Every time I hear about a sad story of "this scientist had spent their whole life trying to discover the better computing in DNA and failed" I feel like the reporters are not mentioning the fact that actually the scientist knew perfectly well that their model of computation was inherently unscalable and they were simply pulling money out of absolutely oblivious investors.
Oh god I love the _idea_ of better computing. But let's be honest, there isn't much of an alternative, is there?
At some point it becomes important to ask yourself, "What would I be content spending my life failing to accomplish?"
I mean, it'd be nicer to accomplish it, but if you can find something that you could spend fifty years failing at, that on your deathbed you would simply be happy you tried, that's something really special.
Yeah, but it doesn’t mean these people deserve any pity. They actually did something they love. And the fact is they almost certainly knew the risks involved - it’s not like they were jumping into unknown.
Oh god I love the _idea_ of better computing. But let's be honest, there isn't much of an alternative, is there?