By eradicating one species, you’re probably going to save the entire planet. I guess in 500 million years the descendants of modern crows could become the new dominant species and they’ll end up nuking the planet sooner or later. You win some, you loose some.

If dogs can smell truffles, cancer, bombs and drugs, maybe a comb laser can too.

Elon would probably point out that it’s cheaper that way. Burying dead soldiers is expensive.

You need a strategy to reach your goals, and it should include getting enough sleep. Neglecting it will not help with your goals, unless one of them is to be as miserable as possible.

Once you have the experience, you can go back to the city and actually get a nicer job that pays well. Until then, you can either relocate and get the experience, or stay in the city and get a McJob where you get zero experience.

After graduating, I had to compete in a big city with people who have a higher degree and more experience than I do. Obviously, that didn’t work out so well for me, so I ended up working in the wrong field for a while. I kept my eyes open, until eventually, I found the right job in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Turns out, there was hardly any competition, and I got the job. Being willing to relocate and having the right degree was all it took.

Backwater places like that can’t afford to demand 15 years of experience and a PhD in precisely the one thing they care about. If you have a degree in anything close enough, and are willing to relocate to a small town, you’re in the top ten. If you happen to have the exact right degree, you’re going to win hands down.

Years later, I met some of my friends who stayed in the city. Oh boy, has it been rough for them! Several low-paying jobs in the wrong field, several career switches, more studying and all that.

If you’re a fresh graduate, here’s my advice: If things don’t work out in the city, consider relocating. When there’s a job opportunity in a small town, apply anyway and see where that takes you.

It will make you angry and frustrated, if that’s what you’re looking for. Probably doesn’t help with learning at all, quite the contrary. If you’re interested and engaged with the material, you can learn so much faster. If you hate what you’re doing, there will be very little progress, if any. Take a nap, and look at the material with fresh eyes when you feel better.

There can also be something I call “mental inertia”. Occasionally, it’s difficult to get started. That’s when a short warmup can help. Start with something easy, to get in the right mood. After that, you can tackle some of the harder problems.

Nowadays, things are documented pretty well. As long as the documentation is available, I don’t think there’s anything that would be common but mysterious.

However, if data is lost, pretty much everything becomes a total mystery. Like, popsockets and phone cases for example. How would you figure those out in a thousand years if you haven’t read any blog posts, reviews or marketing material about any of this stuff. If you don’t know how expensive, fragile and useful phones are, and how would you figure it out that people are so worried about cracking the screen? Pretty much none of that data is on paper, so loosing that information can happen very easily.

Plastic crumbles to dust sooner or later. This means that most electronics are going to look pretty bizarre in a thousand years. Even common kitchen appliances use so much plastic, that they will look completely different. There are also a million ways you can make a kettle, so the remains of all of them won’t look very similar, especially when all you have left is the metal parts.