interstitial Time in The Time Monster, going deeper than just having K'ampo Rimpoche around to represent the faith. A cornerstone of Buddhism, the destruction of the ego when the mind is overtaken in the pursuit of greed, is interwoven and used as a foreshadowing of the impending regeneration, with The Great One representing ego and The Doctor's quest into the Blue Mountain (his own self) thusly destroying said ego.
With many humour tales to balance out the proceedings, our favourite has to be the telling of how the combination of using a medical brace, having to use hair-curlers and wearing long-johns out on location at a military base almost gave the resident Sergeant-Major a coronary when he stumbled upon Pertwee lounging around in lingerie, rollers and a girdle. With such a sight, Pertwee would have been much more suited for a Navy Lark.
We have praised the work lovingly lavished on the Doctor Who fact-tracks, giving credit where is richly deserved, but there is a good chance that the one for Planet of the Spiders might be the crowning achievement. It is not merely throwaway information, but in indispensable look at the story and the myriad of variations it took before becoming the final product. At key points, changes are noted and cross-referenced between the differing drafts of the script, changes made during filming and alterations in the Target novelisation. Whilst dullards might read such exhaustive minutia as being anal, this just isn't the case. To put it succinctly, the Info Track for Planet of the Spiders enriches the whole experience, expanding on story elements only mentioned briefly and broadening appreciation of Pertwee's final regular outing as The Doctor in a way which stands proudly alongside Tolkien's appendices for his own work. Just excellent.
Coming Soon: Well, it's more Third Doctor madness - Planet of the Spiders saw the departure of the Bouffanted-One, but the Mannequin Mania box sees his introduction, as it contains Spearhead From Space and Terror of the Autons; the trailer's great and both stories are fabulous fun, particularly as Terror sees the introduction of the wonderful Roger Delgado who is usually referred to as The Master. You might even say that it's plastic fantastic! Oh, Christ - did we really just type that...?
PDF Materials: Pop this into your PC and you will be able to access the Radio Times listings for all six episodes of Planet of the Spiders, complete with rather nice illustrations to accompany the listings and gratuitous plug for the Doctor Who Radio Times Special (which was REALLY nice and we wish they could reprint the thing).
Planet of the Spiders may have it's faults, but even the over-long story and near-pornographic chase in episode two can't put you off the engaging performances (especially from Jon Pertwee) and the surprising amount of depth there is to the story. For those of you who aren't exactly thrilled at sitting through this six-part story, there's always the omnibus version to watch.
The bonus materials really ARE something to treasure - especially The Final Curtain, with the late Pertwee's contribution - and all-in-all, this package for the Third Doctor's final story is a great one...
"All praise to the Great One!"
Review by Wilson Bros
General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children
Disc Details
Release Date: 18th April 2011
Discs: 2
Disc Type: Single side, dual layer
RCE: No
Video: PAL
Aspect: 1.33:1
Anamorphic: No
Colour: Yes
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Subtitles: English
Extras: Audio Commentary, Now & Then, Photo Gallery, Coming Soon Trailer, PDF Materials
Easter Egg: No
Feature Details
Director: Barry Letts
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, Mike Gambit
Genre: Sci-Fi
Length: 150 minutes
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newarenanow wrote:That was just a terrible, embarrassing loss. If you would have told me that we'd hold ND to 52 pts, I thought we'd win, not lose by double digits. Pathetic.
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|Home >> Ask Olympus: How can CONTRAST, SHARPNESS and SATURATION be applied creatively?
How can the CONTRAST, SHARPNESS and SATURATION options in the PICTURE MODE in the menu be applied creatively?
Of all the options in the camera's menus, CONTRAST, SHARPNESS and SATURATION can most effectively be applied to create a "look" to your images. These factors are applied to the JPEG files as part of the image processing when the captured image is written to the memory card. If you are shooting in one of the SCENE modes the same factors may automatically be applied in the different SCENE modes in various combinations to arrive at the "look" of each SCENE mode. The advantage of applying these factors in-camera is that it can save time in post-processing the images in the computer. These same functions are found in the Edit Palette of the Olympus software that supports your camera.
Let's look at what these options do and how they can be used creatively. First, bear in mind that all of these options are set at the middle value out of the box.
CONTRAST controls the range between lightness and darkness in the processed image. By using a "plus" setting, the brightness range is shortened and the image will have a more vivid appearance with more brilliant colors. Creatively this might be preferred for landscape photography. The VIVID PICTURE MODE is already using a higher contrast value, so raising the contrast in the VIVID PICTURE MODE will make the contrast even greater. By using a "minus" setting, the colors in the image will have a slightly flatter appearance , and may be used to extend the brightness range of the camera, or impart a more romantic or nostalgic feel to photographs. The MUTED PICTURE MODE is already using lower contrast value, so lowering the contrast value will make the tones even flatter. In the MONOTONE (black & white or sepia) mode, increasing the contrast will produce a harder photojournalistic look, and decreasing the contrast will produce a more classical photographic range of tones.
SHARPNESS applies different levels of digital sharpening much the same way as photoimaging software applies the "unsharp mask" function in image post-processing, but does it in-camera. Using a "plus" value may over-sharpen images and actually reduce their apparent sharpness. If you commonly perform extensive post-processing of images, it is best to set SHARPNESS to minus 2, which is the least sharpening, and will reduce the appearance of recompressed jpeg images when many post-processing steps are used. If you commonly shoot at very high ISOs, using the minus 2 value will also reduce the appearance of digital noise, because higher sharpening sharpens the graininess of digital noise and makes it more apparent. One creative use of sharpening is if you combine high contrast and high sharpening in the MONOTONE PICTURE MODE, you can produce images that look like they were shot on 400 speed black & white film.
SATURATION allows you to set the level of color vividness when images are processed in-camera and saved to the memory card. A "plus" value such as plus 2 will make the colors more vibrant. A "minus" value such as minus 2 will make the colors flatter.
The best way to learn the effect of these settings is to shoot a series of test shots of the same setup with different PICTURE MODES and combinations of CONTRAST, SHARPNESS, and SATURATION. If you want to shoot the same image with one of these custom setups and still have an image with normal values, you can shoot RAW+JPEG in which the RAW image processing doesn't apply the factors but the JPEG processing does.
Archive - E-System:
- Advantages of digital lenses
- Transferring your photos to a CD
- Printing the date on your photos
- Best image sizes for emailing
- Lens connections and F-stop
- Indoor sports photos
- AF illuminator and camera flashes
- Camera locks up while shooting closeups
- Taking photos of the Northern Lights
- Shooting in cold weather
- Pixel Mapping
- Waterfall and Stream Effects
- Camera unable to secure autofocus
- Night sports photos
- Can I use a teleconverter with my kit lens?
- What is MY MODE?
- Saving Your Camera Settings
- What does the Fn button do?
- Tips for shooting holiday lights outdoors
- Tips about memory card usage
- The purpose of IMAGE ASPECT when shooting?
- Tips for digitizing 35mm color slides
- Double exposures and xD card questions
- Taking better indoor photos
- Shooting in RAW
- Battery charging guidelines
- E-System Compatibility
- Cleaning your mirror box
- Studio Lighting
- Tricks for manually focusing
- Focusing E-System cameras in low light
- P, A, S and M modes
- Keeping a zoom lens steady
- What lenses can I use with my DSLR?
- High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography
- Post-processing color controls in OLYMPUS Master
- How do I use bracketing modes?
- Save a zoomed playback image
- How can CONTRAST, SHARPNESS and
SATURATION be applied creatively?
- Shooting indoors in the winter
- What does the GRADATION feature in the menu do?
- Using OM-System lenses and accessories


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A Phase I Safety and Immunogenicity Trial of Live Recombinant Canarypox ALVAC-HIV vCP300 and HIV-1 SF-2 rgp120 in HIV-1 Uninfected Adult Volunteers
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00001072
Recruitment Status : Completed
First Posted : August 31, 2001
Last Update Posted : May 18, 2012
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
To evaluate, in HIV-negative volunteers, the safety and immunogenicity of ALVAC-HIV MN120TMGNP (vCP300) followed by or combined with boosting using rgp120/HIV-1SF2. To compare ALVAC-HIV vCP300 with ALVAC-RG rabies glycoprotein (vCP65) as a control. To evaluate an accelerated immunization schedule at 0, 1, 3, and 6 months versus 0, 1, 6, and 9 months.
The combination of a live recombinant primer followed by a subunit boost has the potential to induce not only cytotoxic T lymphocytes but also neutralizing antibody.
|Condition or disease
|HIV Infections
|Biological: ALVAC-HIV MN120TMGNP (vCP300) Biological: ALVAC-RG Rabies Glycoprotein (vCP65) Biological: rgp120/HIV-1 SF-2
|Phase 1
The combination of a live recombinant primer followed by a subunit boost has the potential to induce not only cytotoxic T lymphocytes but also neutralizing antibody.
Volunteers are randomized to one of seven groups to receive immunizations with either ALVAC-HIV vCP300 or ALVAC-RG vCP65 (control), plus simultaneous or sequential boosting with rgp120/HIV-1SF2 or placebo. Immunizations are given at 0, 1, 6, and 9 months or 0, 1, 3, and 6 months. Volunteers are followed for at least 24 months.
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Enrollment :
|140 participants
|Primary Purpose:
|Official Title:
|A Phase I Safety and Immunogenicity Trial of Live Recombinant Canarypox ALVAC-HIV vCP300 and HIV-1 SF-2 rgp120 in HIV-1 Uninfected Adult Volunteers
|Actual Study Completion Date :
|January 1999
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 60 Years (Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria
Volunteers must have:
- Normal history and physical exam.
- ELISA and Western blot negative for HIV.
- CD4 count >= 400 cells/mm3.
- Normal urine dipstick with esterase and nitrite.
- Lower risk sexual behavior.
Exclusion Criteria
Co-existing Condition:
Subjects with the following symptoms or conditions are excluded:
- Positive hepatitis B surface antigen.
- Medical or psychiatric condition (such as recent suicidal ideation or present psychosis) that precludes compliance.
- Active syphilis. NOTE: Subjects with serology documented to be a false positive or due to a remote (> 6 months) treated infection are eligible.
- Active tuberculosis. NOTE: Subjects with a positive PPD and a normal chest x-ray showing no evidence of TB and not requiring isoniazid therapy are eligible.
- Allergy to egg products or neomycin.
Subjects with the following prior conditions are excluded:
- History of immunodeficiency, chronic illness, autoimmune disease, or use of immunosuppressive medications.
- History of anaphylaxis or other serious adverse reactions to vaccines.
- Prior immunization against rabies.
- History of serious allergic reaction to any substance, requiring hospitalization or emergent medical care (e.g., Stevens-Johnson syndrome, bronchospasm, or hypotension).
- Prior psychiatric condition (such as history of suicide attempts or past psychosis) that precludes compliance.
- History of cancer unless there has been surgical excision that is considered to have achieved cure.
Prior Medication:
- Live attenuated vaccines within 60 days prior to study entry. NOTE: Medically indicated killed or subunit vaccines (e.g., influenza, pneumococcal) do not exclude if administered at least 2 weeks from HIV immunizations.
- Experimental agents within 30 days prior to study entry.
- Prior HIV vaccines.
- Prior rabies immunization.
Prior Treatment:
- Blood products or immunoglobulin within 6 months prior to study entry. Identifiable high-risk behavior for HIV infection, such as
- injection drug use within past 12 months.
- higher or intermediate risk sexual behavior.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00001072
|United States, Alabama
|Birmingham, Alabama, United States, 35294
|United States, Maryland
|Baltimore, Maryland, United States
|United States, Missouri
|St. Louis Univ. School of Medicine AVEG
|St Louis, Missouri, United States, 63104
|United States, New York
|Univ. of Rochester AVEG
|Rochester, New York, United States, 14642
|United States, Tennessee
|Vanderbilt Univ. Hosp. AVEG
|Nashville, Tennessee, United States, 37232
|United States, Washington
|UW - Seattle AVEG
|Seattle, Washington, United States, 98144
|Study Chair:
|Keefer M
|Study Chair:
|Evans T
|Responsible Party:
|National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00001072 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
10576 ( Registry Identifier: DAIDS ES Registry Number )
|First Posted:
|August 31, 2001 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|May 18, 2012
|Last Verified:
|May 2012
Keywords provided by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID):
Vaccines, Synthetic
HIV Envelope Protein gp120
AIDS Vaccines
HIV Seronegativity
HIV Preventive Vaccine
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
HIV Infections
Lentivirus Infections
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Hey all.
Okay, here goes nothing: I'm just getting out. Here I am, about to graduate high school and head off to college, and suddenly I find myself no longer believing in the Christianity of my childhood.
Why? Because I decided to obey the Bible. I Thessalonians 5:21 says "Prove all things."
Prove all things? I'd been listening to (admittedly uneducated and a bit disagreeable) preachers all my life, and approaching the Bible with the idea that it can't contradict itself, therefore any apparent contradictions are explainable.
I wanted to be 100% sure about my faith. I believed I would be.
Instead, I started realizing things like, "I can't really define 'salvation', you know, mom? That's why I don't walk around giving out gospel tracts any more."
And, "If I only accept proof from my side of the argument, how do I know that someone else doesn't have a point?"
And, "Wait a minute: My pastor has NO idea what he's talking about when it comes to science. How do I know any other creationists do?"
Soon enough, by the moving of what I would have once called Satan, and now am tempted to call Fate, my atheistic uncle emailed me. This was not the first time he'd emailed me in an attempt to "attack" my beliefs. It would not be the last. For in the correspondence that followed, he decided not to give me up to my indoctrination. Fortunately, I had invited this.
"Scientists," he said, "go through incredibly rigorous study while in school, usually because they want to make a contribution; not because of money, because usually they won't make a lot of it. I find it disturbing when a fundamentalist Christian with little to no education thinks he knows better than scientists... Do you believe in Noah's flood?"
I gave him my reasons for believing in the flood, while providing him the opportunity to "further test my indoctrination". I also conceded that it was foolish for the uneducated to believe they know better.
And so I got to doin' the math about Noah's ark.
And so I got to researchin' the claims put in my head by the venerable Kent Hovind (comets only last so long, there is no continental drift, carbon dating doesn't work).
And so I got to lookin' at the Bible's contradictions.
And so I got to praying, "God, if you want me to believe in you, you had better give me some proof really soon."
And I was confident that even if I was wrong, it was God's will for me to seek the truth; and if I turned against him, I knew he would still be merciful. That's the kind of Christianity I had. I won't say I regret any of it.
I started with the assumption that (1) There can be no contradictions in reality, (2) My observations can be trusted, and (3) The Bible is true.
Strike that third one.
So here I am. Am I an "atheist"? Probably... I'm not a theist because I'm pretty sure design is bunk, and, furthermore, I believe in natural causation. Agnostic? That's fairly useless, and will probably just make Christians think I'm looking for excuses. Atheist? Can we disprove the existence of God? I don't know. But I think we can quite readily debunk pretty much any religious philosophy out there.
You know what ticks me off, though? All my friends believe this bunk. My family believes it. I've got a little sister who believes it and will grow up living her life based on it. My step-dad will probably disown me. That will hurt since he's the only dad I've ever known. This frees me to look for my biofather, though. I wonder if he's at all rational...
Oh yeah, first I've actually got to tell someone. Nah, I'll be a wuss and wait until college. No way I'm wasting my money on a fundy "university" though. Then I'll also have friends and mentors to support me as I watch my whole childhood social circle fall to bits.
You know what sucks? I gave like my first $5,000 to a bunch of nutters, thinking I was "laying up my treasure in heaven". Can't blame them for being sincere. Probably can blame them for robbing me. That's money I'll never get back. Unless I make money off this atheism stuff.
Shit. Amazing how life can change in like, a week. I was protecting the flood story a few days ago. fml lolol
Please help me. You're supposed to be big, mean, brainwashed God-haters. Prove me wrong, I pray you. Rant over.
Views: 267
Hi Anthony, and welcome. Good on you for having the bravery and honesty to confront these issues. I recognize a lot of my own thoughts and feelings in your story. I was raised in a fundamentalist, young earth creationist, biblical literalist, climate change denying, quiverfull, homeschooling family. I, too, felt that Christianity without airtight apologetics was pretty intellectually wimpy. I delved into apologetics books but I never picked up a book from "the other side" until recently. I was led to believe that evolutionists were liars and non-Christians were "lost" and hedonistic, so why waste my time reading what they had to say? I believed anyone who honestly investigated Christianity would see how right and true it was (thanks Lee Strobel). I thought the only reason Christians left the faith was because they weren't "true Christians" to start, their faith was weak, they were tempted, etc. I was astounded when I discovered that people left the faith while actually trying to delve *deeper* into Christianity. That seemed entirely impossible.
I am so glad I turned out to be wrong. I discovered that there are MANY people (even pastors, etc) who deconverted over very real doubts, and my own faith fell apart slowly over the course of about 4 years, starting when I was 16 or 17 until the start of this year, when I cut the last of my emotional ties to Christianity and embraced my deconversion as a 21 yr old. Over those years, I began to see that god really was not present or active in my life, prayer doesn't work, the bible is pretty freaking scary, Christianity does not have a monopoly on morality (actually, Christian morals can be pretty backwards sometimes), and basically all the philosophical/theological foundations of the Christian faith just don't hold water. I wasn't trying to disprove Christianity, and no one in my life was some "instrument of satan" trying to pull me into "evil and sin". All of these things just unraveled on their own, and the more I scrambled to pick them up, the more they fell apart. You're probably familiar with the verse where Jesus (allegedly) says "the truth shall set you free". That part of the bible is definitely true: I feel more free and fulfilled in my life after becoming an atheist than I EVER felt as a Christian. Of course there's a lot more detail to my story I've omitted for the sake of brevity, but I am glad to share it with you or anyone who is interested.
Regarding your family situation, it sounds like it may be best to fly under the radar until you get out of the house. Not saying you have to be dishonest, but in my opinion making it a big to-do will only start fights and make your life miserable. Luckily, college is a perfect time to start fresh, you can build up a good support group as you said, and you won't have to say that all your friends believe that bunk anymore. :) I very much understand your frustration about your family and friends, though. Almost all of my family still believes and wastes their money and time. All my old friends were believers too (with one exception--she and I deconverted around the same time), and still are, but our friendships drifted apart and now I have new, rational friends. It's a mixture of frustration, incredulity, and sadness.
Anyway, there are a lot of fantastic youtube channels for atheism and debunking Christianity, but my personal favorite is QualiaSoup: http://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSoup
I gather that you're already pretty convinced of the bible's ridiculosity, but if you want a fantastic resource, check out the Skeptic's Annotated Bible: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
I'm also happy to lend a godless hand and chat about my experience or generally offer support of you like, either on this thread or through direct messages. Good luck on your journey wherever it may lead you, I am hoping for the best for you, but I am not praying for you. ;)
Suzanne, thank you so much for your support!
Wow! We are indeed similar. Homeschoolers... ftw? I'm not so sure anymore, lol!
I think I'm going quite a bit faster than you did, though, which both frightens and excites me.
Today I was in ecstasy over how free I am now. Free to, well, destroy myself; free to create the life I want... based on MY DECISIONS, not the work of devils or spirits. So liberating! I know "destroying myself" doesn't sound too pleasant, but... it's part of the decision spectrum that I'm now in control of.
I definitely want to hear your story. What was the first unpatchable hole in your faith? Mine was the inconsistency of salvation instructions (believe in him; call on his name and believe in him; be baptized and call on his name; have faith; have faith and works... etc... I wonder if with a little time and effort in my new mindset I could show two mutually exclusive methods of salvation... )
Of course, once I get to college and, "come out with it", my mom will say she knew she shouldn't have let me go off to a college where I would get brainwashed. That day is going to be the worst day of my life. How did you deal with that?
Thanks too for the resources. Definitely checking them out, I'll let you know how it goes :)
Haha, somehow the fact that you're not praying for me highlights the fact that you're actually helping... TY ;D
I thoroughly enjoyed your rantroduction. I'd love to see Atheist Nexus frame it and put in on their front page. I'd love to see it framed and displayed in every post office in the US lol. Just awesome.
Thank you, Linda! I don't know if I'd want that, though, lol! Toward the end I got noticeably upset and let my writing slip a bit... maybe I didn't need to include the thing about money... and the plea for help is pathetic, lol. You're already proving me wrong though :)
I think you'll find that most of us here are far from the god-hating meanies that we are painted as by theists. I don't hate God. I don't hate Santa Claus or the Tooth fairy, either. I've just never seen any evidence that they actually exist.
I was a solid Christian for a good chunk of my teens and twenties .. the problem is that, like you, I'm a truth-seeker. I wanted to prove my faith, and figured, like you, that reality would support the Bible... but the more I dug, the more I learned, the less convincing the Bible and Christianity was.
There's a reason why the church discourages you from going to non-Christian sources for information. Deep down, they realize that reality does not reflect their faith. They certainly wouldn't admit it openly, but it's there...it's that nagging feeling in the back of their head. Some of us aren't so good at denying the truth, and we want to know more about the world.
Good for you for coming to the realization that the Bible and your faith does not sufficiently explain reality. That's the first step. It's not always an easy journey, but no journey worth taking is easy.
Glad to see you here!
Tom, I think you're right: no meanies so far.
We are soooo problematic, aren't we?
They say not to go to them because they just want to drag you into sin and lie to you. What's weird is that it looks quite similar from this side... Except from here it's not "sin", it's just confusion and, furthermore, hatred of the Other.
Where, exactly, is the journey to? Or is there even an answer to that question? There was in Christianity.
There's some meanies in the atheist world, I hate to say. But that's because we're only people. There's a lot of different personalities out there. Just as there's loving Christians and then there's the Westboro Baptists.
As far as 'the journey' - It's a very Christian notion that every journey has to have a set destination - But the truth is, you don't need a destination to enjoy a journey. Some people like to journey for the sake of seeing what they find.
I use myself as an example: I happen to enjoy travel and have done a lot of it in my life... But whereas religion offers you a guided tour, seeing only what your church wants you to see; life without religion is more like traveling independently. You can still see the same sights, if they interest you, but the difference is freedom. You can see all those sights and SO MUCH MORE on your own. There's more effort involved, as you have to plan things out yourself, but it's worth it, generally :)
Yes, exactly. Christians are supposed to have so much higher ethics. Bunk. One day I know I'll be ashamed of ever being called Baptist. But for now I'm just mad.
I'm glad I'm on a journey now and no longer on the treadmill of religious mind-rape.
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thirdoctet necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 86 diseños de 26 diseñadores freelance.
Third Octet / thirdoctet
We are a small yet extremely experienced information technology consulting firm based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We provide leading edge technology solutions to our clients in the area of application delivery, virtualization, and core infrastructure elements, such as messaging, storage, and networking. We are not vertical specific as our solutions adapt to any business.
Our name, Third Octet, was derived from the nature of communications on the Internet - being IP addresses, and octets. We were formed by three people, hence the combination.
Our target audience is any business that relies on technology to operate effectively and efficiently. Therefore, any business.
We are looking for a clean and professional logo that is not overly busy, and not overly elegant. The logo should include both a typographic treatment (Third Octet, either together or seperate; together being the preference) - view our current one at http://www.thirdoctet.com) and a company logo mark (symbol). The symbol can be representation of the name, or some element that you feel reflects the name and the areas in which we excel (application delivery, virtualization, technology, etc).
Our logo will appear on our website, social network sites (LinkedIn, Twitter), as well as our clothing and all paper based materials (business cards, letterheads, mailings, etc). Any combination of upper/lower case type is permissible.
So, free reign with some minimal recommendations. Obviously we want the logo to be professional, and not cartoonish; however, being a high-tech company, we will entertain web 2.0 looks.
The files we will require are:
Print file format - .ai (CMYK)
Web file format - .jpg and layered .psd (RGB)
You can see that we've stuck with red and grey previously, but are open to alternatives.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Our activities include:


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< Features
(→Current status)
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GNOME 3.5.3 has been built in rawhide.
GNOME 3.5.3 has been built in rawhide.
See ://live.gnome.org/ThreePointFive/Features for the state of individual GNOME 3.6 features.
== Detailed Description ==
== Detailed Description ==
Revision as of 22:05, 28 June 2012
Update GNOME to the latest upstream release
- Name: Matthias Clasen
- Email: email@example.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 18
- Last updated: 2012-06-28
- Percentage of completion: 33%
GNOME 3.5.3 has been built in rawhide. See http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointFive/Features for the state of individual GNOME 3.6 features.
Detailed Description
GNOME 3.6 continues to complete the GNOME 3 user experience in a number of areas. The lock screen is replaced by a shell-style lock. Online accounts gains support for SkyDrive and Exchange. Application menus are used much more widely. Input methods and keyboard layouts are supported as 'Input Sources'.
For detailed descriptions and designs of the features that are being worked on for GNOME 3.6, see the feature list.
Benefit to Fedora
Fedora stays in sync with upstream.
- Keep existing GNOME packages updated
- Package new applications and new dependencies of existing GNOME packages:
How To Test
Generic 'desktop testing' is always appropriate for a major new desktop version.
Specific testing for new features: TBD
User Experience
Overall desktop experience should be largely unchanged from F17. Noticeable changes in the details:
- A new shell-style lock screen
- Widespread use of application menus
- A new UI for totem
- First-time setup is handled by Features/InitialExperience
Contingency Plan
- If GNOME 3.6 does not happen in time for Fedora 18, ship a release candidate like 3.5.91
- Upstream will also look at dropping individual features if they are not ready in time
- GNOME 3.6 planned features
- GNOME 3.6 schedule
- GNOME 3.6 release notes (will appear at a later point)
Release Notes
- Fedora 18 includes the latest version of the GNOME desktop, 3.6. For more information about what is new in this GNOME release, see the release notes.


text: This is a very well kept resort, that is close to the Dells yet you feel peace and nature. Plus it offers SO MUCH to do right on the resort.We found the staff to be very friendly. They let you use pack-a-plays and highchairs for free. The internet is free, plus we had free HBO & HBO Family. We really... More


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Results 1 to 5 of 5
4 New MTN DEW Flavors for Canada! Finally they arrived!
Hey everyone, last night i was getting fuel from an Edmonton, Alberta Esso(Exxon in USA) and i saw the new flavors that have been in the USA awhile back. Canada has to vote on which flavor for MTN DEW to keep by going to Dewmocracy.ca and you can choose which one you like best. The flavors are: Code Red(Canada had this flavor ten years ago and is now back) Voltage, SuperNova and White Out all regular flavors. They are also made with half HFCS/half Real Sugar accordance with Canadian food and drink guidelines as the american versions are all made with 100% HFCS. They are in 591ml(20oz) bottles as i have not seen any in 12-pack cans or 2L bottles yet. They were just shipped a couple days ago so convienience stores should be getting them soon all over Canada now. I will give a breakdown of flavor tatses:
MTN DEW Code Red: Like Hawaian Punch with carbonated punch blast.
MTN DEW Voltage: Like Blue Rasberry(similar to Pepsi Blue of past)
MTN DEW White Out: Like Fresca with sweetness
MTN DEW SuperNova: Like Mixed Berries sweetness
Keep in mind Code Red, SuperNova and Voltage have those tastes melded with the citrus taste of MTN DEW mixed in except White Out Has a great distinct taste.
My favorites are like as follows:
MTN DEW Code Red, SuperNova, Voltage and not into White Out.
GO TRY THEM ALL!! You won't be dissapointed. I wish they would keep the top two flavors. Regular MTN DEW and Diet MTN DEW are still available and are staying put.
Last edited by newCOKEcanuck; 04-11-2013 at 04:24 AM. Reason: Wrong Information
04-15-2013, 11:07 AM #2Senior Member
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
- Location
- Central Coast, CA
- Posts
- 265
I am happy for Canadians getting to try these flavours and getting keep one of them as a permanent flavour. We no longer have Supernova (it was a Dewmocracy contender here awhile back) but we still have the other three flavors. That would be interesting if Supernova wins in Canada because then it will be one flavor that we don't have that they will have. I loved the Fanta Tangerine they had in Canada the last time I was there - it is a lot better than the Fanta Orange here.
One more thing I thought was interesting was that on Canada Dewmocracy Facebook page is that they don't abbreviate Mountain Dew in Canada like they do here.
I've tried them all. Code Red is far and away the best one. Voltage is 2nd and the other two fight for 3rd and 4th.
I remember they used to have Code Red in Canada when I was in grade 9 or 10. I used to take an extra long lunch and take a long walk to the store that was a ways from my school to get one because my high school only sold coke products. I hope it wins.
04-23-2013, 03:21 PM #4Senior Member
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
- Rochester, New York, United States
- Posts
- 149
Are these caffeine free? Is that still a thing up there with Mountain Dew? I'm quite out of the loop.


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LONDON - Manchester United will hope to profit from title rivals Manchester City's inactivity by opening up a 10-point lead at the top of the Premier League with a win at Fulham on Saturday.
Alex Ferguson's side were made to toil at home to Southampton on Wednesday before eventually emerging with a 2-1 victory that lifted them seven points above their nearest challengers. With City not in action until a home game with Liverpool on Sunday, United can strike another psychological blow if they prevail at Craven Cottage.
Despite his side's struggle to beat Southampton, United captain Nemanja Vidic says the only thing that matters is putting points on the board. "Winning games is important at this stage of the season," he told in-house television channel MUTV. "But we have to forget what has gone and focus on the next games. Nothing is finished yet. There is a long way to go, but we're in a good position."
United and Fulham met as recently as last weekend, with Vidic and his colleagues winning 4-1 in a one-sided FA Cup fourth-round encounter at Old Trafford. Fulham secured only their second win in eight games by overcoming West Ham United 3-1 on Wednesday, moving them eight points clear of the relegation zone.
With Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool all dropping points in mid-week, Everton capitalised by winning 2-1 at home to West Bromwich Albion to close to within a point of the Champions League places. As Spurs do not play until Sunday, when they visit West Brom, David Moyes' side will move into the top four if they overcome a floundering Aston Villa team that sank into the relegation zone last weekend.
Leighton Baines scored both Everton's goals against West Brom and manager Moyes says the England left-back will have a key role to play in their push for a top-four finish. "I think Bainesy has been playing really well and over the last couple of games, I've been thinking he needs another challenge," said Moyes.
"He has to rise to it a little bit more and I think he has done that. He has picked himself up again. He has a lot of things going for him and he is turning out to be as good a left-back as there is." Arsenal go into their home game with Stoke City three points below Everton in sixth place, after coming back from two goals down to draw 2-2 at home to Liverpool.
"We have to focus on playing football and what we want to do to the opposition," said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. "I believe the quality is there and we have to trust it and forget what happened in the past." Third-place Chelsea also recorded a 2-2 draw on Wednesday, although the context was quite different, as they conceded two late goals in a frustrating stalemate at relegation-threatened Reading.
Ahead of Saturday's trip to Newcastle United, interim manager Rafael Benitez has urged his players to cut out the avoidable errors that have prevented them from keeping pace with the top two. "We all take responsibility," said the Spaniard. "We don't blame anyone -- it's for us to analyse why we didn't kill the game off, and to work to stop the mistakes."
With 14 games of the campaign remaining, Reading sit one place above the drop zone thanks to a superior goal difference to Wigan Athletic and Villa. Queens Park Rangers, who host Norwich City on Saturday, remain bottom of the table despite a creditable 0-0 draw at home to Manchester City in mid-week.
However, they are now just four points from safety and manager Harry Redknapp managed to bolster their ranks by signing Christopher Samba, Jermaine Jenas and Andros Townsend on Thursday. "It's great to be linking up with Harry again. Him being here was key to me making the move," said Jenas, who joined on loan from Spurs.
Arsenal v Stoke City
Everton v Aston Villa
Fulham v Man United
Newcastle v Chelsea
Reading v Sunderland
West Ham v Swansea
Wigan v Southampton
QPR v Norwich
West Brom v Tottenham
Man City v Liverpool