Over the last week or two, I have been engaging with Weebly, the providers of the web infrastructure that I utilise to host my website. Web site visit statistics were once again the reason for my dialogue. Earlier articles about the vagaries of visitor monitoring are available.

https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/my-net-popularity-takes-a-dive-well-sort-of

https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/dreaming-of-a-million

Once again, I had noticed a plummet in visitor numbers and in this instance, Weebly had also updated a whole month’s worth of trendline so that the drops were even more painful to view. See the image and you’ll understand my disappointment.

The first response from customer services on 2nd October was this:

“The problem you’re describing has been identified as a bug and is being investigated by our engineering team. I don’t have an ETA for when they’ll have the issue fixed, but someone will follow up with you as soon as we have an update. I’m very sorry you’ve run into this problem, and thanks for your patience while our team works to get this resolved.” 02/10/19

When I chased for further feedback, I then got back this:

“We have recently changed the way that we track analytics on our sites. Your previous traffic stats were not inaccurate, it just used a different counting methodology focusing on the number of times your site has been served / rendered, rather than the number of actual users that viewed your site. The newer metrics are more reflective of actual usage and a better point of comparison. The new Insights utilizes front-end tracking where a website visitor’s browser pings Weebly servers to report usage. This is the same methodology used by Google Analytics, and is designed to handle granular calculations. While this methodology has certain limitations as tracking can be disabled by an ad blocker, it is much closer to numbers rendered by Google Analytics, and is much less susceptible to over-counting.” 11/10/19

So, the first response from Ron was nonsense, and the second, from Jayme, depressing.

Why depressing, well if success is a structure, it has just come crashing down. The results hardly justify the investment, and it is probably time to give up and do something more productive with my time.

To make matters worse, this message arrived on 7th October -
​    
Hi Adrian,
Your domain adrianbaldwin.net will automatically renew in 2 weeks! There's nothing more you need to do.
Thanks,
The Weebly Team

The timing positively comedic bearing in mind the exchanges going on at the time.
 
I am not best-pleased. The renewal might as well go ahead though because otherwise my site just vanishes. However, after almost eight years of internet presence, the longer-term outlook for my site is now rather bleak.

You can help if you like what you read on my site, you can share posts/links with your friends, add comments to articles, follow me on Twitter, retweet the stuff you like, go mad with your emoticon library etc.

Recovering something from the rubble of one’s dreams, brings me on to an article that I read recently. I thought it was heart-warming enough to be worth sharing with you too.

Jonjo Heuerman and his mum, Donna, have been reuniting commemorative bricks (circa 1,000) from the old, demolished, West Ham United, Boleyn Ground stadium with their original owners/sponsors.
   
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-49884207

Please have a read if you missed the BBC news piece.

So, I find myself reflecting that good can come from investment even years down the line. Something positive may still come from the demolition of my visitor stats. Like West Ham, maybe a new stadium is needed. Or perhaps I’ll spend more time working on better promoting what is on the site already, rather than writing new content (that won’t get read if I don’t promote adrianbaldwin.net properly).

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https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/my-net-popularity-takes-a-dive-well-sort-of
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/dreaming-of-a-million

This summer saw me tick something else off my bucket list. To the best of my knowledge, and for any of you that are worried, I am not ill (I’ll admit I just stopped typing to touch wood), but I still have this mental check list of the stuff I want to do before age and infirmity get the better of me.

Getting the full ‘A’ licence (and a proper bike) was achieved in 2019 and then …

… the reason for this post …

I got to see a rocket launch.

And it was all rather exciting.

Some scene setting - this year’s Baldwin family holiday saw us go to Florida. I hadn’t been to the States since 1995 and had never been to Florida at all. When we were planning the trip, we all voted for the thing that we’d most like to do. My vote was cast for visiting the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

I have written about astronauts and rockets recently, and this year marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings, so going to the temple of space travel was a chance not to be missed.

Better still, our holiday dates happened to coincide with a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 Heavy rocket launch. The payload, a US military satellite.

Having travelled so far and ending up so close, my view was that to not see the launch would have been a source of regret.

If the launch got cancelled for any reason however, the journey would have been wasted and potentially the money too bearing in mind that any subsequent launch could have been put back beyond the term of our holiday.

Risks aside, on the 8th August, I made my way to KSC to take my place/chances at the Banana Creak viewing complex.

The other slight downside was that I had to be at KSC no later than 3am and I was staying in Kissimmee, about an hour’s drive away. Given that I didn’t want to be late, I set off at 1am and that, perhaps unsurprisingly, meant that I went on my own.

The Atlas 5 was to launch from complex 41 and that is more than 5 miles away from Banana Creak. The implication was that the rocket was barely visible at all without magnification. It was literally a speck on the horizon.

From the distance, and in the darkness, my camera was hopeless. Other spectators had lenses about the length of my arm and tripods too, they were going to get some decent pictures … but not me.

The benefit of being on NASA territory for the event was that there was a spokesperson provided that talked us through what was going to happen, and there were big video screens broadcasting live feeds from the ULA launch control centre. Our compere was keen to ensure that we ignored the ULA countdown because it was a little out of sync and that we prioritised watching over recording, so as not to miss the take off.

After a few technical delays that put the launch back by half an hour, the rocket was ready. At circa 6:15am, the launch took place and this fireball shot into the air and rapidly disappeared. The rocket still wasn’t visible at all, just the flames from the engines.

There was a sequence of events, I initially saw the rocket lift off and then a few seconds later heard the launch and then a few seconds after that, felt the shock wave from it. All very cool.

And then a few minutes later it was all over. This photo shows the trail of the Atlas 5 and whilst it looks like it has gone up and come down again, what is actually showing is the rocket following the curvature of the earth.

When you buy a launch ticket, you must buy an entrance ticket to the complex as well.  So, the enjoyment didn’t end for me with the launch, because I got to spend the rest of my day at KSC. It’s a cliché I know, but I was as happy as a kid in a toy shop – well maybe a gift shop given the NASA tee shirts, fridge magnets, keyrings and baseball caps purchased.

In fact, KSC was so exciting that I went again a week later. On that occasion with my son (and not so early in the morning).  

After the launch, I visited YouTube and found a link to the official launch video. Here it is for your enjoyment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSr1x4uQYXo

Obviously, it’s better for the detail, but not as much fun as actually being there. And besides, I could hardly claim a bucket-list-success by watching a video.

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Over the Moon

A week or so I read this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49823305 ...

... and wondered why anyone would be even slightly surprised by it. If EDF had been able to report that the construction of Hinkley Point C was on time and on budget, then I’d have been shocked.

Instead, EDF is now predicting that “C” will cost between £21.5-22.5 billion. And, I bet that by next September, the energy company will tell almost the same “increasing costs” story all over again (and that the numbers are higher still).

A few weeks earlier (23rd July), I wrote about the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) proposing to allow energy companies to charge UK electricity customers in order to fund future nuclear power station projects. At the time I shared a link to the consultation currently being undertaken and which closes on 14th October – here it is again https://beisgovuk.citizenspace.com/energy-strategy-networks-markets/regulated-asset-base-rab-model/.

If you haven’t contributed, the current Hinkley £2.9 billion and 15-month overrun is why you might want to make your views known before the consultation ends. If you don’t, then by the time construction starts on the Sizewell station for example, you’ll be part funding it. 

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Regular readers will know that I write about politics from time to time. Brexit has been the subject of a number of posts over the last three years and this one reflects my astonishment at how things have evolved.

If you think in terms of a soap opera, you’d have to be a bloody creative script writer (even Danny Boyle or JK Rowling might not be imaginative enough) to come up with all the twists and turns that we have seen so far.

Prime Ministers being deposed by their own MPs, parliament uniting against the replacement, general elections being refused, long standing parliamentarians being fired by their own party, majorities surrendered, legislation being passed to restrain the PM, unlawful proroguing, the Queen being compromised, dodgy advisors, “parliament against the people” claims, inflammatory language and even groping for God sake.
     
It's like “Yes Minister” on amphetamine.

The situation we collectively find ourselves in is farcical and there needs to be some order restored.

In positioning himself as the champion of the people, I think that Boris is cunning and self-serving. Saying that he is armoured in what he does by the “will of the people” is a gross exaggeration because even though 52% of voters wanted to leave the EU, they had no idea what they were actually voting for. There was no plan in 2016, and there is only the vaguest notion of one now. Did the leave voters expect or endorse no deal? I think not.

Boris’ plan to plough on regardless is worrying and I think that the parliamentary opposition he faces is to be encouraged. Some say that the Commons is the problem, that “democracy is dead”, but my view is that the parliamentary debate is fundamental to our democracy and should be applauded.

On a continuing personal note, I have had enough of the whole Brexit shenanigans, I don’t really care if we leave or stay in the EU (though I’d prefer to stay). I am however firmly of the opinion that the British public should be advised by the government on what the implications will be for the country whatever deal is negotiated (or not) … and then asked to vote on twisting or sticking.

If another referendum or “people’s vote” endorses “leave”, but from a properly informed perspective, then we can crack on and Boris will have a chance to prove if he is really a champion of the people.

I suspect though that if things turn to shit after Brexit, Boris will absent himself, claim he did the job required of him and leave someone else with all the hard work. He’s done it before.

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Other related posts

https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/boris-trump-and-smelling-of-roses
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/could-there-be-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/resigned-to-mediocrity
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/election-irony
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/eu-hokey-cokey
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/election-reflection-defecation