The orbital mechanics can get a bit tricky; but interplanetary distances open the possibility of reviving good, old-fashioned, delay-line memory...

Just think of how much data you could keep in-flight if you just replaced Pluto with a nice orbital mirror and told your vendor "GIVE ME AN XFP MODULE OF TERRIBLE POWER."

For real archiving, of course, you'll need to look at siting your mirror outside the solar system for a longer round trip.

I have to imagine that some sort of materials engineering geekery involving carbon allotropes and platinum group metals could be even more durable, while also having better data density and looking like they were pulled right out of some sci-fi memory core; but it's pretty hard to argue with a storage medium you can make from mud that gets more durable when the assholes one ziggurat over decide to burn your civilization down...

But what if the first tool they walk off with is my favorite set of joint snapping pliers? Sure, there are alternatives; but it just isn't the same.

The designated-place concept is borrowed from aviation(though usually it's just cutouts/silouettes, no sensors) where 'losing a tool' is a minor problem; but 'leaving a tool inside the engine' is a potentially lethal problem.

It requires a certain amount of fiddliness; but it is undoubtedly better organized than a simple 'in box/not in box' arrangement.

It is actually probable that New Zealand law was broken, when their intelligence services were spying on him and possibly when they allowed the FBI to move a considerable volume of evidence back to the US without any legal process. As for New Zealand law being broken by the defendant, that hasn't been as well established.

It's not entirely unreasonable for him to have legally evaluated them as an industry actor with a potential for engaging in civil litigation as a strategic measure in order to advance their business objectives.

Being surprised that the money was only the beginning, and they had enough pull to obtain the (illegal) cooperation of New Zealand's clandestine services, a well armed raid on his residence(rather than a nasty subpoena at work), and nearly unlimited FBI access to an investigation and set of evidence in New Zealand, followed by the sort of dogged prosecution-by-any-means from Uncle Sam that you usually have to move a lot of cocaine or deal in embarassing state secrets to earn is somewhat understandable.

I suspect that the liability structure would discourage that. Old guy's brain runs out of oxygen while Proper Procedures are being followed? Tragic, really. You fuck up some of the touchy little spinal bits while providing expedited transport? Personal injury lawsuit time!

Ah; but, even though you were unconscious, I'm going to assume that you chose to consume ambulance services rather than cab services, in order to maximize your utility as a rational consumer; because the alternative would be to admit that healthcare is only sometimes a 'market' at all, much less a high-functioning one!

Was that claim actually delivered as a standalone, or did somebody pick a choice sentence out of a discussion of the false economies of diabetics having insufficient coverage for proper blood sugar monitoring; but adequate coverage for just lopping the extremity off once the damage was done?

The former would be a bit surprising(even when he's being evil, he usually has a pretty good grasp of staying on message and not providing any juicy gaffes); but the latter is something of a commonplace, and isn't so much about the cost of actually chopping the limb off; but the ongoing costs of the resultant disability, as compared to better blood sugar maintenance.

I'd be curious to know how the numbers change if you compare patients who, on arrival to the hospital, are immediately shunted off to some sort of specialist with those whose cases are deemed to need only the attention of whatever doctor happens to be on hand along with nursing staff.

All the EMTs I've known well enough to hear about their job have been knowledgeable and professional; but it's always shocked me how much less training(and how much less money) the EMTs get compared to in-hospital medical staff, especially if the patient's condition is such that they'd see a specialist in hospital.

Which, of course, makes him a gormless simpering fascist and a total moron.

Sure, in retrospect most people who end up doing something violent or otherwise alarming end up having made some choice remarks at some point before doing so. However, that's only significant because you've deliberately selected a population of scary violent subjects. Guess what, dumbass? You'll see a lot of very creative and endlessly vitriolic chatter from people too lazy to do much more than press the buttons on the remote control extra angrily or maybe get sloshed and throw a few punches at their similarly idiotic friends. Until you look at the situation in terms of 'how many alarming-sounding comments actually end badly?' rather than 'how many situations that end badly have something that sounds alarming now that we know what happened?' you've got absolutely nothing.

Not to worry. After working 24x7 for a week or two trying to rebuild the entire spaghetti-heap of an internal IT setup that took years to get as crufty(but familiar and functional-ish) as it was; being fired and thus allowed to go home and drink yourself to sleep will seem like a hell of a perk!

It might not be much of a win for occupational safety and health; but a nuclear warhead does have a substantial chunk of conventional explosives built into it, which could be used to express displeasure at attempted tampering a bit more vehemently than bombs do today. Still not 100% foolproof; but raises the odds a bit.

What I would be curious to know about this radiation 'fingerprinting' is whether it can resist DoS attacks where beam sources, distributed radioactive dust/liquid or other means are used to push the sensors out of the 'correct' range of values and cause the PAL to fail safe.

Just remember that 'one or two millimetres long' falls well into 'trivially inhale-able by accident' territory.

Think of all those little spider feet tickling in your sinuses!

If you want to be a filthy marxist about it, geeks are nearly perfect petite bourgeoisie.