They’re pissing in the well so their competitors can’t access the same information.

I suggest they name the train the Hindenburg.

Containment of gaseous hydrogen is problematic because H2’s molecular size is tiny, so it seeps through gaps that would contain other gases. So you need an especially robust container. It’s also highly reactive.

No idea what your 40% comment was about, it’s incomprehensible.

I wouldn’t discount this as some big oil propaganda

They’re the most powerful force pushing hydrogen, so it’d be entirely reasonable to at least consider the possibility.

It’s clean at point of use only. Its overall supply chain is filthy.

Better yet, destroy Palantir and everything even vaguely resembling it.

Yeah, now I’m imagining the smell of vanilla. Thanks for that.

It’s much more fun making bad decisions when you’re a septuagenarian.

Networking matters. I went to an academically rigorous private university, but not one the better-known ones. I graduated during a recession and had plenty of doors slammed in my face. But one of my professors who liked my work had an old friend from Harvard who was a hiring manager at an important nearby company. The letter of reference he wrote to his friend got me in the door. I rose fast in the company after that, because I’m a quick study and actually knew how to do things. But I probably wouldn’t have gotten in without that string having been pulled.

It was a good measure of the “right” kind of person.

Long ago, a college education used to assure that you were white, male, Protestant, at least upper middle class, and at least semi-literate (assuming you managed to at least get Gentleman’s C’s, so the required “drive” was minimal if you were from the right family). Admission was much more of a sure thing for the offspring of alumni.

And that was what was necessary to join a business at that time: respectability and clubbability.

A minimum admission requirement regarding academic performance was made more prominent as other acceptance criteria were broadened, but most private universities will still give an easy ride to legacies and to the offspring of large donors.

Now it’s just another job requirement and doesn’t indicate anything.

Well, you’re generally expected not only to have a degree, but one in a relevant field of study, and to have gotten good grades. And most of the big-name high-tech firms won’t generally accept a degree from any but a few globally prominent universities. They go by brand as much as by objective criteria of performance. That’s the new clubbability filter. Someone who cut-and-pasted AI slop at Stanford has a much better shot at a job than someone who did real work at Podunk State.

Getting practice at ctrl-C, ctrl-V?

That’s how it should be. But that’s not what the law says.

Only an incompetent or corrupt judge would let this even go to trial.

Like just about every judge appointed by Trump.

Yep. Backup and wipe before you get to the airport.

“It’s SOP for my business. The risk of phones getting lost or stolen at or near airports is high.”

On the Linux box I travel with, my main account is not shown on the list of user accounts when you login. There is a dummy account on the list. When I log into that, it has a full complement of apps and data, and the online email account it connects to is a secondary account I use for travel bookings, random notifications and other throwaway purposes. Financial data, important passwords, personal correspondence, etc, are not on that account. Just the usual stuff a non-computer-savvy guy my age would have: browsing, email and Facebook. If they ever comment on it being Linux, I’ll just say “my son set it up for me, I kept having problems with Windows.” But so far, the most they’ve ever done is ask me to show that the laptop can boot up. There’s also full-disk encryption so scans won’t tell them anything worth knowing.

The passwords I use are high-entropy. There’s no duress PIN, though I could set one up if so inclined. So far, I haven’t felt the need to.

In addition, how can you show intent to destroy evidence when you have no expectation of being detained or charged on any specific occasion, and have no idea what evidence they might be seeking?

They’re massive AI-powered false-positive factories.

He hates anyone who knows more than he does. That’s almost everybody.

Say what you like about that gang, it definitely makes lexical sorting of dates easy.

There was a pub in my town called the Bike Shed. I spent many happy hours there in futile discussions of marginal technical issues.

Alas, they’re now gone, I no longer drink alcohol, and the people I bikeshedded with have either died or moved away. I still occasionally shave a yak at work, though. Sometimes doing so is a necessary evil.