Oh Spring! It’s a season of contrast. Winter has ended (unless you live in Colorado, as I do, and winter continues to return until you’ve mowed the lawn at least once or twice). It’s a time of renewal, when dormant things come back to life. It’s also a time of change and anticipation and unsettledness. | The Last Word On Nothing
Wait, is life just hard?| The Last Word On Nothing
Can I just say this? Those of us born in the 1960s and ‘70s are in a special hell right now. With jobs being taken away and careers being cut short and talents losing out to “influencers” and AI and Bots that Chat, it’s been a uniquely painful time. Those in my generation who chose artistic-scientific careers are facing a one-two kick to the groin, as we see the abandonment of the analog world that shaped our life choices combined with powerful men making those choices moot and the sa...| The Last Word On Nothing
Going into nature, how long does it take till you feel like you’re there? There meaning not sending emails in your head and not wincing at shifts of temperature or humidity when sun turns to rain? There’s a comfort that comes over you. Hands and the heart are no longer so far apart and pulling a thorn out of your flesh is an afterthought.| The Last Word On Nothing
My phone buzzed just as I was finishing filming with the BBC Sky at Night crew for an episode about Mars, having spent the day immersed in the high-resolution panoramas returned by the Curiosity and Perserverance rovers. A text from a researcher wondered if I’d be around to comment on embargoed research from scientists in Cambridge who had ‘found new tentative evidence that a farway world orbiting a different star to the Sun may be home to life’.| The Last Word On Nothing
Ben has had to leave LWON but has kindly left us these memories, these posts which we rerun because we like him so much.| The Last Word On Nothing
In a few weeks, the back fence by the elementary school with be a place where migrants gather themselves before they leave. The fence is popular because of its temperature and the protection it offers. The sun hits the fence from mid-morning until late afternoon in May, and so many years of sun has turned what must have once been dark wood into a faded gray. But the fence also has a line of horizontal two-by-fours about a third of the way to the top, which seems to be the ideal combination of...| The Last Word On Nothing
The repetition of this post, which first ran on April 5, 2021, and then again almost exactly a year ago, is out of my hands. I go outside for my morning walk, brooding on my bad habits; I look around the garden to see what’s not working now; and oh glory, oh sweet child of joy, the minor bulbs are blooming, they’re flourishing (“flourish,” from “florire,” to flower), they’re yelling all over the garden. How can I not?| The Last Word On Nothing