What is in Kelvin's Head?

Christmas in St Mary’s (with a twist at the end)

17/12/2022

Christmas is a time of joy and celebration, and there is perhaps no better place to experience the magic of the season than at St Mary’s Cathedral in the Scottish Episcopal Church. With its stunning architecture and rich history, this beautiful space offers a truly special and meaningful way to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

One of the highlights of a Christmas service at St Mary’s Cathedral is the music. The cathedral’s choir is known for their beautiful voices and their ability to bring the festive carols to life. The church also features a grand organ, which adds a sense of grandeur and majesty to the service. Whether you’re a fan of traditional carols or more modern hymns, you’re sure to be moved by the beautiful music at St Mary’s Cathedral.

Another highlight of a Christmas service at St Mary’s Cathedral is the sense of history and tradition. The cathedral dates back to the 19th century and is known for its stunning Gothic architecture. The service itself is filled with rich traditions, such as the lighting of the Advent wreath and the reading of the Christmas story from the Bible. These traditions help to create a sense of awe and wonder that is so fitting for the holiday season.

But perhaps the most special aspect of a Christmas service at St Mary’s Cathedral is the sense of community and togetherness. As people from all walks of life come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus, there is a feeling of unity and love that is truly special. Whether you’re a lifelong member of the cathedral or a newcomer to the community, you’ll feel welcome and included in the celebration.

In short, Christmas services at St Mary’s Cathedral in the Scottish Episcopal Church are a truly special and meaningful way to celebrate the holiday season. With their beautiful music, rich traditions, and sense of community, these services offer a chance to experience the magic and wonder of Christmas in a truly special and meaningful way.

If you’ve made it through this blog post this far and you have a slight sense that there’s something odd about it the you’d be correct. The post above, not in italics wasn’t written by me. It was written by a machine – specifically the ChatGPT bot that has recently been released to the world. You tell it what you want it to write and it does it.

This one was generated by the prompt, “Write a blog post about how wonderful Christmas services are at St Mary’s Cathedral in the Scottish Episcopal Church”.

Now, it doesn’t sound quite like me and it isn’t the most exciting writing there is. Perhaps it is even slightly stilted. But it is a fairly convincing attempt at the problem I gave it to do.

This technology is going to make all things new. Academia in particular is going to have to change very quickly in the way it assesses students.

This is disruptive technology. It can be used to do funny things – I could just have easily got it to write the above post in the voice of Donald Trump.

Thus: “Let me tell you, folks, this place is amazing. The music is absolutely incredible, with the choir singing all of your favorite carols in the most beautiful way. And the organ! Wow, what a sound. It’s truly something to behold…”

But this isn’t just entertainment. It is something completely and utterly new. Nothing you ever read again comes with a guarantee that it was written by a human being.

The world is changed. As someone once sent with a telegraph key, “What hath God wrought”?

18 responses to “General Assembly on sex and singleness”

Kennedy

27/05/2009

DCampbell writes:
Wow, Kennedy – I hadn’t realised there was so much or so many people to it, but surely it is not beyond us to have some kind of webcast of the more important sections of the proceedings

Webcasting from Palmerston Place presents a number of challenges:

resourcing the camera crew, vision mixer and director (kit and people) and integration with the projection system to carry any slides and visuals
looking at the lighting to allow good pictures but without interfering with the projection system (which suffers from light spill from the windows already)
Network and machine infrastructure in the building to capture and code the video.
Dedicated bandwidth (with Quality of Service) to transfer the video and audio stream out to a distribution server. (We currently piggyback on Palmerston Place’s own internet connection).

An alternative would be an audio stream with a general shot webcam updating every 30 – 60 secs but again would probably need a dedicated connection to the net to ensure that there was no breakup.

This is not a litany of reasons for not doing things – it’s just a realistic assessment of the resource requirements.

Kennedy

Reply
Kennedy

27/05/2009

Or another thought-

We start having Synod on the Th/Fr/Sa after the Assembly on the Mound and share the costs of the setup.

Reply
Kennedy

27/05/2009

No, I suppose a general ‘piskie tag would work just as well, but I’m with Kimberly and would prefer #piskie

Reply
kelvin

27/05/2009

My only problem with piskie is that in some parts of the UK a “piskie” is one of the little people, and not necessarily a nice one.

See for example:
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/cornwall/folklore/the-piskies-of-cornwall.html

“Some people saw them as the souls of pagans who could not transcend to heaven, and they were also seen as the remnants of pagan gods, banished with the coming of Christianity. In tradition they are doomed to shrink in size until they disappear. “

Reply
Elizabeth

27/05/2009

Maybe it’s just me, but I have always found the potential confusion between pisky and piskie immensely pleasing (by ‘always’ I mean, since I discovered the term – not too many years ago!). It’s one of the (many) reasons I’m pleased to be on the pisky/ie side of the pond.

Reply
David Campbell

28/05/2009

Thanks Kelvin – all this stuff is quite amazing really – especially Kennedy’s informative and knowledgeable material about what is actually needed. I agree about the Primus’s charge being essential, but if live streaming (if that is what it is called) is too intensive an operation in all kinds of ways for an admittedly small audience, why not do a twice daily edited digest of each day’s business like the one the Revd Dougkas Aitken does for the CofS?

Reply
Kelvin

28/05/2009

Rob Warren already does do digests in audio format – video may well be the next step, though it is quite a big step to take.

Reply
Kennedy

28/05/2009

The video update that Douglas Aitken does is a copy of his audio update with appropriate video material behind it ie you don’t get any actuality from the chamber.

We would still need editing and coding time before the video could be uploaded to an external server.

Reply