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Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

nytimes.com

221–230 of 466 posts

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, many of us do. TX isn’t just a state, it’s a state of mind, and also a former independent state. Besides, if TX secedes, how is Trump supposed to build his border wall?

Around Texas?

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#222

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. This is an overstatement.

I've lived in Texas for 8 years and this has always been talked of as a fun fact or a curiosity, not as a real, possible thing (aside from some minor fringe elements.)

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#223
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It will help during a war for sure.

It could backfire I'm the case of war, if an enemy gets control of Texas the US can no longer cut their energy supply.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#224

Although $10B might not seem like much in terms of revenue for the cloud companies (that statement feels weird writing), it is potentially worth a lot more. The DoD drives a lot of the US economy and a lot of companies have DoD contracts. This win, gives Microsoft an advantage n trying to get these companies on Azure and solidifies Windows and Office 365 positions at these companies. The follow on effects will likely…

Also other parts of the government may say "If it's good enough for the DoD, good enough for us".

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

He's not anti war as much as he's anti policy that pushes up against Russian spheres of influence. You see no issue with, and in fact a lot of funding and support increase to, Saudi Arabia. Where as Obama had put a pause on things during the initial outbreak. Didn't condemn things outright in public, but the Obama administration was definitely taking a step back during the Yemen war. The trump administration also has…

"The Obama administration set that threshold pretty high to prevent blowback for our actions and feeding terrorist propaganda."

Really???

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/120703074500-bergen-d...

https://www.juancole.com/images-ext/2012/06/graphs-of-death-...

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/120611015028-yemen-ai...

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#226
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere does that say that Bush blamed Canada at any time, nor can I find examples through 3 pages of search. (I found " Schumer blames Bush " but nothing the other direction.) Perhaps you confuse Petaki with Bush? He blamed Ontario at one point.

I remember it from news reports at the time. I can't find any documentation now, so it easily could have been Petaki. I can't find a transcript or video of Bush's address to the nation on the day of the blackout though.

Initial rumors were a trip at Niagra Falls on the Canadian side. I believe Petaki spread that rumor.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#227
post #109

> ...unlike, say, New York City or Detroit, whose residents found out the hard way that lots of their power comes from Canada. Interesting that this myth is still alive. It started with Bush falsely claiming the 2003 blackout was Canada's fault before an investigation had even been done. Here is the actual postmortem report. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/oeprod/DocumentsandM...

Just a request: if you intend to directly refute another's comment by posting sources, posting a 238 page document without a specific page reference isn't really helpful.

It's called burying the opponent in papers. I watch Suits, so I know how this works.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#228
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?

> Would we rather have the people in control of the military and our troops use out-of-date tech I don't trust or rely on any infrastructure that largely uses microsoft products...I'm sure there's some minor stuff hidden away here and there within systems. MSFT has a software philosophy, which is reciprocated in their culture, that can only be described as byzantine and unpredictable. They are basically 00's Oracle a…

Wait 'til you hear about all of those people who use Excel.

Azure, sure, but Windows and Office are at this point very mature products. They're not going to win awards, but they get the job done.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#229
post #46

Wow what a course change. For the last couple years there have been articles on HN about how the JEDI requirements were written to specifically exclude Microsoft/ibm/gcp because the DoD preferred AWS so its selection was a forgone conclusion. Also coverage of the resulting lawsuits by those companies over the very aws-tailored “requirements”

If it was a political decision in the first place it shouldn’t be surprising that they’ve flip flopped. Politics is fickle.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#230
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

The Post runs the same stories seen in essentially all papers in the world. A lot of them implicate the president negatively. But how does precluding the pentagon from it's first choice on these grounds good for the country? In a free and uncorrupt country, you don't allow leaders to intervene in national security issues because they are embarrassed by a paper's coverage. Thus few people are directly saying that amaz…

There's no such thing as "corruption free" country. The US is very, very far from corruption-free, both in the government and outside it. It's less corrupt than, say, Zimbabwe, but that's not saying much. Basically one has to ask themselves a question: given that the mainstream press is wildly unprofitable (with very few exceptions), might there be a reason why its owners sinks hundreds of millions of dollars into keeping it afloat? I think you know what that reason is, Chomsky has been railing against it for several decades now. They're instruments of propaganda. They manufacture consent. They are literally no better than Pravda nowadays, although instead of being government controlled, they're controlled by five rich men. It's better than government control, but not by much.
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