Feed UTF-16 to the C compiler and let me know how that works out for you.

The second while loop doesn't run because the character at the pointer is zero? That part is only obscure to a python programmer who expects a particular formatting.

It's not a true C obfuscation, it's a Unicode hack. The compiler treats the code as a series of bytes but your text editor sees UTF-8. The code which actually executes is hiding there.

The C code itself isn't obfuscated. The problem is that your text editor isn't showing you the code.

If you look at the C code in a plain ASCII text editor, you'll see everything. But a text editor that interprets UTF-8 hides a bunch of stuff from you.

If you happen to be viewing the entry in VIM, use ":set encoding=latin1" to see what's really going on.

Are you being deliberately obtuse or do you just not know the history of waterworks projects in Hawaii?

Like ships and aircraft, spacecraft fly a country's flag. Where those countries fail to assert sufficient control over spacecraft operations, they are subject to their neighbors' displeasure. But first, someone has to do something sufficiently displeasurable and escape their own country's legal ire.

There's no Maui water rationing "due to a drought." If there's water rationing, it's because the natives have obstructed the construction of sufficient aqueduct capacity to match the increase in population. Plenty of fresh water falls in the rain forest and uselessly empties into the sea. You just have to pipe it to where the people live.

The last time I paid a premium for a computer product because it was made in the USA, it turned out to be garbage. It was a 386 motherboard. It had a "quality feel" to it, but the cache ram circuit promptly failed bringing performance into the toilet.

Because protection mechanisms for HTTPS are on the lookout for code broken into chunks and sent in hexidecimal while the DNS protections are not. Sure. Pull the other one.

All of this presumes that Quantum Computers will work as predicted. That's like assuming that real computers work just like Turing Machines. They do not. Not only do real computers work differently, no real computer can fully implement a Turing Machine because Turing Machines have infinite memory. While most algorithms proven on a Turning Machine can in fact be usefully implemented on a real computer, it's not universal.

If real Quantum Computers don't match theoretical Quantum Computers, and I think it unlikely that they will, then it's not yet clear which algorithms will work on them and which require assumptions that won't end up being true.

Respectfully, I don't think you understand the concept of "no reason." Just because there are other ways to do a thing doesn't mean there's "no reason" to do it a particular way.

Some things need to work when most everything on the network is broken. Think: out of band access to the DNS server (DRAC, ILO, IPMI).

No, you know that some machine out there responded to that IP address. You don't know whether it's the one you meant or, say, the hotel's captive portal.

About SpaceX in particular? I'm not. About the sheer number of companies that behave similarly? Yeah, I'm bitter.

Actually, I declined the interview. This was in the pandemic before the vaccine. During the phone screen the recruiter told me all work was required to be on site and asked if I was okay with that. I said: sure, but only if I have an office so I can set up an air filter and generally control my working environment. The recruiter said no one gets an office, not even Musk. I said thank you and goodbye.

No partitions. No walls. No doors. Just desks and chairs.