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Thursday, October 2, 2008
Comic 483: Number of Boring Chart Comics:Shittiness of Webcomic
Also it's patently false. The forums are full of counterexamples, some of which I read and some of which I didn't, some of which I liked and some of which I didn't. The king of word-making-up is Shakespeare I understand, who in addition to the word "eyeball" made up tons of other words and also, in a Lord of the Rings coincidence, "the crack of doom" at least according to my high school copy of...I want to say...macbeth?
Anyway, this was lazy, phoned in, and a disappointing attempt to mock the fantasy / sci fi genre in a pretty standard way.
19 comments:
- AnonymousOctober 3, 2008 at 4:13 AM
the alt text of the original comic makes no sense either. given the graph, when you have no made up words in your story the marginal cost of making one up is high (the probability that your book is good goes down a lot). however, if you already have a few (say, five) made up words, the marginal cost of making some more up is lower (the probability does not decline as much). assuming there is a niche market of people that like books with made up words in them, we should expect an equilibrium where most authors don't make up any words, and a small number go all out and make up as many as possible. it would be dumb for anyone to make up only five.ReplyDelete
This is a good point. A book with one made up word (I'm trying to think of an example but nothing springs to mind) is probably not that much more likely to be bad than a book that uses all old words. But there it is in the chart. I would say Randall doesn't understand charts but he probably does, I suspect he was just lazy on this one.ReplyDelete
Two great books with lots of made up words:
Cat's Cradle
Anonymous above has a good point- what kind of sci-fi or fantasy author would invent five words but no more?ReplyDelete
If the author is trying to give the impression of a self-contained fictional world with its own language, there should be lots of made-up words.
If he's not doing that, surely there shouldn't be any made-up words at all?
Carl: I've never read Cat's Cradle, but I think 1984 is a great example.
The way the "newspeak" is so dumbed down that people can't even express their views in a meaningful way- all they can say is "Big Brother is ungood!"
I mean, it's not just made-up words for the sake of it, it fits perfectly into the context of the novel.
I think someone just checked out Brisingr and wanted to vent.ReplyDelete
It was lazy and phoned in just like Obama's response to the economic crisis--MCCAIN '08!!ReplyDelete
(Only kidding.)
Does that mean "number of words made up by author" ever, or just for the book? I mean, I have made up a fair number of words. Indeed, many a conversation has come to, basically: "what is the most appropriate thing to tack on to make this bizarre noun into a horrifying adjective?"
I am also reminded of Dave Barry's observation that "the badness of a movie is directly proportional to how many helicopters are in it" from Dave Barry Turns 50. Just sayin'...ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 3, 2008 at 6:56 PM
going to have to be a naysayer again. it's _probability_, not a categorical statement that all books with words made up in them are bad. for every cat's cradle and hamlet and lord of the rings there's a vast ocean of terrible sci-fi and fantasy.ReplyDelete
And also a vast ocean of trashy romance and crappy thrillers. The sci-fi/fantasy genre is no worse than most, it's just that when it's bad, it's bad in a really dorky way.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 4, 2008 at 2:45 PM
right, but also keep in mind it isn't just bad scifi and fantasy, it's bad books which make up a significant number of words. which i think i can get away with stating are objectively worse than similarly meritless books which do not make up a significant number of words.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 4, 2008 at 10:10 PM
Yargh. Just cuz he used the word "probability" does NOT make the comic funnier. It is still just a graph, and not even really "funny because it is true."ReplyDelete
Wow, I just went to check out Digg and see how this comic fared...
Apparently some hardcore Randall fans have thumbs-downed everyone that said anything remotely bad about the comic, or that even tried to disagree with it.
My favorite, though, is this:
snowblind113 on 10/01/2008 Below viewing threshold. -5 diggs
Worst xkcd period.
1 Reply —
asdfasfd on 10/01/2008 +2 diggs
The author is male...
- AnonymousOctober 4, 2008 at 11:05 PM
Maybe you should write better comics, you know, so people don't have to suffer through XKCD. Yeah.ReplyDelete
Maybe you should get Ebert to direct an artistic video game movie first.ReplyDelete
What the fuck. The new comic. What the fuck.ReplyDelete
I guess the last poster comic sold well. Way to be subtle there, Randall.
Hahahahaha Anonymous just pulled the "WELL I DON'T SEE YOU DO ANY BETTER" card! IT IS ON NOW. Man, Carl totally didn't see that coming. He was just cold sitting there, writing complaints because he was jealous or something, and then suddenly BAM. This anonymous guy just up and snuffs him with 'you should write a better comic, man.' I don't want to be Carl right now but I SO WANT TO BE THAT FLY ON THE WALL. FOR THAT FIGHT.ReplyDelete
Ah, craptastic, I wrote a whole long reply to all of you and then it didn't post. fuckerReplyDelete
ok. let me try to rewrite all that:
Anon 1 - True, but it's not like when you go to a library or bookstore you are drowning in an ocean of bad sci-fi and fantasy novels. It's not like it's hard to find the good ones, because the good ones are printed in much higher numbers and last longer. Basically yeah, there are bad books out there, everyone knows it, why is that funny?
Jay - Yes. And as we know, xkcd is all about proving you are a nerd. So it has to be sci-fi and fantasy, because nerds have never heard of anything else.
Anon 2 - You are wrong. There is nothing worse about a bad sci-fi novel as compared to a bad romance novel. And sci-fi and fantasy are, I am sure, much more likely to make up words (not many aliens or crazy made up weapons in Romantic Love On Passion Beach 2: Return of The Passionate Romantic Beach). Thanks for trying though.
Anon 3 - Agreed, and those comments are hilarious. Also they are a great example of having to shift your thinking...when you first read the first comment, it makes sense (the word "period" is used for emphasis, clearly). But then you read the second one and you are like "wtf?" and you go back and reread the first comment and figure out that they had understood "period" as "that girl thing" and thus, Humor Is Achieved. Does that explanation make sense? It's important to get it if you want to understand a lot of comedy.
Anon 4 (use names, at least usernames, people, it's so much easier!) I have thought about this but I think the blog is enough work for now. If people are suffering through xkcd I can recommend Dinosaur Comics, Achewood (Great Outdoor Fight book just came in the mail!) and also I am enjoying this comic Daisy Owl a lot right now. If you want me to I can recommend about 15 more sometime.
Alt- yes, thank you. Well put.
Jay - I will get to the Depth comic in good time. Probably means I won't talk about the in-browser video game one but that was kind of boring anyway.
Rob - You can't tell, but I've been both trembling and pissing my pants in terror ever since Anonymous figured out my one weakness - a crippling inability to write my own humorous material. NOOOOOO.......
now post correctly this time, blogger, you damn fool
- AnonymousDecember 20, 2008 at 1:31 PM
"A book with one made up word (I'm trying to think of an example but nothing springs to mind)"ReplyDelete
Got me thinking - am I mistaken, or would Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land be a pretty good example? Its neologism, 'grok', made its way into several dictionaries. I don't have a copy handy so can't say whether it's certainly the only made-up word in that one, though. ("Water brother" doesn't count.)
- RedstarOctober 9, 2009 at 4:19 PM
While the graph is badly done, the idea that the more words made up by the author directly equates to how much the book sucks is true.ReplyDelete
Real bad science fiction and fantasy has a tendency to use made-up words for things that already exist. (The old "Call a rabbit a schmeerp" issue) If it's a sword, call it a sword. If it shoots magical lightning, then you can call it something else.
He should be more clear that the book only proportionally suck if the made-up words are exact synonyms of real words, rather than absolute words with new meanings.
- AnonymousJune 27, 2010 at 7:31 AM
Nit-pick here, but we're actually not really sure how many words Shakespeare made up. Sure, he used a lot of words that aren't attested before in the English language, but at least some of those are almost certainly a product of his writing so damn much, and writing for the average (read:stupid) person and much more likely to use vernacular than other writers.ReplyDelete
point taken, but I think my general argument is still ok on that matter.ReplyDelete


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Modern European Agriculture Jeopardizes Biodiversity? Romanian Study Highlights Importance of Traditional Agriculture in Protecting Amphibians
Traditional agricultural practices can make a major contribution to preserving biodiversity in the EU's new member states in Central and Eastern Europe. By contrast, the construction of roads and the intensification of agriculture currently encouraged by EU farming subsidies pose a threat to amphibians. The rich natural environment still extant in many accession countries is under threat, according to scientists writing in the journal Biological Conservation.
|Linkul respectiv
|Data de publicare
|Dorin Pop
|Acoperire geografică
|Cuvinte cheie
|biodiversity, agriculture
The researchers from Romania, Germany and the Netherlands investigated amphibians for their study in the Romanian province of Transylvania. They spent nine years studying the populations of various species of newts, frogs and toads in 54 ponds and related their performance to nearby land use.
All in all, the scientists found 10 amphibian species in the surveyed ponds, including EU-wide protected species like the Great Crested Newt and the Yellow Bellied Toad. Statistical evaluation revealed that roads had the biggest impact on their populations. Other factors like the size of ponds, building development, farmland, pasture, woodland and marshlands proved to be far less important. "Roads have a direct negative effect on many species of amphibians, which can get run over by cars. But roads also have an indirect impact, for example by the destruction and isolation of the critical habitats for amphibians such as breeding, summering and overwintering habitats" explained Dr Tibor Hartel from Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania).
The study area was the "Saxon area" of Southern Transylvania along the Târnava Mare basin in Romania. The agriculture is still largely traditional in this region, sometimes with little changes through the centuries. The landscape is dominated by pasture and deciduous forest, while the arable lands are small sized and scattered across the native grassland vegetation. Humankind's negative impact on biological diversity is statistically still far lower in Eastern Europe than in the West -- but this traditional cultural landscape and hence its unique biodiversity could soon disappear if agriculture were to be intensified. "We believe that the comparatively extensive agriculture in the study region with little machinery and hardly any chemicals provides conditions which are still suitable for many amphibian species," explains Dr Oliver Schweiger from UFZ.
The findings could have important consequences for protective measures for amphibians in regions of Central and Eastern Europe, where farming has remained largely traditional. Preserving traditional, extensive land management could be the key factor in protecting these species. However, that could be a tough challenge, for many regions, joining the EU will lead to more intensive land use and infrastructure expansion. And that in turn will result in the fragmentation of the landscape and the general deterioration of the remaining habitats. Researchers are now calling for a balance to be struck between the legitimate desire for improved infrastructure and higher agricultural yields on the one hand and the beneficial effects of extensive land use on the other. In their view, this challenge should be regarded as an opportunity for Eastern Europe not to repeat the mistakes made in the West.
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Fr. John Ford, CSC attended the annual conference of the Newman Association of America
Fr. John Ford csc attended the annual conference of the Newman Association of America, July 30-August 1, at Seton Hall University; he delivered a power-point presentation on "John Henry Newman: Little Known Facts of his Roman Catholic Years."
Professor Miller Publishes Essay on Revelation
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Dr Miller Publishes Essay on Early Israelite Religion
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Dr Jones & Graduate Students Present at International Symposium
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Msgr Clay Delivers Address at International RCIA Conference
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Dr. and Mrs. Grabowski Give talk at Bishops' Plenary Session
On June 11, 2015, Dr. John Grabowski and his wife, Claire, gave a presentation to the June Plenary session of the U.S. Bishops at their meeting in Saint Louis entitled, "The Beauty of the Church's Teaching on Marriage." The presentation considered the beauty of this teaching in Catholic theology and in their own experience as a married couple through the lenses of creation, covenant, sacrament, healing, and the call to holiness. It closed by pointing to the fuller elaboration of these notes provided by the Theology of the Body of St. John Paul II.
Fr Heil lectures at the University of St. Mary of the Lake
On June 21-22, 2015 Fr Heil delivered three lectures on "Parables in Matthew" as part of the Summer Scripture Seminar sponsored by the Institute for Ongoing Formation at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois.
Msgr McPartlan Speaks on Primacy
On 17 June 2015, Msgr Paul McPartlan gave a lecture entitled, 'The Bishop of Rome: Fresh Catholic Thinking and Possible Ways Forward', at the Orientale Lumen Conference held in Washington DC, the overall conference theme being 'The Bishop of Rome: Past, Present, Future'.
CUA Professors at Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue Meeting
From 2-4 June 2015, Msgr Paul McPartlan, Fr John Galvin, and emeritus professor, Fr Joseph Komonchak, all took part in the bi-annual meeting of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York. Msgr McPartlan gave a presentation of the document produced by this dialogue in 1989, entitled: 'An Agreed Statement on Conciliarity and Primacy in the Church'.
Msgr McPartlan Addresses ACT and CTSA
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Dr. Boxall Publishes Article
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Dr. Grabowski gives Presentation on Marriage & Family
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Dr. Jones Presents Paper at Bingham Young University
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Dr. Valkenberg Gives Lecture on Catholic-Muslim Dialogue
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Onyegwara Defense
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Annual Liturgical Conference Features CUA Professor
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D'Alliessi Defense
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Dr. Jones Gives Presentation on Buddhism
Dr. Charles B. Jones presented "Yuan Hongdao and the Coral Grove (Shnhú Lín): Gentry Buddhist Discourse in the Late Ming Dynasty" at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, Ill., March 27, 2015.
Dr. Boxall Gives a Talk at Washington College
On March 27th 2015, Dr Ian Boxall gave a talk at Washington College, Chestertown MD, entitled: "The Interpretative Traditions of the Book of Revelation", sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture with co-sponsorship from the Department of Philosophy and Religion.
Msgr McPartlan Speaks at Huffington Ecumenical Institute
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Symposium on the Synods
On Monday March 16, 2015, STRS held a symposium on "The Synods on the Family and the New Evangelization". Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, the President of USCCB, and Dr John Grabowski, director of the Moral Theology/Ethics academic area in STRS discussed the nature of synods, the purpose of the current synods on the family, the Archbishop's experience as a participant in the Extraordinary Synod of 2014, and the way in which these synods fit into the ministry of Pope Francis and his vision for the Church.
Msgr. Stephen Rossetti Gives Annual Carl J. Peter Lecture in Rome
On March 15th, Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti, clinical associate professor of CUA/STRS, was honored to deliver the annual Carl J. Peter lecture at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. The talk was entitled: "Preaching the Word: When People Stop Listening." The annual lecture is designed to promote the art of preaching and to remember Fr. Carl J. Peter, former faculty member and alumnus of the PNAC and former Dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at CUA (1977-1985). The text of the lecture can be found at: http://www.pnac.org/the-seminary/the-carl-j-peter-lecture/
Dr. Dinges' March Presentations
Dr. William D. Dinges gave a panel presentation on March 12th on "Religion and Cultural Dynamics of 'Old' Immigrants" in conjunction with a conference on American Catholics and Immigration: Past and Present held at the Catholic University of America. On March 19th, Dr. Dinges gave a Catholic University Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies Brown Bag presentation on "Ritual Change and Cultural Change: What a Difference a War Makes" examining the impact of WWII on efforts to advance the liturgical movement among American Catholics. On March 20th, Dr. Dinges presented a lecture on "Pope Francis, Catholics, and Creation: Why Things Matter" as part of the Lenten Supper Talk series at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD.
Henkel Defense
Ms. Kimberly M. Henkel will be presenting her dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Friday, March 27 at 10:30a.m. in Caldwell 125. Her dissertation is called, "The Moral Status of Oocyte."
Pedraza Defense
Mr. Brian J. Pedraza is presenting his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Wednesday, March 25 at 10:00a.m. in Caldwell 125. His defense is titled " Truth and Love: The Christocentric Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II and Catechesis for the New Evangelization "
Dr. Grabowski Participates in USCCB Conference
On Friday, March 13, Dr. Grabowski took part in the Multi-Society Workshop for Bishops and Theologians "The Theological Enterprise in Light of the New Evangelization" at the USCCB here in Washington. The event was sponsored by the USCCB's Committee on Doctrine and involved representative of the major Catholic learned societies in the U.S. He attended on behalf of the Academy of Catholic Theology. The focus of the conversation was on issues impacting the Church's theology of and ministry to marriage.
Fr Lombardo gives lecture at Providence College
On Monday March 16, Fr Nicholas Lombardo gave the annual St Thomas Aquinas lecture at Providence College on "What was Jesus intending? Reconstructing Jesus' historical attitude toward his death." The lecture looked at what we can say, in broad outline, about Jesus' historical attitude toward his death. Then it turned to early Christian understanding of the crucifixion and discussed how it can help explain why Jesus approached his death the way he did.
Fr. Ford Publishes Article
Fr. John Ford's article titled "Fr. Paul of Graymoor: Prophet of At-one-ment," has been recently published in the March 2015 edition of Ecumenical Trends 44/3.
Meinert Defense
Mr. John Meinert is presenting his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Monday March 23 at 10:00 a.m. in Caldwell room 125. His defense is titled, "Donum Habituale: Grace and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in St. Thomas Aquinas."
Osman Defense
Mr. John Osman is presenting his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Friday, March 20 at 11:00 am in Caldwell Hall, Room 125. His defense is titled "A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity: A Neglected Catechetical Text of the Thrid Plenary Council of Baltimore."
Dr. Dinges Hosts Austrian Group
During the week of February 15th, Prof. William D. Dinges hosted a visit by a group of Austrian priests, educators, and pastoral workers under the leadership of Dr. Georg Plank and his Pastoral Innovation (dem Heiligen Geist einen Landeplatz bereiten) Program. Visits were made to various churches/parishes in the Washington, D.C., area, along with meetings at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the USCCB Migration and Refugee Services Department, the Austrian Embassy, and with other pastoral organizations. Dr. Plank's group was greeted by Msgr. Paul McPartlan, acting dean of STRS, and also met for discussion time with Dr. Dinges's Religion and Globalization seminar.
Rev. Witczak's Series on the Sacraments
Rev. Dr. Michael Witczak is offering a six-part series on "A New Look at the Sacraments" for the Christian Continuing Development Institute in the Diocese of Arlington at St. John Neumann Parish in Reston, VA. The Tuesday morning series ends on Tuesday, April 14.
Msgr. Stephen Rossetti Delivers Keynote Address at Irish Safeguarding Conference
On February 27th, Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti, clinical associate professor, delivered the keynote address to over 200 bishops, priests, sisters and lay child safeguarding delegates at the first national conference on safeguarding children. The event was sponsored by Ireland's National Board for Safeguarding in the Catholic Church. The event was held in Athlone, Ireland. Msgr Rossetti highlighted the important progress that has been made in the Church protecting minors in Ireland, the United States and beyond. He spoke of an emerging "template" of best practices in safeguarding children and urged that such a template be made mandatory in every country. He spoke of education as the key and stressed the need to prevent abuse before it occurs. He said, because of such efforts, the Catholic Church is "no longer a safe haven for child abusers." His talk was reported through Catholic News Service. See the following story: http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/us-priest-irish-safeguarding-meeting-church-not-haven-abusers
Catholic-Orthodox Event at CUA
On February 26, STRS hosted the Orthodox Clergy Brotherhood of the DC area. Present were 15 Orthodox clergy serving Orthodox communities in the DC Metropolitan area: Msgr. Paul McPartlan, Acting Dean; Professors Nelson Minnich, Robin Darling Young, and Rev. Stefanos Alexopoulos of STRS; and Fr. Robert Hitchens and Fr. Wasyl Kharuk of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Seminary. Msgr. McPartlan gave a talk on "Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue and the Issue of Primacy", and shared his experience as a member of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. An open and sincere exchange followed. The meeting sought to highlight and foster the historical links between the Orthodox Church in the USA and CUA. A number of graduates from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of the Theology in Boston and St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York completed their doctoral work here at CUA and now serve the Orthodox Church in a variety of capacities. It is hoped that further such events will take place.
Dr. Grabowski Presents on Holiness in Marriage
John S. Grabowski presented a talk titled, "Experiencing the Universal Call to Holiness in Daily Life: Marital Spirituality and Sexuality" at St. Thomas More Church, Lynchburg, VA. The presentation looked at the universal call to holiness lived out in marriage through the lenses of the ideas of covenant, communion, and domestic church in recent Catholic theology.
Fr. Witczak Presents at the NAAL
Rev. Dr. Michael Witczak presented the paper: "S. Gall Mass Orders: Concluding Reflections on the 'Search for the Origins of the Rhenish Mass Order'" to the Issues in Medieval Liturgy seminar at the annual meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy held in Minneapolis, MN, January 1-4, 2015.
Glasow Defense
Mr. David Glasow is presenting his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Friday, February 27 at 11am in Caldwell 125. His defense is titled " The Three-fold Contribution of Gerald O'Collins's Fundamental Theology: Its Christocentric Outlook, Its Focus on the Resurrection, And its Groundwork for Ecumenism."
Safranski Defense
Benjamin Safranski is presenting his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Wednesday, February 25 at 10:00 am in Caldwell 125. His defense is titled "St. Cyprian of Carthage and the College of Bishops."
Fr. Ford Publishes Two New Articles
Fr. Ford has published two essays, "Newman's Reasonable Approach to Faith," and "Newman's Personalist Argument for Belief in God" were published in The Newman-Scotus Reader: Contexts and Commonalities, edited by Edward J. Ondrako, 55-68, and 207-223.
Dr. Serra Presents Paper
Rev. Dr. Dominic Serra presented the paper, "Hermas and Justin Martyr on Baptism in Second-Century Rome" at the annual meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy, Minneapolis, Minnesota. January 3, 2015.
Dr. Jones Speaks at the Smithsonian
Dr. Charles B. Jones presented the lectures "Buddhism" and "Taoism and Confucianism" for the Smithsonian Associates, Washington, D.C., January 29 and February 12, 2015.
Dr. Dinges Presents Talk on Catholics and Environmentalism
On Saturday, February 7, Dr. William D. Dinges presented a talk on "Catholics and Creation: Why We Should Care" to a gathering of the Washington Archdiocesan high school science teachers and students in conjunction with the Archdiocesan Environmental Outreach Committee's "Meeting the Challenge of the Environmental Encyclical" retreat held at St. Camillus Parish in Silver Spring, MD.
Dr. Miller Presents Paper
Dr. Robert Miller presented the paper "The Hebrew Bible's Concept of Life" on January 21, 2015, at the conference "What is Life? Evolutionary Perspectives, philosophical considerations and theological questions" (www.whatislife.unibe.ch) in Bern, Switzerland. Jointly organized by the Center for Space and Habitability and the Theological Faculty of Bern University, this event was an international gathering of scientists, theologians, and philosophers to discuss the definition of life.
Sister Kelleher Publishes New Articles
Sister Margaret Kelleher, O.S.U., has published two new articles:
"Anscar Chupungco and ICEL." In Proceedings of the North American Academy of Liturgy (2014) 45-49.
"Vatican II and the LWF Project: Points of Convergence." In Worship and Culture: Foreign Country or Homeland, ed. Gláucia Vasconcelos Wilkey, 52-68. Grand Rapids: Wm. G. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014.
Zientarski Defense
Rev. Nicholas Zientarski is presenting his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology on Friday, February 6 at 1:30 pm in Caldwell 125. His defense is titled "The Eschatological Role of the Holy Spirit in the Roman Eucharist: The Epiclesis in Modern Liturgical Reform in Light of the Pneumatology of Yves Congar, John Zizioulas, and Robert Jenson."
Msgr. Clay Presents Inaugural Lecture
Msgr. Clay presented a lecture on January 17, 2015 to launch the 75th anniversary of St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, NC. The lecture, "Emerging Catholicism in the Bible-Belt," situated the growth of Catholicism in North Carolina, the reasons for that growth and what Catholics who are not indigenous to the Bible-Belt might find beneficial in knowing about the various Protestant denominations they encounter in their personal and professional lives. This lecture was the first in a series that will be offered throughout 2015. Msgr. Clay was pastor of the parish between 1995-1999.
Picturing Mary Lecture
The Rev. Stefanos Alexopoulos gave a lecture at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in the context of the "Picturing Mary" Exhibition. His lecture was titled: "Mary as Woman, Mother, Idea in the Byzantine Tradition". In his lecture he examined Puccio Capanna's Madonna and Child (ca. 1330) and offered a theological interpretation using the Akathist Hymn of the Byzantine Tradition as his theological text. He argued that Puccio Capanna's panel is not just a picture, made of wood and colors, but an icon, a theology in painting, teaching and proclaiming the Mystery of the Incarnation.
Killeen Defense
Brother Peter Killeen, F.S.C. is presenting his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Monday, February 2 at 2pm in Caldwell 125. His defense is titled, "The Development and Significance of the Religious Habit of Men."
Alumni Spotlight
TRS alum Angela Chiappetta is excited by the opportunities her theology degree has given her. To read the full article, please follow this link: http://publicaffairs.cua.edu/success-stories/angela-chiappetta.cfm.


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drivensubstance needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 86 designs submitted by 17 freelance designers.
Christmas all Year
This is my first project with 99 designs. I am the coordinator for this project I have a semi creative background with experience in marketing, in recent years I have had a strong focus on digital media, particularly SEM.
This is potentially the first project of many more to come as I am NOT the hands on type person. I like to coordinate and manage
Geographic target market - Australia
Demographic - all types, young to old
Competition analysis - has somewhat of a "cheap/dodgy" look which is not good for consumer/browser confidence. Client is looking to establish market share for medium to premium Christmas products
Client - will be focusing initially on developing market share, their products are superior to competition and will be starting at competitive prices. They will be getting a full e commerce solution
Personality trait of client - old in age 60+ yet broad minded and susceptible to change. Both are very nice and warming people (husband and wife). Wife is somewhat more traditional than husband, they are both the decision makers. I will try and minimise decision making process on concepts. Once committed they are committed, so earlier designs maybe a better option, see requirements.
Name: Christmas All Year
Colours: 2 or 3 colours accepted, primary colours - red and white (shades are acceptable) and one other of choice; client made mention of alternate green (not traditional) and a champagne yellow, but am open to suggestions
Font: Easy to read, keep in mind that it is an online business and will be attracting "Chris-a-holics" so I feel a traditional, clean, easy to read font would be best.
Logo: logo or coat of arms needs to be compatible for a fav.ico, happy for logo and business name to be together but would prefer them to be separated.
Key Product: Their key product will definitely be Christmas Lights, followed by christmas decorations. Happy for either to be included in logo design preferably Christmas Lights.
Other marketing collateral: The website (key business vehicle) will be designed around the logo, I cant stress enough that this is an online business. Please keep this in mind.
Client Dislikes: I asked and tried to get out of them on things they don't like, colours etc however they seemed fairly susceptible to seeing what different ideas the designers come back with. I understand this can be a designers nightmare but it could also be a dream. I have worked with them in the past and can assure you they will be responsive and open to ideas based on your creative ideas. I feel if you stick to the guidelines, everything should be fine.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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The B.C. Catholic, award-winning newspaper of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, British Columbia, has published a special Olympic edition.
"We Believe: A Catholic Guide to the 2010 Winter Games," includes greetings from church officials, including Pope Benedict XVI; maps, Mass times and parishes near Olympic venues; and stories of faith. Reflecting the diversity of Vancouver and the Olympic athletes, Archbishop J. Michael Miller's welcome was published in English, French and Mandarin.
The Olympics open in Vancouver and Whistler Feb. 12, and the Paralympics follow in March. The Archdiocese of Vancouver and the Diocese of Kamloops have worked to prepare for athletes and fans from around the world.


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(Parenting.com) -- Trees, garlands, menorahs, lights -- so many colorful, shiny things for baby to explore!
You don't have to put a hold on holiday decorations; just take a little extra care. So go ahead: Hang the stockings, trim the tree, light the menorah -- sensibly.
Keep it safe: If you have an artificial tree, make sure it's labeled "fire resistant." When choosing a live tree, find the freshest, greenest one possible (that sticky resin on the trunk is actually a good thing) and don't forget the tap test -- if the tree loses lots of needles when tapped on the ground, move on. Check all lights, whether they're used indoors or outside, to ensure they're in good working order with no frayed wires, broken sockets or loose connections. Keep live trees well-watered, and away from the fireplace, radiator or heater. Never use lighted candles on or near the tree, wreaths or any evergreens. Secure the tree to the wall if possible.
For decorations, stick to flame-resistant, nonbreakable ornaments, and if possible, hang them of baby's reach (ditto for garlands and wreaths). Skip the tinsel, heirloom ornaments and trimmings resembling candy or food. Be vigilant when baby is near the tree; never leave her unattended. Sweep the floor regularly to pick up tree needles, ornament hooks or anything else baby shouldn't put in her mouth. Poinsettias aren't poisonous, but amaryllis, mistletoe and holly are toxic -- your best bet is to display plants up high.
Parenting.com: 'Scared of Santa' photos
Keep the fire in the fireplace: Turn off all decorative holiday lights, including electric candles and menorahs, before you leave the house or go to bed.
Hassle-free holiday: Why not try a tabletop tree? It'll be out of reach of exploring hands, and it's much simpler to put up and take down.
All I want for Christmas is ...
Make it fun: It's better to give than receive -- except for baby, who'll be getting a gazillion toys, some of which may not be appropriate. Give a little guidance to friends and family to ensure their gifts are fun and safe.
Parenting.com: The best toys of 2009
Keep it safe: Tactfully steer gift-givers to toys geared to baby's age. Create a wish list so you can identify specific items that are a good match for your child. Avoid balloons, toys that plug into outlets and those with strings or small parts (strangulation and choking hazards, respectively). Give dreidels to older children, not babies or toddlers.
When opening gifts, immediately discard paper, ribbons, bows, bags and packing material (like Styrofoam peanuts). Read the instructions for toys and games carefully and inspect them for loose or broken parts and sharp edges; store any that aren't baby-friendly out of reach. Try out ride-on or push toys indoors in a safe space, such as a carpeted area.
Parenting.com: 65 holiday gifts for everyone on your list
Hassle-free holiday: Chances are baby will receive plenty of gifts from relatives and friends, so consider a special family outing or mommy-and-me day: a free -- and memorable -- present.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire ...
Make it tasty: Cookies baking in the oven ... holiday goodies are fun to make and eat, even for baby -- just don't overdo it.
Keep it safe: That holiday spread is as enticing for baby as it is for your guests. Watch for potential choking hazards, especially hard or round treats like candy, nuts and crudités, as well as alcoholic beverages that could be mistaken for milk or fruit juice. Keep a lookout for things that are easily pulled or knocked over, such as tablecloths and runners, hot liquids and platters at the edges of counters and tables.
While it's fine to let a baby who's eating solids try a new treat, it's best to stick to his regular diet and feeding routine. Holiday foods that are quite rich (we're looking at you, eggnog) or have an abundance of unusual ingredients (fruitcake, anyone?) are best for school-age or older children. Make sure any foods meant for children under 4 are cut into bite-size pieces.
Parenting.com: 5 ways to raise a grateful child
Hassle-free holiday: Consider handing over the hosting duties this year. Let someone else do the cooking and clean-up, leaving you free to mingle with your new baby and bask in all the attention he -- and you -- are sure to receive.
Holiday Helpers
Enjoy all that holiday togetherness -- parties, dinners, cocktail hours -- with these stay-safe tips for new parents.
• Your childhood home may no longer be childproofed -- inspect your temporary digs (hotel rooms too!) for anything baby-unfriendly.
• If traveling for the holidays, stick to baby's routine as much as possible. Snacks before long car trips or full feedings before flights may also help keep her calm.
• Give older children a baby-free zone where they can open presents and play with toys not safe for little ones.
• At parties, play it safe by putting baby in a play yard, buckling her into a bouncy seat on the floor, or toting her around in a carrier to help her avoid temptations.
Get 2 FREE YEARS of Parenting magazine - Subscribe Now!!
Copyright 2011 The Parenting Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.


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Iran revoked the press cards of Reuters staff in the country after the news agency ran a mistaken headline saying Iran was training female Ninja assassins, Iran's official news agency reported Tuesday.
"All activities of the Reuters office in Tehran have been temporarily suspended," said Mohammad Javad Aghajari, the Culture Ministry foreign media department director general, IRNA said.
The controversy stems from a Reuters video showing women clad head to toe in black, running up walls and flipping backwards and diving and rolling over swords held at waist heights.
The Culture Ministry official accused Reuters of calling the martial arts students terrorists, when in fact they are "university students and housewives" who "engaged in this sport because of their love for the sport."
Reuters acknowledged the video report in February "contained an error" and that the headline was changed after a complaint.
The story's headline, "Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran's assassins," was corrected to read "Three thousand women Ninjas train in Iran," Reuters said in a statement.
Eleven Reuters staff members in Tehran were told to hand in their press cards over the incident, Reuters said.
""We acknowledge this error occurred and regard it as a very serious matter," editor-in-chief Stephen J. Adler said, saying the company "conducted an internal review and have taken appropriate steps to prevent a recurrence."
He said Reuters was in talks to restore its journalists' accreditation.
IRNA said authorities would review the case.
Iran's own government-run Press TV ran a similar video story earlier in the year showing even more frenetic martial arts moves, including women leaping onto each other's shoulders and flipping them over.


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Publishing Digital Floras and Faunas
P. Bryan Heidorn is assistant professor, GSLIS, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 501 E. Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820; 217-644-7792; email@example.com
One of the primary challenges for the creation of digital libraries is to enhance the value of paper-based publications by providing digital access to the materials. Simple full-text searching is just a first step in this process. The time-tested internal structure of paper-oriented documents and multi-volume collections has evolved to address specific information needs. These structures can be more fully exploited in the process of digital conversion of the material. While some structural aspects of paper-based publishing are helpful, if difficult, to bring to the electronic medium, other structural aspects of paper documents are artifacts of the limitations of the paper. Frequently these aspects, such as document subsections, can be improved in digital format. In this paper we explore how information science and technology can be used in the process of species description to achieve order of magnitude increases in efficiency and access. The natural structure within text as well as the inherent information structure of the domain of flora and fauna (which cannot always be represented in the paper medium) can be used to guide the design of new information systems to support electronic flora and fauna.
The word flora refers to both the plants that live in a particular region and a publication that describes those plants, as fauna is both the animals of a region and a publication that describes them. There is a worldwide effort to create natural history publications to help document the known species, in the face of major loss of habitat and extinctions. Some of the most visible projects include The Flora of North America, the Flora of China and the Flora of Australia. Jointly, the ultimate objective of these efforts is to produce a Flora of Earth. Similar efforts are underway for insects, but the number of insects far outnumbers plants. The huge potential size of floras and faunas is just one of many challenges to traditional methods for authoring, publishing and using them. Standing in a forest in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, how many of the species in front of you would you expect to find in your field guide? And what if you were in any tropical region on earth?
Examining the Problems
Many species are traveling with us around the world, introducing species where they never existed before with far-reaching consequences for food supply and health. These range from Gypsy moths to invasive plants and exotic diseases like West Nile virus and Monkey pox. We have little idea what the balance of life is or what is necessary to maintain it. We do not even know the names of the creatures we depend on. Many people believe that Carolus Linnaeus or Darwin and his immediate followers completed much of the work of naming and describing species 300 years ago. These pillars of biological science made profound contributions to the foundations of taxonomy but in terms of the breadth of life on earth, neither of them had the slightest clue as to the true diversity of life. Approximately 1.5 million species have names. Estimates range on the number of unnamed species, but 12 million is not unreasonable. For even well studied groups like plants, about 250,000 are named and between 300,000 to 500,000 are believed to exist. It is difficult to tell how many plants are named since there is no list anywhere of all of the names, although there is a provisional checklist of plant names from the International Organization for Plant Information (IOPI) (plantnet.rbgsyd.gov.au/iopi/iopihome.html). However, this list contains only names, not descriptions.
Perhaps 1.4 million insects have been described, but estimates vary wildly from 8 to 50 million for the number of species that exist (Erwin, Chapter 4, in Biodiversity II, National Academies Press, 1996). If we were to take the insects from one tree at the Los Amigos Research Station on Peru we might find several thousand species, many of which would be new to science, and there could be no one person or publication that even answers the question about which have names or descriptions.
Even if we exclude microbes, the 10,000 or so taxonomists worldwide have a lot of fieldwork to do. Even if we had the taxonomists, Scott Mori, in The Scale of Floristics, 2003, estimates the cost of producing a printed flora with 2,104 species to be $1,579,946 using current technology. Clearly, the order of magnitude improvement from technology hoped for by E. O. Wilson (see the Bulletin, October/November 2003) is sorely needed. As for that forest in Tennessee, the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory estimates that there are 5,400 plant species and about 50,000 insect species in the park. Since it is difficult to tell which species would be around you at a particular location, you would need a field guide with all of them, which is clearly not possible in a paper format.
Nonetheless, paper publishing and the methods around it have served the taxonomic community well since Greek herbalists began authoring descriptions of medicinal plants. To move to the electronic environment from paper we need to study the use and users of those publications.
Related Developments
The projects to create electronic floras and faunas complement other major international initiatives designed to better understand and manage the world's natural heritage. The principles behind the Convention on Biological Diversity (www.biodiv.org/doc/publications/guide.asp), the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (www.un.org/esa/sustdev/) and the developing Global Taxonomic Initiative (www.biodiv.org/programmes/cross-cutting/taxonomy/) frequently motivate these developments. An indication of the significance of this work is that 157 countries signed the Convention on Biological Diversity at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, June 3-14, 1992. In addition, many private initiatives such as NatureServe (www.natureserve.org) and the All Species Foundation (http://www.all-species.org/) need and use information technology to help solve this problem. NatureServe is a non-profit conservation organization that provides the scientific information and tools needed to help guide effective conservation action. NatureServe is the major source for information about rare and endangered species. The All Species Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the complete inventory of all species of life on Earth within the next 25 years. The information processing departments of these public and private enterprises are not large, and there is always a shortage of qualified workers with both biological and information technology skills and vision.
These efforts and others are motivated by the hope that electronic floras will be more readily accessible by more people (Morin, et al., 1989). The volume of information in these publications has traditionally limited their distribution and use. For example, the Flora of North America, mentioned above, will eventually include 31 volumes and over 18,000 species. Six hundred authors may contribute to this project, and many other flora projects are of comparable size: The Flora of China is projected to include 25 volumes and 30,000 species and The Flora of Australia 59 volumes and 26,000 species. Information science needs to provide computer-supported collaborative environments to support these efforts. Examples are the need to coordinate the names of the species (for example, International Taxonomic Information Service), the characteristic vocabulary to describe them and the geographic information systems to specify their range.
Characteristics of Floras and Faunas and Their Use
In large flora and fauna projects, the authors document the organisms' taxonomy, physical properties, distribution, economic value and other information. This information is used to facilitate species identification, taxonomy and ecological studies, as well as other functions (Morin et al., 1989). With the growth of the Internet it is natural that many of these projects are making their publications available over the World Wide Web as well as on paper to provide improved access. Published floras have evolved over the past several hundred years to meet particular needs and uses. It is these needs, and not the paper document structure, that must be supported in electronic publications. This is not to deny that the paper flora has not evolved to meet the same needs. Paper floras are the current solution to the people's information needs and information uses as constrained by the paper medium. Information scientists can use this history to inform design. The research question is to determine what new functionality is useful and can be economically provided in the electronic environment.
As information scientists, we need to understand the functions of the different constructs of these publications, such as order of the species, the index, the glossary and other tools. They all can be improved in the electronic realm. In the following paragraphs, we will look at just a few of the features of flora and fauna publishing that can be improved with carefully tailored information technology.
Structural Complexity. There are important characteristics of floras and faunas that differentiate them from discrete article publications such as journals and some Web pages. These differences provide unique opportunities and challenges for enhancing the publications for use in the electronic environment. These include the volume of information, homogeneity across like components and heterogeneity among content types (naming, morphology, distribution, etc), internal publication structure of materials across volumes and interdependent structure between components (for example, Linnaean taxonomy).
The first obvious difference is the volume of encyclopedic publications. Major floras typically require the integration of information resources that, when in paper form, would exist in many separate volumes of a collection (see above). Species Plantarum: Flora of the World (www.anbg.gov.au/abrs/flora/spplant/spplant.htm) is a paper and electronic publication project that is illustrative. These huge publishing projects are not your trusted Peterson Guides to be slipped into your pocket before heading to the field. For users to find particular pieces of information, they must first identify the appropriate volume. Users must then find the pages with the desired information. The electronic environment provides the opportunity to search many volumes quickly for needed information, if it is better structured than just putting paper on the Web. We might also create sub-collections of documents on demand; for example gathering together all insects in one family that are known to exist in one geographic region. We might print this on paper to take to the field or move a copy to our portable-computing device. Either approach, however, raises issues of copyright. In the current dominant publishing model, the treatments belong to the publisher not the author.
In floras, the individual entries, called treatments, are relatively short, ranging from less than one to two printed pages. In addition, these collections tend to contain different genre of materials within them to serve interrelated information needs. A flora may include textual distribution of species, genera, families or other taxonomic units, plant images, distribution maps, a glossary of definitions, thesaurus (synonymy, use context, term relationships) and identification keys as well as other data. The materials in each volume are arranged to facilitate the expected use of the information or the internal structure of the information. For example, anyone who has looked at a flora or fauna knows that the vocabulary can be specialized and complex. Therefore, there is a need for a glossary to define the terms. When readers need definitions of words they open the glossary to the necessary page (based on alphabetic order) in the best case while the treatment/description is still open. Having multiple volumes open at one time is cumbersome in the library and impossible in the field. In the electronic environment we can hyperlink each word in a description to the definition and provide a pop-up window on demand.
The object of most information retrieval systems is to return a preexisting document to a searcher. The structure of the underlying document is not considered to be part of the retrieval system. A few notable exceptions have attempted to provide searching within document subsections. But there has been little research on the kinds of tools that are required to give access to tightly coupled document collections, such as floras, faunas and other encyclopedic publications. This challenge awaits us.
Processes for Adding Value to Descriptions. As information scientists, we can also examine where the taxonomic descriptions that generally form the bulk of a flora come from. The authors use three information sources: their personal knowledge, previous taxonomic descriptions and the plants themselves, usually represented by museum specimens. Information technology can help for at least the last two. Authors write new plant descriptions for previously described species for two main reasons. One is that the descriptions are out of date. For example, new members of a genus might have been discovered and the old descriptions are no longer adequate to differentiate all of the members of the genus. Also the taxonomy may change and species may be moved to other groups. In either case, the majority of the original description remains correct. Scholarly effort must be expended to insure this continued accuracy, and the publishing environment should speed up this process.
When writing descriptions, the botanist must gather "representative" members of each of the species, often from many museums, and then study them carefully to find shared characteristics within a species and characteristics that differentiate it from other species. For the most part, the specimens used to create descriptions are not currently tracked making it difficult to verify the accuracy of the descriptions later. This information could be tracked if there were sufficient space in the publication, which is generally not an issue in electronic publishing.
Better Access to Specimens. Over the past decade, many natural history museums have begun to create digital images of their specimens with the hope of making the specimens available to larger groups of researchers and other users more quickly. No studies have been done to determine the effectiveness of this approach. Specimen imaging is an active area of research for digital image quality, metadata, storage and search.
Identification Keys. The traditional tool that people use for identification is the binary key that many of us learned how to use in high school and then forgot. With a paper-based key, there is a branching set of decisions that you make about the characteristics of an unknown plant or animal. For example, if we were identifying a tree, we might need to decide first if the "leaves" of a tree were deciduous or evergreen. If it were evergreen, we would be told which line to go to next on the key. We might next need to decide how many needles are in each bundle. After answering several questions, we hopefully would end at an identification of the species.
One of the main difficulties with the approach is that if you do not end up at the correct answer, the tree in the answer looks nothing like the tree we were trying to identify. It is impossible to know at which decision point we made the mistake. In addition, if one of the characteristics is not available or you do not understand it, it is impossible to use the key. Computer-based interactive keys or polyclaves are intended to answer these problems and others. With the better of these tools, the characteristics can be entered in any order and there is a level of error tolerance so it is possible to make mistakes and still get an answer. Simple databases do not work for this application, which is therefore also an active area of research. The historical dominant interactive key was IntKey (biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/) based on the DELTA data format. Newer keys include LUCID (www.lucidcentral.com/), XID (www.xidservices.com/), Pollyclave (prod.library.utoronto.ca/polyclave) and a non-traditional visualization tool called BIBE (www.biobrowser.org).
The challenges and technologies listed above are but a few of those that exist in the new age of biology. We are changing our environment at an accelerated pace. In order to predict the effects of our actions we need to understand the interrelationships among living organisms. The first small step in this process is to catalog and describe all life on earth. Information technology can play a critical role in making understanding of the life process possible if appropriate research and development is focused on the problem.
For Further Reading
Australia's virtual herbarium. Available at www.anbg.gov.au/avh.html.
Erwin, Terry. (1997). Chapter 4: Biodiversity at its utmost: Tropical forest beetles. In Reaka-Kudla, M. L., Wilson, D.E. & Wilson, E.O. (Eds.), Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting our Biological Resources. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press.
Flora of Australia. (1982-2002). Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Also published by CSIRO PUBLISHING/Australian Biological Resources Study. Available at www.publish.csiro.au/books/series.cfm?SID=6.
Flora of North America Editorial Committee (Eds.) (1993-). Flora of North America: North of Mexico. New York: Oxford University Press.
The Flora of China Project. Available at http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/
Heidorn, P. B. (2001). A tool for multipurpose use of online flora and fauna: The Biological Information Browsing Environment (BIBE). FirstMonday, 6 (2). Available at www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_2/heidorn/index.html.
Morin, N. R. et al. (Eds). (1989). Floristics for the 21st Century: Proceedings of the workshop sponsored by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists and the Flora of North America Project, 4-7 May 1988, Alexandria, VA. St. Louis, MO: Missouri Botanical Garden. (Monographs in systematic botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden, 28.)
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Information Science and Technology


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There will be a few more Sunday events because im going to have split days on a few events. Ex. Int/rec on one day and adv/pro on another. Most of the events are B Tiers, is there a specific reason you would rather have them as C Tiers?
Utilize more of the newer courses
Quote from: bensdadfred on November 07, 2013, 10:17:50 AMUtilize more of the newer coursesyes. Legacy and Young.If not stepping on toes, Perry Lake (Longview)
I have an event in the works for young
I personally dont use legacy just because I dont know the course. Maybe someday


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bactotype MAP PCR Reagent
For identification of DNA from Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis
Effective April 1, 2018, product available exclusively from INDICAL BIOSCIENCE (formerly QIAGEN Leipzig). Learn more.
The bactotype MAP PCR Reagent enables the safe identification of DNA from Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis. The reagent contains primer-probe sets for specific amplification of a highly conserved region of the Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis genome. The reagent also contains a heterologous amplification system to allow both nucleic acid extraction and amplification to be monitored, and an external positive control. Real-time PCR identification can be carried out on the Rotor-Gene Q thermal cycler.
The bactotype MAP Reagent is for laboratory use only. Not for use in veterinary diagnostic procedures. No claim or representation is intended to provide information for the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of a veterinary disease.
This is a real-time PCR reagent for the identification of DNA from Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is based on the amplification of specific regions of the pathogen genome. In real-time PCR, the amplified product is identified using fluorescent dyes. These are usually linked to oligonucleotide probes that bind specifically to the amplified product. Monitoring the fluorescence intensities during the PCR run (i.e., in real time) allows the identification of the accumulating product without the need to re-open the reaction tubes afterwards.
Prior to real-time PCR, DNA must be extracted from the starting material. QIAGEN offers a range of products for DNA extraction from animal samples.
The bactotype MAP PCR Reagent is designed to identify Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis DNA in biological samples using polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
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What sort of being is the demon child? I always imagined the demon child as a spirit that can appear in the corporeal world when near the brands. It must be true that the child actually possesses a physical aspect since Femto steals it, but where is this body 99% of the time when the child isn't appearing to Guts or Casca to intervene?
Furthermore, was the demon child chosen for the incarnation precisely because it possess a strange hybrid form?
Like how some people were of the mistaken opinion that Casca only ever loved Griffith and never really reciprocated Guts' feelings.
Or how some have come to believe that Griffth really turned a new leaf after the Incarnation Ceremony.
when i think of berserk i see an image of a proud warrior, walking tall and forging his own destiny, not a dark horror story about a victim of a cruel world.
Any idea why this episode isn't showing up in the standard Apple podcast player? I've been craving some new Berserk content (the hiatus pain is real - I'm not sure how you long-time fans have kept your sanity) and was wondering why there hadn't been a new podcast episode in awhile - and it turns out there is one! This sounds like a great episode and I can't wait to listen when Apple gets its shit together!
discrepancies about the names of Guts or Casca. Those used to be so much more prevalent, sad to say.
And Aaz, you cracked me up with "take that, Tolkien!" You sure showed him, bud.
Sorry, but I think I completely misunderstood something. When you talked about Griffith being unable to control his body during full moon and the part about Zodd on the cliff, were you implying that the moonlight boy is a "transformation" of Griffith's body ?
Strangely, I've always thought it was something like the astral body of the boy being stuck within Griffith that could move on his own and appear physically thanks to the properties of the moon. I'm a bit lost, did I miss something ?
That's a popular answer to this predicament, but it doesn't work for a few reasons: 1) We've seen on three occasions the boy astrally project a body. It's that white figure that speaks to Guts (eps 241, 316, 327). Under what you're positing, the boy is an astral projection who can project another astral body, which is pretty convoluted. 2) The boy is perceived by everyone as a physical being, with weight, and is subject to gravity, unlike any astral/luminous body in the series. 3) He is able to slip under Schierke's radar only because she's never been cognizant of when he's used his powers (check all three instances; in each, she's been preoccupied or unconscious). If the boy were a pure astral body, he'd stand out like fireworks to her perceptive eyes.


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Submitted by TimothyMorton on
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had ben a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1.63–66)
Greetings all. Thanks so much to Ash Nichols for his comment on my previous, concerning the ways Romantic poetry can get its natural history wrong. I'm going to have to think about this one before I reply to it, so stand by. But I think my paradoxical reading (below) might go some way towards addressing the last couple of remarks—that the traditional reading of the shooting of the albatross has to do with disrupting some kind of natural continuum. Ash very reasonably wonders why this is any worse than, say, shooting a turkey for Thanksgiving.
And thanks to Ron Broglio for his comment on "worlding" and Uexküll, Heidegger's source. It's not surprising to me that Heidegger edits animals out of the worlding club. Only humans can have a world, while animals are "poor in world," German Weltarm. Like most continental philosophers, he wants to assert that there is a radical discontinuity between humans and animals. In a recent anthology of such writing, I was amazed to find a still-living writer who proudly "rejects" the theory of evolution. This to my mind is like rejecting the three-sidedness of triangles!
The haughtiness with which this rejection is performed is quite extraordinary to one who has spent several months reading all the Darwin he could get his hands on. It's like something out of Gulliver's Travels.
So then, to work...
It struck me that while the sun is personfied as "he" (see "Part Second" below), the Albatross is reified as an "it." Given the isomorphism between the two phrases ("Out of the sea came he," 1.26 / "Thorough the fog it came," 1.64) I don't think we can ignore this. Coleridge does indeed emphasize the inert density of the sheer existence of the life form. This gives "As if it had been a Christian soul" the full weight of its disturbing "As if"-ness.
The "As if" has the force of a fetishistic disavowal: "We knew very well that the Albatross wasn't a human soul, nevertheless, we acted as if it did have one." Isn't this the beginning of the end for the rather trite conclusion at the end of the poem—that you should love "All things both great and small" (7.615), because God made and loves them? By the late eighteenth century this conclusion was already trite. It sounds like a regression from the extraordinary stance of the sailors, who are willing to "suspend their belief," their "lifeworld" (a good God made and loves all creatures, in a paternalistic, safe fashion), and treat an "it" as a "soul."
Far from pantheism, what the sailors achieve in Part 1 is in fact a radical form of non-theistic Christianity, taking seriously the idea that God died on the cross. The death of God and the death of the theistic cultural lifeworld ("To walk together to the kirk, / And all together pray," 7.605–606—n.b. the Scots dialect, which localizes the sentiment within a certain cultural horizon), with its comforting concentric hierarchies (the "goodly company" of "Old men, and babes, and loving friends...," 7.604, 7.608), provide far more plausible explanations for why the Wedding Guest leaves the "bridegroom's door" "like one that hath been stunned, / And is of sense forlorn" (7.621–623), than the editorializing injunction to love "all things" (7.615). The bottom has fallen out of the Wedding Guest's world. Why?
Because the encounters with sentient beings in The Ancient Mariner are not encounters with members of a holistic lifeworld. They are encounters with what I call the strange stranger, the ultimate way of welcoming (other) life forms. More on this as we proceed. But for now let's note a startling conclusion. This is not a pantheist poem at all. In fact, what makes it most "ecological" is what makes it least pantheist. What makes it ecological is its disturbing, relentless intimacy, intimacy with the "it," with Death and Life-in-Death, with "slimy things" (4.238), and so on.
Maybe the sailors are desperate for help. Maybe they are lonely. Whatever the reason, they greet the Albatross "As if it had been a Christian soul," half knowing that their response is exorbitant. This greeting is perverse. Ecological ideology has thus far been virile, masculine, heteronormative, ablist and extravert (what else is wrong with it?!). The Ancient Mariner and his crew appear to outline a way of ecological existence that is still in our future. Beyond nature, beyond the lifeworld ("Below the kirk, below the hill," 1.23), beyond holism, beyond sentimentalism.
Just as the Albatross emerges from the thick, intense "element" of ice and fog, as if the ice and fog had grown a face, so the sailors pick "it" out of the surrounding field of "it"s and "hail it," welcome it "in God's name" (1.65–66). This is on the way to love at its extreme: out of "all things" in the Universe (7.615), I pick you. It already has something "evil" about it, something disrupting to the cozy lifeworld. Far from being a gesture of pantheist inclusiveness and holism, the welcome radically disturbs the "balance of nature."
To love another creature is a perverse choice, not a "letting be" or a snuggling together in a predetermined lifeworld. Isn't the message of Frankenstein, which borrows heavily from this poem, to love sentient beings as people even when they aren't people? We are getting into cyborg territory here, and we will have to think about Artificial Intelligence, about treating all "it"s as "you."
The Albatross is the second disturbing "face" in the poem. We've already experienced a rupture of the lifeworld with the presence of the Ancient Mariner himself, who to the Wedding Guest also appears as an "It": "It is an ancient Mariner" (1.1). This stranger too has the disturbing inertia of sheer existence, what Lévinas calls the "there is." Lévinas's image of the "there is" is the night: "I pass, like night, from land to land" says the Mariner, a walking poem (7.586). This walking poem, the "saying" of the Mariner, outlives and drastically dominates the Mariner as flesh and blood, "wrenching" him with "agony" (7.577–578) and compelling him to speak it. It is the Mariner who tacks on the trite sentiment that we live in a lifeworld that is not to be disrupted. The "Mariner-poem" speaks a far more disturbing truth. (See David Haney's book on Coleridge and ethics for further discussion; and see Paul Youngquist's review too).
The sailors' welcome was prepared for, "in the offing," otherwise the Albatross would just have been another phenomenon of the "element." The sailors, in other words, were already in a position of vulnerability towards the other, already marked by the other's existence. Existence is already coexistence. The Albatross is the Messianic "arrivant," the absolutely unexpected arrival, the one we can never predict, but whose shadow falls into our world, in the disturbing proximity of all strangers.
In the same way, the "It is" of the ancient Mariner himself (1.1) compels us to imagine his existence prior to the beginning of the poem itself. He's already there, as if some lines were missing: "Who the hell is that? It is an ancient Mariner." Any attempt to create a cozy world thus edits out this existence, beyond the beginning. Beyond the lifeworld, beyond Being, the ecological thought is intimacy with the strange stranger. (More about them in the next post.)
(When I use "beyond" in the previous paragraph, I mean it in a special sense—not as in "over yonder" in a more hugely encompassing horizon than we can grasp, but "right here," too close for comfort.)
The Judaeo-Christian reading of this poem is by no means at odds with the most profoundly ecological one. They are the same reading.
Shelley did have it right. Poems are from the future.
Onwards, onwards to line 66!


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=== Benefits ===
=== Benefits ===
;This project will benefit local small languages Wikipedia communitites, by providing quality materials and sources. The following language Wikipedias would benefit.
;This project will benefit local small languages Wikipedia communitites, by providing quality materials and sources. The following language Wikipedias would benefit.
: isiZulu; Xistonga; Sesotho and isiXhosa.
: isiZulu; Xistonga; Sesotho and isiXhosa.
=== External Portal and discussions ===
=== External Portal and discussions ===
Revision as of 08:44, 25 January 2013
Home │ Project Timeline │ Budget Breakdown │ Activities Report │ Expenses Report │ Project Team
Monmouthpedia is the first Wikipedia project to embrace a whole town, specifically the Welsh town of Monmouth. This was done through installing Cream plaques containing QRCodes next to buildings and other objects and linking these to Wikipedia articles. A QR Code (it stands for "Quick Response") is a cell phone readable bar code that can store website URL's, when scanned by a smart phone, it will direct the browser of the smart phone to the url.
This project brings together the success of cream plaques with the intrinsic Histical value of Blue plaques. Blue plaques are used to commemorate significant sites (sites can be significant to a community for a whole host of reasons). It is an invitation to people to discover more about a site and its history. The iconic look is the circular shape with white writing on a blue background. It is currently estimated that there are about 150 to 200 blue plaques in and around Johannesburg.
The aim of this project is to increase Wikipedia coverage of iconic buildings around Johanesburg with historic and heritage importance. QR codes will be installed next to blue plaques in Johannesburg city in a bid to create the first MetropediA in Africa between the years 2013 through to 2015.
Impact and Monitoring
This project is expected to feed off to other heritage Wiki projects, especially the Wiki Loves Monuments photo competition around monuments within and around the Johannesburg area. The impact this project could have on local small wikis is not easy to quantify currently, except to say that it will provide local wikimedians working in small language projects, an ever fresh spring of information and material to write about.
Fit to strategy
External Portal and discussions
Discussions on this project can also be found here:
More about QR coding


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Not getting it, or not wanting it?
Are Nintendo in denial? New portable gaming platform launches in very tough economic situation, wonders why people don't rush out to buy it... personally if I didn't have a smartphone already it would be cheaper to buy a good Android hanset and get some of those very cheap games on offer. Oh, and the device does everything a 3DS does and more except... well it isn't 3D is it, but then...
Good luck with that then!


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Mary Devlin is one of my third-great-grandmothers, and I don't know very much about her yet. She was born in Ireland around 1830 and came to Canada sometime before 1840. She and her husband, William Lloyd lived in Mulmur, Ontario until the 1890's, when they moved to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. They had at least ten children (most of the birth years are approximations based on variances across censuses):
Mary Lloyd Ferguson Graham: b. 1855 – d. 1936
William Lloyd: b. 1858 – d. ????
Eliza Jane Lloyd: b. 1860 – d. ????
Margaret Lloyd Bannister: b. 1865 – d. 1931
Harriet B. Lloyd Leeper: b. 1866 – d. ????
John J. Lloyd: b. 1868 – d. ????
James H. Lloyd: b. 1869 – d. ????
Annie Sophia Lloyd: b. 1874 – d. 1892
Richard Victor Lloyd: b. 1876 – d. 1959
Martha Ellen Lloyd Solomon: b. 1877 – d. ????
As a bit of a wildcard, there are two more possible children I am trying to find more evidence for. The first is a daughter listed in the 1871 census. Her name was either Ama E. or Anna E., and she was born in July of 1870. I am fairly certain that this is not Annie Sophia, because every bit of documentation for her states a birth year of 1874. (I don't have a birth record.)
The other is Emily S., who only appears in the 1881 census. Her birth year is given as 1872. She could be Anna E. or Ama E. maybe?
I'm still working on the Lloyds and Devlins, and hope to get them sorted a bit more in the coming months.


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Bas Scheffers needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 272 designs submitted by 81 freelance designers.
Fringe Genie
Fringe Genie is a new brand to market our iPhone festival application product. If you have an iPhone, search "adelaide fringe" in the app store to view what we do.
The target audience are arts, music, film, comedy and other festivals around the world. The CEOs, directors and marketeers that would buy are product are creative, young (in mind), energetic and love individual expression and bold statements. Conservative or reserved, they are not. Many of them are artists themselves.
We need a logo design with the vector file format that goes with it. After the logo is done we'll likely need other design elements in the same style, which is an opportunity for you to do some more work.
Attached is a design concept by our marketing manager. I like the concept very much, but it needs a spark. The font could be more modern, the genie more interesting and overal bolder colours.
The Genie design must be abstract, no photos or cartoons.
Inspiration might come from:
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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The Trust Center is where you can find security and privacy settings for Microsoft Office programs. With the consistent appearance of the ribbon in Office programs, steps to find the Trust Center are the same for each program. The options available in the Trust Center allow you to share documents with the people you want, as well as to find and remove hidden information you may not want to disclose. To learn more about Office privacy, read the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
In an Office program, on the File tab, click Options.
Click Trust Center, and then click Trust Center Settings. The following screen is an example from Word:
Click the area that you want (on the left pane) and make the selections you need. For example, to change the privacy settings, click Privacy Options.
When changing privacy settings, you should make selections that will help set the level of Office privacy you want. The selections can include getting notification if a document is from a suspicious website or links to one, or making hidden markup visible when files are opened and saved.
Note: When you select Let Office connect to online services from Microsoft to provide functionality that's relevant to your usage and preferences, Office connects to online services and sites provided by Microsoft, such as Bing Maps, Insights, and Bing Weather.
Click OK when finished.
Important: Changing Trust Center settings can greatly reduce or increase the security of your computer, its data, data on your organization's network, and other computers on that network. We advise that you consult with your system administrator, or carefully consider the risks, before making changes to Trust Center settings.
Remove hidden data and personal information from documents
If you plan to share an electronic copy of an Office document, it's a good idea to review the document for any hidden data or personal information that you might not want to share. The Document Inspector can help you do that.
Open the document that you want to inspect.
Note: You may want to use a copy of the original document because it's not always possible to restore the data that the Document Inspector removes.
On the File tab, click Info, and then click Check for Issues.
Click Inspect Document.
In the Document Inspector box, select the types of hidden content that you want to check for, and then click Inspect.
For each type of content you want to remove from the document, click Remove All, and then click Close.
Note: For more information about Document Inspector and the types of information it can find and remove, see Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents.
Help improve Office!
To participate in the work to improve Office products, follow these steps.
In an Office program, on the File tab, click Options.
Click Trust Center, and then click Trust Center Settings. The following screen is an example from Word:
Click Privacy Options.
Click the check box next to Get designs, information, recommendations, and services by allowing Office to access and make product improvements based on Office content on my device.
Here's some helpful information you should know about helping us improve Office:
If you are willing to participate, you don't have to do any additional work. You never have to complete a form, fill out a survey, or answer a telephone call.
Microsoft automatically collects information from your computer, including the error messages that are generated by the software and when they are generated, the kind of computer equipment that you are using, whether your computer is having any difficulty running Microsoft software, and whether your hardware and software respond well and perform rapidly. In general, this information is collected once each day.
This information is not used in advertising or sales in any way. Microsoft does not share this information with any other company. When you join the program, an identification number is generated randomly. That number is the only identification that is used when you share information with Microsoft. Because the number is completely random, Microsoft cannot trace your information back to you — and neither can anyone else.