Think of a field of daisies: they bloom, they wither, and in the spring they grow again. Who wants to see the same stupid daisy year after year, especially with a bunch of crappy iron-lung-type equipment bolted to it?

Lately I’ve been working to convince myself that everything is a computation.

Science fiction writers put characters into a world with arbitrary rules and work out what happens.

Electronic distribution is more of a fall-back strategy for putting out a book that isn't deemed profitable enough to print. You hardly make any money publishing an electronic book.

We're part of the unfolding world, surfing the chaotic waves

If we suppose that many natural phenomena are in effect computations, the study of computer science can tell us about the kinds of natural phenomena that can occur.

The hard fact is that not everyone does get published.