Timothy Richard's Buddhist-Christian Studies
Timothy Richard (1845-1919), one of the most well-known nineteenth-century British missionaries who worked in China,1 is still remembered today for his efforts to disseminate "Western learning" and to promote social welfare and political reform in China.2 Interestingly, although Richard's missionary, educational, and political activities undoubtedly dominated his life in China, he also found the time to translate a number of Buddhist texts from Chinese into English.3 Unlike many of his fellow Christian missionaries, who either despised or ignored Chinese Buddhism, Richard endeavored to promote a dialogue between Christianity and other religions, especially Chinese Buddhism. In fact, his translations inspired several other European missionaries and Sinologists to take a greater interest in Chinese Buddhism, particularly Richard's biographer William E. Soothill (1861-1935) and Karl Ludvig Reichelt (18771952),4 the founder of Tao Fong Shan, which continues to promote Buddhist-Christian dialogue several decades after its foundation.5 However, Richard's translations of Chinese Buddhist texts, particular his translation of The Awakening of Faith, have been largely neglected by both Buddhists and Sinologists. As a result, the significance of Richard's dialogue with Chinese Buddhism has not yet been properly evaluated. Two recent studies of Richard have focused on his translation of the Buddhist texts
Jesus and the Other Names: Christian Mission and Global Responsibility. Author's Response
Jesus and the Other Names will give pause to those who believe Christian Mission can be carried on as is in the modern era. Sure to inspire debate as well as dialogue it offers a more humble, but perhaps more "Christic," postmodern approach to mission in the new millennium that has little to do with earthly glory and nothing to do with the sense of cultural superiority that so often - and often so tragically - accompanied modern missionary movements. Theologians, missiologist, Christian, historians, can all benefit from its thoughtful and timely message.
FlowBrush: optical flow art
The depiction of motion in static representations has a long tradition in art and science alike. Often, motion is depicted by spatio-temporal summarizations that try to preserve as much information of the original dynamic content as possible. In our approach to depicting motion, we remove the spatial constraints and generate new content steered by the temporal changes in motion. Applying particle steering in combination with the dynamic color palette of the video content, we can create a wide range of different image styles. With recorded videos, or by live interaction with a webcam, one can influence the resulting image. We provide a set of intuitive parameters to affect the style of the result, the final image content depends on the video input. Based on a collection of results gathered from test users, we discuss example styles that can be achieved with FlowBrush. In general, our approach provides an open sandbox for creative people to generate aesthetic images from any video content they apply.