Tom Byers

Wasting life, wasting time, putting off important goals. Not a straightforward problem. The goals of our daydreams often revolve around fame or fortune, standing out from the crowd. If we all buy into that culture then most of the crowd will judge themselves to have an empty life. Sometimes a life event or even just age will lead a person to reconsider "what really matters." I think you can help that process along by questioning your own priorities and talking about your goals with people close to you. An unexamined goal may not be worth pursuing.

Don't just think in terms of particles but waves. Back in the pre-Heisenberg era wave functions collapsed all by themselves because observation had yet to evolve. A seemingly random wave structure, comparable, say, to the energy signature of pink noise could follow a pattern of cascading collapse in a highly ordered hierarchical meta-wave without appearing complex to the human eyes that did not exist at the time. You have to be careful not to look directly at the cosmic microwave background even today because trying to measure the position and momentum of those old photons could still collapse a wave function the wrong way and mess up the big bang. I would share the equations but I need to get another beer.

I am involved with the Perenno Project, which seeks to develop a means to preserve knowledge in the unlikely event of a collapse of civilization. Please share any ideas you can contribute toward developing the means to achieve this goal.

I am working on a project where computers will have to last for centuries. Assume that you have a warehouse stocked with plenty of spare parts and a computer technician to make repairs. How long can you keep a computer going? Are any of the parts going to decay on the shelf even if they are properly stored? Which ones? Would it make sense to custom engineer some ultra-durable parts? What computers would be best for this purpose?