charlie

"Is it blasphemous to love the drops of dew on the haze-blurred branches more than some formal religious idea? I say it is not. It may be said these are my Bible, the visible evidence of God - if so, I do love Him." Charles E. Burchfield

I wonder if he ever regrets it. I wonder if he’s had out of body experiences on stream, staring down the barrel at the conspiracy theories cooked up by his only friend, a maths teacher in a priest costume

Call me fishmael

One of my fav photo albums ever is this collection by Andrew Miksys of post-soviet dance clubs in provincial Lithuania

"shall we go around the room and do some quick intros?" "no"

@nickcammarata Be curious to start following any people / startups working on this

if you’re smart and technical and looking for what ai was in 2016 I think it’s ultrasound research for consciousness. so tiny, you can become world class best if you make it your focus for a few years

this is amazing if true. and at least totally matches my experience. my first year of meditation was mostly agitation and thinking, almost certainly strengthening my ego and clenching, then a big flip that made it go the other direction that never unflipped

@sagharborcap The exact opposite is true; you have totally misunderstood the point of education

The saddest thing about all the AI stuff is that it’s rendered the Khan Academy guy’s life’s work totally obsolete

@BishopDewar @pangramlabs slop?

As a Bishop, I cannot stay silent. I have today drafted and sent an open letter to His Majesty King Charles III, the text of which reads as follows: To: His Majesty, Charles III, King of the United Kingdom and the Realms, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Bearer of the ancient title Defender of the Faith. Your Majesty, I write to you neither as a politician nor as a commentator, but as one of your loyal subjects who, as a bishop of Christ’s Church, cannot remain silent while the Christian foundations of this kingdom are steadily dismantled. Sir, there are moments in the life of a nation when silence becomes a form of betrayal. If I refused to speak to Your Majesty now, this would be such a moment. For more than a thousand years the Crown of this realm has stood in solemn covenant with the Christian faith. The laws of this land were shaped by it. The liberties of our people were nurtured by it. The conscience of our civilisation was formed by it. From the abbeys of medieval England to the parish churches of our villages, from the preaching of the Reformers to the missionary zeal that carried the Gospel to the ends of the earth, the Christian faith has not merely influenced Britain — it has defined her. Yet today that inheritance is being quietly but deliberately eroded. Across the institutions of this nation there is a growing hostility toward the faith that built them. Christian belief is mocked in the public square. Christian morality is dismissed as intolerance. Christian institutions are pressured to surrender doctrine in order to conform to the ideology of the age. Within the very Church that bears the name of England, voices have arisen that appear more eager to mirror the spirit of the age than to proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel. Meanwhile, beyond the walls of our churches, powerful political movements openly speak of removing Christianity from its historic place within the life of this nation. What would once have been whispered is now proclaimed openly: that Britain must become a post-Christian state. It is in this context that I write to you, Your Majesty. For the British Crown does not stand apart from this crisis. The Sovereign of this realm bears a title that is not merely historic but sacred in its origin and meaning: Defender of the Faith. Those words are not decorative. They are a charge. They speak of a monarch whose duty is not merely to preside over the ceremonies of the Church, but to stand as a guardian of the Christian inheritance of the nation. Yet many among your subjects now ask, with increasing anxiety: “Who will defend that inheritance today?” They see a nation drifting from its foundations. And they ask whether the Crown will remain silent while that inheritance is dismantled. Your Majesty, may I be so bold as to observe that your coronation oath was not a poetic formality. It was a solemn vow made before Almighty God to maintain and preserve the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law. Those words bind the conscience of the sovereign. They remind the Crown that its authority is not merely constitutional but moral. The monarch is not merely a symbol of national continuity, but a custodian of the spiritual inheritance that shaped this realm. History records moments when kings and emperors were confronted by the Church and reminded that their authority was accountable before God. In the fourth century Ambrose of Milan stood before the Emperor Theodosius I and reminded him that even the ruler of an empire must bow before the moral law of Christ. That tradition of prophetic witness has never disappeared. Nor should it. For when rulers forget the foundations upon which their authority rests, the Church must speak — not with hostility, but with holy clarity. And so, I write to say this, Your Majesty: The Christian character of this nation is under profound and accelerating assault. If the Crown does not stand visibly and courageously in defence of that inheritance, history will record that the guardians of Britain’s institutions watched in silence as the foundations were removed. The issue before us is not nostalgia. It is civilisation. Remove Christianity from the story of Britain and you do not create a neutral society — you create a moral vacuum. And history teaches us that moral vacuums are never left empty for long. Your Majesty now stands at a crossroads that few monarchs in modern history have faced. For the erosion of Britain’s Christian inheritance will not ultimately be judged by speeches made in Parliament or debates in the press. It will be judged by whether those entrusted with the guardianship of our ancient institutions chose to defend them — or merely preside over their quiet surrender. You may preside over the quiet dissolution of Britain’s Christian identity. Or you may rise to the ancient responsibility entrusted to the Crown and speak with clarity about the faith that built this kingdom. The first path requires little courage. The second will require a great deal. But it is the path that history honours. Your Majesty’s subjects are not asking for religious coercion. They are asking for leadership. They are asking that the sovereign who bears the title Defender of the Faith remember what that title means. They are asking that the Crown hear the growing cry of anguish from Christians across this land who feel that the spiritual inheritance of their nation is being surrendered without resistance. And they are asking whether the Crown will stand with them. For the faith that shaped Britain is not merely a cultural ornament. It is the wellspring from which our laws, our liberties, and our moral imagination have flowed. If it is cast aside, the nation will discover — too late — that it has severed itself from the very roots that sustained it. Your Majesty, to many the Crown is a symbol of authority. But before God it is also a symbol of stewardship. And stewardship carries with it the duty to defend what has been entrusted. May Almighty God grant Your Majesty the wisdom to discern this hour, and the courage to fulfil the sacred duty entrusted to the Crown. Yours faithfully, Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar FSHC Missionary Bishop Diocese of Providence Confessing Anglican Church @PhilHs10 @RevBrettMurphy @revwickland @BishopRobert1 @GBNews @TalkTV @danwootton @Jacob_Rees_Mogg @LozzaFox @BackBrexitBen @RupertLowe10 @KemiBadenoch @JohnCleese

@screenrotpod Looks like he’s been caught by a carnivore-led vegan sting

@seatsixtyone @JacobAShell I think 'obviously they should fix that' is a better response than 'them's the regs'

The European passenger rail system is very cool, but I remember having this horrible experience in '22 where I bought an Italian rail ticket to go from Munich to Rome, and purchased it online. Was told after I completed the purchase that "it was only valid if printed, and it could only be printed at an Italian printer" (I was in Germany). The Italians wouldn't let me return the ticket. Germans I knew rolled their eyes and said I should have just gone to a German train station and bought the ticket there, in person, and that buying anything online, esp from Trenitalia, is bad. 100 euros down the drain. The point of the story is that yes the EU rail system looks cool on a map. And if you go Point A to B inside of one country (e.g. Munich to Hamburg), things usually go very well. But when doing multiple countries, you can wind up back in a situation from early 20th century where you're dealing with various border-bureaucrat "Kafka traps." You'd think the whole point of the EU would be to streamline this, but no, apparently the only point of it is to deprive nations of sovereign control over labor flows.

@w_stronge @eli1ah It’s a question of what ‘working’ means. Does it mean ‘media which leads to political change’ or does it mean ‘viral clips with lefty characteristics’? The insurgent right is much, much better at actually achieving their aims!

@eli1ah I'm what ways do you think they are going wrong right now?

Novara, Joe etc need to figure out fast how you can productively contribute to get to the outcome you want come the next election or you might as well delete your channels if the result goes further right. You have 2 years. Fix up.

@dwarkesh_sp What’s the biggest number

What should I ask Terence Tao?

@AakritiMandhwa1 Commiserations

I signed up for Claude to see what the fuss was about. I fed it an essay I’ve written for a peer reviewed journal and asked it to structure it to a talk. Safe to say, if I gave this talk, I would have a career in a management consultancy, certainly not in the humanities.

I was doing like an advanced kind of joke where it isnt funny

@elonmusk Got skin in this particular game amigo?

🎯

@IkkyusDen Had my first / closest-to-jhana type experience at the tail end of a body scan. Was also on a strong dose of codeine at the time so might have been particularly relaxed

So apparently body scans are a potential in-road to the jhanas huh Beginning to wonder what is not

@gbrl_dick @danwwang @noampomsky I’d hold my nose and grit my teeth, but she’s worth it

@danwwang @noampomsky forget dying for a woman you love, would you read the first 5 books in the aubrey–maturin series and then watch master and commander for a woman you love?

forget dying for a woman you love. would you read a houellebecq book for a woman you love?

@wyatt_browdy obvious but war & peace, surely

What are the best "everything novels"? Novels that are seemingly about everything at once

@emsbooks1 @aswren So how’s it classist

@aswren everywhere in london is expensive! it doesn’t take a genius to work that out!!! ffs!

hey so this is classist. you’re wrong.