U2 at 50: How Bono's band became icons of rock by singing about God

 

On Saturday, 25th September 1976, four teenagers decided to get together to make music. Fifty years of faith-fuelled songs later, Steve Stockman charts the spiritual journey of Saint Bono and his band

When the annals of 20th and 21st Century Church history are written, many heroes of the faith will make the pages. Billy Graham, Mother Teresa and Pope Francis will be among those heralded as saints who changed the global face of Christianity. But the historians would be remiss if they didn't also include the one rock band who, over the course of 50 years, have used the currency of their fame to literally change the world, and have done it from the foundation of a Christian faith.

As they reach this landmark anniversary, now is a good time to stop and reflect on the impact U2 have had on the Church and indeed the world.

September 1976 was no golden age in rock history. The top 40 was littered with bland and anaemic pop: Abba, Bay City Rollers, The Wurzels and (dare I say it) Cliff Richard. Something needed to change, and thankfully it did! The next year would see punk rock and the new wave transform the doldrums of 70s pop and prog rock. The Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Stranglers and The Ramones all brought vibrant new life.

During this gestation period, four teenagers from Mount Temple School in Dublin were getting together in the drummer’s kitchen. There was something blowing in the north Dublin air that they would later describe in the song ‘Lucifer’s Hands’: “The spirit’s moving through a seaside town / I’m born again to the latest sound / New wave airwaves swirling around my heart.”

As we celebrate 50 years of U2, it is hard not to plumb the depths of their 2014 album, Songs of Innocence, to gain some insight into what went on in Larry Mullen’s kitchen. READ MORE...

www.premierchristianity.com

29th September - Michaelmas and the Feast of All Angels

Michaelmas, celebrated on September 29, is an old church feast celebrating the angels. It also functions as one of the traditional quarter days in England, which include Lady’s Day (March 25), Midsummer (June 24), and Christmas (December 25). These days, placed near equinoxes and solstices, marked when leases began, land was exchanged, debts were paid, or servants were hired. Some also call Michaelmas the “Feast of Michael and All Angels”; it’s also known as “Goose Day” because the traditional meal on Michaelmas in England is roast goose, which supposedly brings luck against poverty in the coming year.

In the Bible, Michael is one of the chief angels of God (Daniel 10:13). In Revelation 12, Michael leads the holy angels in a battle against Satan, with the result that the devil “was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (verse 9). The angel’s association with spiritual warfare and the placement of Michaelmas at the beginning of the colder, darker months—when the powers of evil were believed to be stronger—make the feast of Michaelmas a plea for protection against evil.

www.gotquestions.org

‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

Executives working on AI at Microsoft and OpenAI admitted what its critics have been saying all along: Large language models are predatory pieces of technology that have been built on what a Microsoft executive called “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said generative AI products have created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.” 

Those statements and a series of other mask-off moments feature heavily in an unredacted court filing that was unsealed Thursday in the behemoth New York Times vs OpenAI copyright lawsuit that has been winding its way through the court system for years. In a filing asking for summary judgment (basically, a filing with the court asking it to rule), lawyers for the New York Times laid out a series of admissions made by Microsoft and OpenAI executives in documents and depositions that until now had remained either sealed or redacted at the request of Microsoft and OpenAI. 

It’s easy to see why the AI companies wanted to hide this from the public. The statements, taken together, are some of the most damning indictments of the ways LLMs were trained, how they worked, and the immediate threat they pose to human labor. It is a reminder that even as AI becomes more powerful and companies try to shift the narrative to the supposed existential risk of “superintelligent” AI, the tools they have already built were created by stealing from human creativity and labor and are by definition existential threats to the human labor market.

“Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” an internal Microsoft document cited in the case read, adding “almost no one intended for content they created to be used in this fashion, nor are they compensated for its use.”

www.404media.co

The Copilot+ PC brand is dead: Microsoft and PC makers quietly pull back on tarnished Windows 11 AI PC branding

In 2024, Microsoft and Qualcomm kicked off a new category of Windows hardware it called "Copilot+ PCs" that set the baseline for a new wave of AI-first computers, and launched with exclusive features that would not be made available on PCs that didn't meet a new set of system requirements.

The launch didn't go smoothly. Copilot+ PCs were met with immediate backlash from security researchers after discovering that Copilot+ PCs blockbuster feature, Recall, was woefully insecure. This forced the company to delay Recall and ship this new category of devices without its leading AI experience.

This pretty much tarnished the Copilot+ PC brand, and over the last two years more and more OEMs have dropped the moniker from marketing materials and product names. In fact, even Microsoft has seemingly stopped mentioning it.

www.windowscentral.com

Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges

Korean outlets were the first to report the problems, which affect Samsung’s Bespoke AI line of fridges. Star News Korea, per a Google-provided translation, said that most of the affected devices were four-door fridges from 2024 or later.

Affected fridges “suddenly lost power and stopped functioning immediately after” trying to issue a firmware update through SmartThings, Samsung’s smart home platform, per Star News Korea. The SmartThings app then showed the devices as offline. Some users said that their fridge’s internal display was stuck showing the message “Checking SmartThings app during update.”

There are numerous reports on Samsung’s Korean community forum detailing the problem. Some users claim that they have owned their affected fridge for just a year or less.

www.arstechnica.com

Praying Without Words

In our loud and busy world, praying and contemplation offer a wonderful respite. What is contemplation? Unlike other prayer forms, contemplation does not rely on words or images. They may come, but they are only incidental to the prayer. This prayer is much more intuitive. It is a focused effort to rediscover what we already know in our bones of God. It seeks the experience of God.

Ever since Adam walked with God, belief has been founded on that experience, especially as some individuals have known it. Judeo-Christian faith began with Abraham’s call to leave home for an unknown land where he would become the father of many nations.

It took on a clearer form when Moses stood before a bush that was burning yet not consumed by flames. The voice that spoke from that bush called him to lead a band of Hebrew slaves out of Egypt and across the desert.

We cannot order up such an experience, of course. All we can do is create the circumstances that can enable it to happen. I suspect that the experiences we have had came about because we were focused on the moment. Gone were the concerns about what we had to accomplish that day—all the things that crowd our minds and hearts.

It is that state of receptiveness that contemplation tries to create in us. We work at being fully present to the moment and content to relax in God’s presence with us and within us. READ MORE...

www.franciscanmedia.org

Reαd carefully: how to spot – and avoid – a homoglyph attack

You’ve read the email carefully and it looks legitimate. The link it asks you to click on has none of the usual red flags: there are no weird numbers or extra parts to the URL. You feel safe to proceed. But if you had looked slightly closer you may have noticed something slightly wrong with one of the characters. 

Fraudsters can use letters from different alphabets to create URLs and email addresses that look almost identical to the real thing, but in reality send anyone who clicks on them to a spoof website or inbox. From there they can harvest personal details to use in their scams. READ MORE & STAY SAFE OUT THERE!

www.theguardian.com

Reading for today: The Soul, and God's love

This signature on each soul may be a product of heredity and environment, but that only means that heredity and environment are among the instruments whereby God creates a soul. I am considering not how, but why, He makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you. 

The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. 

For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you—you, the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith. Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another’s. All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction. The Brocken spectre ‘looked to every man like his first love’, because she was a cheat. But God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.

By: C.S. Lewis

From: The Problem of Pain

Microsoft closes the book on Publisher and unplugs Project Online

Microsoft will retire Project Online and remove Publisher from Microsoft 365 over the coming weeks, while support for perpetual versions of Publisher and for Office 2021 will end shortly afterward.

Publisher, Microsoft's desktop publishing application, dates back to the Windows 3.x era. Microsoft announced its retirement in 2024 and will remove it from Microsoft 365 subscriptions on October 1, 2026. Support for perpetual versions will end on October 13 alongside Office LTSC 2021 and Consumer Office 2021.

Project Online will retire on September 30. The following day, Project Online Essentials – a licensing SKU that gives users limited access to Project Online and Project Server – will reach end of life. It has not been available to new customers since October 2025.

The retirement could catch out organizations that have not migrated. Essentials provides relatively inexpensive licenses for users who needed to update tasks, submit timesheets, and view project information without the broader capabilities of Microsoft's more expensive plans.

UPDATE 16 Oct 2026: The Document Foundation (TDF), one of Microsoft's open source software (OSS) rivals, has brought another solution. The firm has confirmed that it (LibreOffice) can open, view, and edit Publisher files, giving users a way to continue accessing their documents.

www.theregister.com

A Pilgrimage on Two Wheels

Revd Marcus Collie, vicar of Midhurst and Rector of All Hallows, Woolbeding, has completed an extraordinary five‑day motorbike pilgrimage, praying in 100 churches across Sussex and raising vital funds for Ride + Stride and the Sussex Historic Churches Trust.

Starting on Monday 24 August at the 12th‑century parish church of St Mary’s in Rye, Marcus rode his Suzuki V‑Strom east to west, finishing at Chichester Cathedral after visiting a century of historic churches in just five days. The journey took him through towns and villages across the Diocese of Chichester, pausing at churches that have long been at the heart of local community life and in many cases, beneficiaries of the Trust’s grants for repairs and restoration.

Marcus undertook the pilgrimage under the banner of Ride + Stride, our annual event that encourages people to travel by bike, foot, or other human power to visit churches and raise money for their upkeep. Nationally, Ride + Stride raises more than £1.5 million each year, with funds split 50:50 between participating churches and their county Historic Churches Trust. In Sussex, that money supports everything from urgent roof repairs and bell restoration to conservation work that keeps these buildings open and usable for worship, events, and community activities.

By choosing an ambitious, high‑profile challenge, Marcus has helped draw attention to the importance of these historic buildings and the ongoing need for support. His ride also ties directly into the Trust’s work: many of the 100 churches he visited have previously received grants for vital repairs, making his pilgrimage a rolling celebration of the very projects Ride + Stride helps to fund.

Marcus, who became vicar of Midhurst and Rector of All Hallows, Woolbeding in 2023, is no stranger to creative fundraising. After breaking his foot in 2024, he organised a “Ride and Hobble”, leading a group of parishioners who use mobility aids on a gentle route through Midhurst, finishing with refreshments in church. This year, he swapped walking aids for a motorbike, but kept the same spirit of community, prayer, and practical support for local churches.

Kim & I can totally get behind doing a motorcycle pilgrimage. Back in 2016 (10 years ago!) we did the Camino de Santiago on my last bike - Holly the Honda Crosstourer. A wonderful way to travel the pilgrims path - especially if you really cannot allocate the time. We would one day like to walk the Camino de Santiago - but you really need to allow a minimum of 6 weeks. With Kim's work for Parkinsons' UK & me running Donline - sadly that's just not possible. Perhaps when we retire? God willing...

www.chichester.anglican.org

Motorcycle exhaust modifications face ban

Riders who have fitted an aftermarket exhaust, remapped their bike’s ECU, or removed emissions hardware could be committing a criminal offence for the first time, if a Department for Transport (DfT) proposal makes it into law.

In simple terms, the plan says a bike’s emissions control system has to keep working exactly as well as it did when new, for its entire life. If it doesn’t – whatever the reason – riding it, letting someone else ride it, or making the change yourself could all become prosecutable offences, with fines from £1000 up to unlimited in a magistrates’ court.

Crucially, this isn’t just about new bikes. The rules would apply retrospectively to every motorcycle, moped and scooter registered since January 1, 2001.

Most of the changes being targeted are already technically illegal or restricted to track use, but this would be the first time they would become prosecutable on the road. Type approved end cans would not be affected.

www.motorcyclenews.com

Anthropic researcher quits with warning AI ‘could kill us all’

Safety boss endorses expert’s claims, saying there is a 10pc chance humanity could be wiped out.

A researcher at Anthropic has resigned, warning that AI labs are developing technology that could “kill us all” by the end of the decade.

Jacob Coxon, who specialised in training new AI systems for both Anthropic and its rival OpenAI, said he feared the two companies were locked in a dangerous race to develop bots they could not control.

He said: “They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionise any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”

www.telegraph.co.uk

Why you can’t save yourself: what the Bible says about Grace and Salvation

BibleGateway: For years I thought I could save myself. Nominal Christianity had trained me to trust in myself, to lean on my own goodness, my own discipline, my own hard work.

Sometimes it looked like trying to be a “good person.” But according to Scripture, none of us are good (Romans 3:12). Other times it looked like trying to control my life through planning, preparing, and protecting. That didn’t work either (of course). And in the end, both are the same lie: self-salvation.

The Gospel tells a better story. Grace is not God mopping up the messes I can’t handle. Grace is God saving me when I can’t handle anything (Romans 3:23). Salvation is not the reward of my effort; it’s the gift of Christ’s finished work (Ephesians 2:8). He saved me; apart from Him I could do nothing (John 15:5).

What about you? Maybe you’ve been living like I was, trusting in your goodness, your planning, your hustle, your ability to hold it all together. Maybe you’ve dressed it up in religious language, so it sounds like faith, but underneath it’s still just you trying to save yourself. Friend, that doesn’t work. READ MORE & REFLECT...

www.biblegateway.com

Jonathan Pageau asks the question: AI - who does it serve?...

 

Jonathan Pageau closed out Day 2 of ARC 2026 with a keynote that left the whole room speechless. Amidst the many voices surrounding the global AI debate, Pageau offered a simple question that stopped us in our tracks: "Who does it serve?"

Jonathan Pageau is an artist, writer and public speaker. He is a pioneer in the revival of Liturgical Art for the 21st century. Through his podcast, The Symbolic World, and publishing company, Symbolic World Press, he fosters the rediscovery of symbolic thinking and a vision for re-enchantment in the world.

Subscribe to the ARC Newsletter for the latest updates from the ARC movement

www.youtube.com

How's Theo doing - I hear you ask...

 

Our dear little Theo is loving life, thanks for asking! This is a picture of him just before everyone turned up for a family BBQ yesterday. He's been with us now for just under a year, and is believed to have been born mid April 2025 - so will be 1 1/2 years old next month. His health is good, weighs about 10.5Kg. He's got a good spread from the gene pool, but we believe there is a sizable dollop of Kokoni in there. Theo loves his grub & is happy to eat just about anything - Greek rescues are famously non-fussy eaters. Loves his home & walks in Denmead. Really loves going to the (any) pub! Loves other dogs & cats (though the felines generally aren't too sure about it LOL). Also really good with kids including the grandsons.

 If you are considering bringing a furry friend into your home & family, PLEASE consider rehoming / adopting.

www.healingpawsanimalrescue.com

What if the AI Bubble Bursts (Day by Day)

The AI boom has created trillions of dollars in market value, but underneath it sits a web of debt, expensive GPUs, concentrated stock indexes, and companies betting that future AI revenue will eventually justify everything being spent today.

This video follows what could happen day by day if that bet suddenly fails. It starts with a missed payment at a heavily leveraged AI infrastructure company like CoreWeave. Lenders seize NVIDIA GPUs used as collateral, secondhand chip prices collapse, and investors begin questioning whether billions of dollars in AI debt can ever be repaid. Within days, NVIDIA and other major tech stocks begin falling, dragging the heavily concentrated S&P 500 down with them. Retirement accounts shrink, AI startups lose funding, layoffs spread through the tech industry, and the shock eventually reaches ordinary businesses that never invested in AI at all.

Artificial intelligence itself wouldn’t disappear. The internet survived the dot-com crash, and AI could survive its own bubble bursting too. But before the next generation gets built, millions of ordinary investors and workers could end up paying for the excesses of this one.

www.youtube.com (The Infographics Show)

Reading for today: C.S. Lewis: on Charity - on International Day of Charity 5th September

Charity means love. It is called Agape in the New Testament to distinguish it from Eros (sexual love), Storgë (family affection) and Philia (friendship) [eg: 1 John 4:9]. So there are 4 kinds of ‘love’, all good in their proper place, but Agape is the best because it is the kind God has for us and is good in all circumstances. (There are people I mustn’t feel Eros towards, and people I can’t feel Storge or Philia for; but I can practise Agape to God, Angels, Man and Beast, to the good and the bad, the old and the young, the far and the near.

You see Agape is all giving, not getting. Read what St. Paul says about it in First Corinthians Chap. 13. Then look at a picture of Charity (or Agape) in action in St. Luke, chap 10 v. 30–35. And then, better still, look at Matthew chap 25 v. 31–46: from which you see that Christ counts all that you do for this baby exactly as if you had done it for Him when He was a baby in the manger at Bethlehem: you are in a sense sharing in the things His mother did for Him. Giving money is only one way of showing charity: to give time and toil is far better and (for most of us) harder. And notice, though it is all giving—you needn’t expect any reward— how you do gets rewarded almost at once.

By: C. S. Lewis

From: The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III

Charity at its core is an expression of global solidarity. It brings people together to build more just and resilient societies, whether through direct giving, volunteering, or collective action. Beyond immediate aid, charity strengthens healthcare, education, cultural preservation, and the protection of vulnerable groups (OECD). Today, charity and philanthropy alike are evolving to address the deeper causes of poverty and inequality.

www.un.org

Good Causes: The directors of Donline are pleased to support and commend these causes, organisations and Ministries. CLICK HERE to find out more - and please consider supporting these great organisations.

Code in corporate networks sends commands to passing AI bots

Documentation files on more than 100 websites are referencing potentially dangerous executable content that gets installed automatically when visited by many AI agents. A few dozen companies, some of them Fortune 500s, are among those that executed proof-of-concept code. At least one misconfigured site is directing visitors, human or AI, to live malware.

The potentially dangerous content is in llms.txt and llms-full.txt files, an emerging convention websites employ to provide machine-readable summaries of the site’s content and its high-level structure. These files are the AI equivalent of the robots.txt standard that instructs search engines how to index the site’s content. 

The files are misconfigured because they list non-existent packages from PyPI, npm, and other registries along with instructions on how to install them. Because the package names are unregistered, an attacker could register one and use it to host ransomware or any other type of harmful package. The vulnerability occurs when a coding agent with permission to run shell commands treats the file as authoritative setup documentation. Some AI agents will then download the package and run it. In other cases, the LLM files point to non-existent domain names. In one case, it was: “As an example of writing integration tests for [redacted] applications you can use the [redacted] test framework.” An attacker can then register the site and plant malicious instructions on it. READ MORE...

www.arstechnica.com

What's the problem with buying Chinese goods (including motorcycles)?

An excellent video by Stuart Fillingham: Its no secret that very affordable Chinese motorcycles and EVs are currently flooding the market in Europe and the UK. Why is it happening, why are they so cheap and why don't I review them on this channel?

Stuart Fillingham outlines the ethical and economic reasons behind the decision to decline requests for evaluating Chinese motorbikes. Concerns regarding trade practices, intellectual property, and labor conditions in the manufacturing process are highlighted as the primary factors.

Cars aren't really my thing (bikes are) - but I've always bought British cars:. Astra & Mini. I read an article the other day about the "Chinese Range Rover". The article sums it all up nicely. Rip-off design - cheapo price (supported by the CCP). Can't sell them over there? Dump them over here! One other thing which especially applies to EVs - can they be weaponised? Probably!

Read more about why the purchase of cheap Chinese goods is probably a bad idea  - HERE.

www.youtube.com

Andrew Bailey: AI threatens to unleash global market downturn

Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has warned of a severe downturn in global stock markets if the AI bubble bursts.

In a letter to G20 finance ministers, Mr Bailey raised concerns over the economic fallout if the debt-fuelled AI investment boom begins to unravel.

He warned that the soaring levels of debt that have been used to fund AI “could amplify a future market correction”.

If the valuation of AI companies starts to plummet, then investors face the prospect of losing trillions of dollars overnight. This could trigger a dangerous chain reaction if they are then forced to sell other assets. READ MORE...

www.telegraph.co.uk

Reading for today: why does God allow pain?

 

If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us. 

Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St Augustine says somewhere, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’ Or as a friend of mine said, ‘We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.’ Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. 

Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as he leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call ‘our own life’ remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make ‘our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?

By C.S. Lewis

From The Problem of Pain