The James Webb Telescope.

I am so excited about this it's giving me the jitters. What if it blows up on the launchpad? Or fails to open once deployed? Or goes off course and ends up falling into the sun?

It is incredibly odd to be so invested emotionally in a project I can only observe from behind a keyboard thousands of miles from the project itself. And if that's the case for me. How stressful must it be for all the people who have invested hundreds of thousands of man-hours and years of their lives bringing this machine into existence?

Youtube James Webb Telescope

jwst.nasa.gov

The End of Shine and Finch

This may be the most difficult thing I’ve ever written. Just these few words tear at my heartstrings, knowing what I have to say has happened, has happened. So, I will jump straight in and get it out the way.

After thirteen years and eleven months, Amanda and I have parted company. There will be no forensics or analysis, other than to say we have become different people over time. 

I am sad beyond belief, I thought we would rub along despite the changes because we had been together so long and know each other so well, but also in spite of the changes in each other’s personalities and outlook. But it wasn’t to be, and it was probably foolish if not naïve to think so.

This isn’t mine or Amanda’s first rodeo, and I fervently hope that we can be the friends in the parting that we were in the sharing years, but given my earlier naivety about rubbing along together, I think I should set my aspirations and hopes at a more sensible level … but as I say, I live in hope.

For me it’s a funny business. I have left our home as requested, and am now living back in the camper where our story on the ILTYT Blogspot began in January 2012 … though not in the camper we planned to adventure in. ILTYT Blogspot

It has to be said it doesn’t have quite the same adventure feel to it, as when you are travelling hundreds then thousands of miles on an adventure. Now it’s a matter personal survival, it tarnishes the joy, however, it is also a familiar space and like any home; once the door is locked and the blinds are drawn it is home sweet home.

I find it hard to comprehend or even see the future, but then it’s only been three days so far.

I didn’t want this fester, or to leave it unsaid and give a false impression. I am currently `homeless’ in the traditional sense of the word home, unemployed, injured and in a system that has been stymied if not paralyzed by the pandemic. It’s odd in some ways. I am as free as a bird at the moment, and it is utterly terrifying. 

This the low spot, the place where the snakes belly meets the wagon rut. However, the perspective that saying misses is that from the rut you can still see the stars, and you can still see where the rut runs to the horizon, and if you are heading in the direction the rut runs then quite simply following it will take you into the future.

Peter Jordan and Matt Ridley discuss rational optimism.

I'm really glad to have caught up with this. The more one sees of the counter-narrative to the apocalyptic, the more you have to wonder at how to spread the positive message. It frustrates me immensely, that people like Matt Ridley, Jordan Peterson and Bjorn Lomborg and a plethora of other positive thoughtful voices are ignored in favour of constant doom.

⁠I wanted high hopes for GB News to be a counter-narrative to the usual MSM suspects version of doom. But it looks like they have fallen into the same trap of espousing the equal and opposite bad news to their audience like the polar opposite to the MSM old guard. Which leaves it up to the individual to go and seek positive affirmation regarding the future. But as Matt Ridley pointed out early in the discussion people don't seem to be incentivised to do so of their own accord, unless it's something fluffy, cute or relatively irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. But the evidence of everything being better is everywhere, on all these social media platforms, Youtube etc, people share education, jokes and skits and fluff. So, you have to conclude that if our part of the world were so terrible we probably wouldn't be inclined to have so much fun, and yet as both of these commenters noted; we all seem to believe the sky is falling in, while our lifestyle tells us, moment to moment the complete opposite.

Rational optimism, Peter Jordan has a discussion with Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist Blog

The book of the same name The Rational Optimist. 

Dragonflies

I think I can say without fear of impunity, that this year has been the best year for Dragonflies in my entire lifetime. Butterflies are also relatively abundant this year, but dragonflies (and damselflies) are everywhere. I know we live butt up to the Somerset Levels, and Berrow Dunes and their pools aren't far away, but that doesn't detract from the fact that this year, almost every day in every location here about, I/we have seen dragonflies, hawkers and darters.

british-dragonflies.org.uk/

Jordan Peterson interviews and questions Bjorn Lomborg.

One hour fifty-four minutes.

Jordan Peterson interviews Bjorn Lomborg about his book: False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.

A wide-ranging discussion of cost to benefit of strategies. Upfront it needs to be stated that Bjorn Lomborg, doesn't dispute the reality of Climate Change or the fact that humans are contributing to the process disproportionately. In this interview, he and Jordan Peterson discuss how we as a species and as communities and countries (especially the wealthy west), are doing very little good, and spending a lot of taxpayer's money badly.

Jordan Peterson interviews and questions Bjorn Lomborg Youtube.