Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#141

Post by fastball » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 12:57 AM UTC

meddlepal wrote: post #51

gtirloni wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Texas has a separate electrical grid from the rest of the US. This is interesting. The Wikipedia article has this gem: "The Texas Interconnection is maintained as a separate grid for political, rather than technical reasons" https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-it...

Core to many Texans identity is a belief that someday Texas is going to secede from the Union again and become its own independent country. Don't get me wrong, I love Texas and I love many of the Texans I've met for being some of the chillest, most down to earth, pragmatic and welcoming people I have ever met, but they are a bit weird about this particular issue sometimes.

Many is a stretch.

It's a running joke for sure, but being fiercely independent does not mean we actually want to secede from the Union.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#142

Post by schrodinger » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 12:57 AM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #118

rayiner wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One if my favorite season finales ever: https://youtu.be/xFgNZG3gmqc The people with this view are also a big and growing minority: https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texan-first-american-s... > Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 40 percent identify as Texans before they identify as Americans, far outpacing any other age group.

I feel the same way about CA. I suspect this isn’t that uncommon — many people put family first, then community, then country.

Def the same in NYC

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#143

Post by ploxolo » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 12:58 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #45

tozeur wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the repulsive feelings towards helping the govt. Would we rather have the people in control of the military and our troops use out-of-date tech?

I would rather the military be less capable, because its current capability is being used for offensive, not defensive purposes. If it's less capable, it's less likely to get embroiled in stupid imperialistic adventures. Edit: I don't understand why so many people are, at the same time, so enthused by the idea of starving government (Because they think most of its services are a waste of money), while at the same tim…

So I take you approve of Trump's decision on Syria?

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#144

Post by dlgeek » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 12:59 AM UTC

mxcrossb wrote: post #128

jeffwass wrote: post #3

The key point in the briefing (and the “developing” article is fairly brief) is that Amazon was considered the front-runner for contract, but Trump has a personal vendetta against Amazon/Bezos and also made comments that he’d get personally involved in the JEDI decision (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure). So of course this invites the question of whether petty politics influenced a $10B govt deal.

Was this info not in the original article? It seems to be the most important point, yet nobody else is discussing it in the comments.

No. It just had the announcement and was only a paragraph long with a "This is a developing story, more to come soon" at the bottom."

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#145

Post by fastball » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 12:59 AM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #60

gtirloni wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Texas has a separate electrical grid from the rest of the US. This is interesting. The Wikipedia article has this gem: "The Texas Interconnection is maintained as a separate grid for political, rather than technical reasons" https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-it...

The separate grid is pretty much purely political. It may be non-sensical to people outside of Texas, but inside Texas there are a significant number of people who believe in, let's call it, "Independent Texas". And it would actually make a lot of sense for more states to have completely independent grids. Problem of course, is that most states are far too poor for such an extravagance.

How is that non-sensical? The entire purpose of states is to be independent. Texas just actually takes it to heart to act like an actual separate entity wherever it can.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#146

Post by gumby » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:00 AM UTC

Single supplier has worked out so well for the pentagon so far it’s a relief they did this for cloud computing too. In fact they’ve worked so hard to reduce competition in major suppliers (e.g. aircraft manufacturer consolidation, ULA) I imagine they’ll want to do the same in computing.

/s

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#147

Post by m0zg » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:01 AM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #61

twoheadedboy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the Post is related to this, specifically?

[flagged]

>> And he considers Post political stance against him a directive from Bezos himself.

Which, to be fair, it very likely is. I just can't see Jeff _not_ exercising any editorial control. Post also doesn't shit on Amazon ever since he bought it, even when it's deserved.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#148

Post by kerng » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:01 AM UTC

Azure has evolved into a mature cloud provider, definently not a bad decision. Although, a bit unusual as we typically see the "noone ever got fired for buying IBM" mentality usually.

It shows that Azure is moving up to challenge AWS's throne. Interesting times to come!

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#149

Post by ploxolo » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:02 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #114

[flagged]

Must have missed it. Actually, this contract was tailored for AWS so it is refreshing to see it go this way

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#150

Post by bilbo0s » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #80

bilbo0s wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just speculation, but I'm thinking, just like with New York, Bezos and Amazon are happy to be rid of JEDI. Too much politics for 10 bill in revenue easily made up elsewhere in the world. They just seemed to let go of New York and JEDI wayyy too easily for being one of the wealthiest companies in the world. When someone like that bows out of such large projects so easily, something's off. And I have to take it at face…

They made a lot of noise about building a new hq in Arlington. I can’t imagine they’re going to build it out at any scale now.

US East is in NoVA I think? Basically, the defacto HQ for AWS. Why would Amazon have a second HQ anyplace else was always the real question?

(They seemed to like the idea of New York a little bit. Probably because of multimodal transport connections to NoVA and the Europe/Africa side of the world. But even that fell through. And as far as I can understand, that too was because of politics.)