or, its time for some motivational posters! (Ok, posters that look like motivational posters, but are really just humorous commentary on a word or a phrase with an equally humorous or mocking picture attached.)
Came across this cool online word-cloud generator today: WORDLE. Basically you inset a body of text into a form and it creates a sweet little word cloud for you.
Here is one I made out of my seminar paper on the Acts of Thecla:
The above image was generated from a 8,000 word document.
However, there is no real limit to how many words you can put in there. The following is a “wordle” of the ESV New Testament and entire ESV Bible. HT: ESV Bible Blog
I think it is pretty sweet. You are even able to change up your display options by font, word orientation and color set.
I 89% of I am Legend, right up until the ending. They were setting the film up to be a paired down and simplified version of the book to be sure, but the spirit of the book was still there - that these things Nevil was hunting were not complete monsters and that he was one to them because of his hunting of them. In the original ending of the movie, Nevil sacrifices himself with a grenade to allow his magically appearing companions to escape. He is the legend because he found a cure, we discover in the ending monologue. Check out the alternate ending that was cut out of the film:
There, wasn’t that so much better? I mean, the zombie/vamps are still generated using a gamecube, but the spirit of the book is there. As he turns and looks at his "patient" wall, he realizes that he is the monster. Still no where near the quality of the book, but hey, it’s an 1.5 hour movie, whaddya gonna do?
If you have grown up in a Christian culture, or around members of a Christian culture, then you are familiar with the current Christian canon, the list of books that Christians dub the Bible. If you have met very many Christians outside of the Christian culture that you are most familiar with, you most likely have noticed that different Christians have different books in their canon. This is especially true when you look at the various canon lists that various ante-NiceneChristian groups. Ben C. Smith, at Thoughts on Antiquity has a great series on canonical lists, which I recommend reading though. In order to find the other posts in the series, scroll down to the bottom of the series page and browse through the trackbacks. While it would kill most of you to read though all of them, I highly recommend reading his posts on the Marcionite Canon, the Origenic Canon (part II), and Eusebian Canon.
These posts are a fascinating look at how the Christian canon developed over time.
One gospel, the Evangelion. ( a paired down version of Luke)
Ten Pauline epistles, the Apostolikon.*
Galatians
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Romans.
1 Thessalonians.
2 Thessalonians.
Laodiceans.
Colossians.
Philippians.
Philemon.
*We just have a list of these books, not the contents, so we cannot be sure that these works were the same works we have now, but it is likely that they are the same
Four gospels.
Gospel of Matthew.
Gospel of Mark.
Gospel of Luke.
Gospel of John.
Acts of the Apostles
14 Pauline epistles
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthian
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews*
James.
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude.
1 Peter.
2 Peter
1 Clement.
2 Clement
The constitutions of Clement in eight books, containing mysteries.
* The books of Hebrews was counted among the Pauline letters.
Ugh, how true that is. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone through that. People want a 5 second diddy on what you do, not a 5 minute nuanced explanation of what your field is, followed up by a 3 minute description of where your work is positioned within that field.
Most people don’t get what religious studies is (hint: it’s not theology), let alone how you go about/can take a non-canonical religious text and analyze how it functioned to create and sustain a religious community two thousand years ago. Most people quickly assume that I am a cracked theologian who is trying to elevate the Acts of Thomas to the Bible. That’s understandable given the standard perceptions of what people do with texts, but just frustrating when I constantly have to take more time than the hearer wants to explain what I am doing.
While part of me agrees with the above picture, I have to also vehemently disagree. The further you get from "purity" the closer you get to real people. I am thinking of history, religious studies, etc… Perhaps what I am trying to say is that dirty has value as well as purity. This is part of my newfound problem with philosophy and philosophers. Philosophy is a nice set of tools and ways to conceive the world. However, I’d rather go build something with my tools rather than spend all day polishing my nice toolbox. (With that said, I have and will always have a deep love for math.)
Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality. Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. As the Scriptures say:
“Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough.”
- Paul, writing to the assembly of Christians in Corinth, 2 Cor. 8:13-15
That’s right, the basic plot for Marvel’s sequel for the hit superhero RPG, Ultimate Alliance, will be based around the Civil War storyline. Gotta say I am pretty pumped.
Picked this puppy up at Brendoman.com. The concept: a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search. b. Using only the first page, pick an image. c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker. - The Questions:
What is your first name? Henry
What is your favorite food? Brisket
What high school did you go to? Versailles High School (Morgan County RII did not pickup anything)
What is your favorite color? Orange
Who is your celebrity crush? Jason Bateman
Favorite drink? Orange Crush
Dream vacation? Rome
Favorite dessert? Vanilla Ice Cream and Hot Coco Mix
What you want to be when you grow up? Professor of Religious Studies
What do you love most in life? Family , bio and otherwise
Mental Floss Blog :: Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Trek - I love me some sci-fi comparisons. Scott Miller looks at how BSG differs from STNG. Star Trek explores our hopes and dreams, a vision of why humanity wants to be; while Battlestar Galactica explores our flaws and our realities, a vision of what humanity is. It is a really good read. While you are at it, check out the following peices of lesser quality:
Wikipedia :: The Resoration Movement - When is a denomination not a denomination? When it says denominations are morally wrong, as the body of Christ is to be a unified body. This is the religious tradition in which I grew up. There are three wings of this denomination movement:
I link to this movement because it came up several times this past week in our 14 hour van rides. One of my friends, has some history in the Churches of Christ (a cappella) movement and I have a long history in the Independent Christian Churches movement. I often get blurry when recalling the differences between thevarious movements within the larger Campbell-Stone movement. As I was telling some of my friends in the van, I really like most of what the C-S movement has to say on paper, but I have huge problems with the application of those values and secondary beliefs.
The Times UK Online :: Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol - The first line gives me great hope: “Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’” What?! Wait, even if this is as good as they promise, isn’t it just more of the same environmentally devastating oil? Nope, for “[t]he company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.“
I am all down for stuff like this. As a matter of fact, I think I remember reading about the early phases of a similar project in Discover a few years ago: Anything Into Oil. While it is great to see the progress made on this front, pessimism rises within me. As my buddy Jake Jones put it when I emailed this article to him, “that is pretty cool. I wonder how long it will before the big oil companies buy the tech and screw it all up.”
Meredith and I are down in Destin, Florida on vacation. We came down here with 8 other good friends from our church. We rented a 15 passenger van and drove hard through the night. It was exhausting and it took a day and a half to recover from (I can’t sleep in a van) the sleep deprivation, but now that we are here and a hang’in it is pretty awesome and I am really enjoying the company.
Wanna give a shout-out to the organization the girls did behind the scenes which has allowed the trip to proceed smoothly and to the drivers that safely transported us the 700 miles down here.
Only bummer? I have three more chapters of German and some thesis work to do this week - and I don’t really have the motivation to do it.
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