It's worth remembering that "sonic boom hysteria" in the US, and the subsequent federal ban on supersonic civil aviation over land, only occurred after Boeing cancelled their own SST project.

The Concorde order-book crashed (pardon the pun) due to the 70s oil crisis, which in turn stopped work on the Block 2 version of Concorde.

No. The Block 2 Concorde was scrapped due to the oil crisis in the 70s, but it was a tragic accident caused by runway FOD from a Boeing that took the original fleet off the flight-line after 30-some years of service. Branson/Virgin even offered to buy and operate BA's planes, but due to past animosity they declined.

If you discount the R&D paid for by the French and British governments, on a day-to-day basis Concorde was operationally a profit-maker for their respective flag-carrier airlines as, it turned out, there were enough people for whom the trade-off between cost and time was worthwhile. After all, the difference in price for the NYC-London run between 1st class in a widebody and a seat on Concorde was surprisingly small.

The noise issue is an interesting one - the boom from a plane at 40,000+ feet is almost insignificant compared to a clap of thunder, and yet no-one complains about broken windows/doors/etc from that. As an aside, it's also worth pointing out that the whole "sonic boom" hysteria in the USA didn't actually exist until Boeing scrapped their own SST project. Coincidence?

If they can fly at Mach 2+ for most of a 3,500nm range, then there will be people wanting to use it for the NYC->London/Paris route, or Dubai->Singapore, etc, as long as the ticket is price-competitive with taking a Lear.

For many things and many people this is true, but some things require physical presence and for some people the Time=Money equation will work out in Boom's favour.

Nah. Just like Concorde had, Boom will have dedicated passenger-handling rolled into the ticket price. I mean, why not?

Unless you get a helicopter, or can land at City Airport instead of LHR.

...they're unlikely to know what "synonym" means...

...that they'd try the Russian Roulette challenge using a single live round in a Glock.

The "people" who TikTok for a living also believe that "iPhone," "smartphone" and "phone" are synonyms.

...anyone who actually gives a tuppenny fuck?

Thought not...

Not quite. The typical order of events is:

Government: We have a poorly thought-out IT project. Which of you private companies wants a boat-load of taxpayer money to make it happen?
Company: We'll take that, thank you. Oh, and quite unrelatedly, please have this donation to your campaign/political party.
Govt: Thank you very much. Oh, and quite unrelatedly, have this knighthood for your CEO.
Cmpy: Thanks. By the way, this project will cost much more money and take longer.
Govt: Sure.

Some time later...

Govt: So, about that project?
Cmpy: Oh, it's ready to start limited roll-out, but will need more money for full deployment.
Govt: Sure.

Some time later...

Taxpayer: What the fuck is this piece of shit you're making me use?
Govt: It's all fine
Cmpy: It's all fine.
TP: Wait - all my data has been stolen and sold, my identity has been used to get loans I knew nothing about, and I'm now bankrupt.
Cmpy: Well, it's not our fault.
Govt: Well, it's not our fault.
TP: Grrrr!
Govt: OK, so we'd best have an inquiry to find out what happened. It will report back in 10 years. Meanwhile, we've got a new poorly thought-through IT project. Which of you private companies wants a boat-load of taxpayer money to make it happen?

Repeat to fade...

I quite agree - more rent and less privacy seems to be the mantra of the moment.

Regarding your editing tools - if they don't otherwise require network access, then run them in a VM with the network stack disabled and a host folder mapped to a VM drive letter to get data in and out.

Or, if you're feeling particularly limber, try this.

When you're smashing your head against a wall every 10 seconds, the solution to the pain is not a better analgesic.

Same here, and he was the CIO for a global investment bank. He also dictated his replies for his secretary to type up and send.

It's a telescope, so it's a receiver. Why - and, indeed, what - was it transmitting?

There are five AI-related stories on the front page of Slashdot just below this one.

It's not hard to see a cause/effect between massive deployment of new AI-related hardware in data centres, and the increased carbon emissions of power generation required to run them.

And no, the "we're running our new DC on green energy" argument doesn't hold water unless equivalent new green generating capacity has also been constructed.

Oh, it might also have a bit to do with the increased demand for electricity to power the increasing number of EVs.

Did I miss the memo that mentioned that power delivery from orbit was now a thing?

Or did someone actually design a terrestrial power network that depends on telecoms provided by a single-point-of-failure that cannot be reached to repair?

And most will have valid reasons for not having made the switch, whether they be financial or practical. After their house, a car is typically the most expensive item someone will buy (and if they rent, it's the most expensive), so they want it to be right, and they don't change on a whim. In the ICE world you can pick exactly the vehicle type you want/need - roadster, coupe, sedan, station wagon, mini-van, SUV - and then decide between gas, diesel or, increasingly, hybrid for the powertrain, but if you want full EV your choices are still limited and compromised.

One other thing: in some parts of the demographic, I suspect an aversion to the "iPad-on-wheels" approach to driver controls might play no small part - I still have to remind my mother how to copy/paste or forward email every few weeks, but not how to turn on the heated seats or tune the radio in her ICE car...

I'm likewise a city dweller without the possibility of home charging. However, my city has perhaps a total 30 public charging points, spread across the carparks of the out-of-town retail parks, only a handful of which could be called "fast". Even better, most of the carparks use ANPR to limit your stay to 2 hours, so even if you can get a working bay, you'd get barely enough juice to cover the journey.

They did dig up one corner of one of the carparks last year, did a load of cabling and groundwork, and I thought "Great, they're putting in dozens of EV chargers!"

It was a new Burger King.