AtHeartEngineer

If you like experimenting with cryptography check out circom, it’s a relatively simple language to program zero knowledge cryptography. I was the head of development at a programmable cryptography research and development organization for a bit, it’s fun stuff, we researched and experimented with zero knowledge proofs, multi-party computation, and some more far fetched stuff like fully homomorphic encryption and indistinguishablility obfuscation. What you are trying to do definitely can be done with zk.

Also, please never use xor again lol

Highly recommend this book “Mind Hacks” https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mind-hacks/0596007795/

Appreciate this one, thanks for not deleting

Do you like and get along with him? Would you hang out with him outside of work if you didn’t work with him? I think that’s pretty telling. Adults can be friends, but it is important to separate work life and personal life. Enjoying sometimes time and also depending on them to eat can be messy.

If you wouldn’t want to hang out with him outside of work if you didn’t work with him, I would keep some distance/buffer. If you actually enjoy hanging out outside of work, then just be cautious but it’s probably worth getting to know them.

Hanging out with older generations, especially around people who just have a lot of life experience, is super enriching. Might learn a lot.