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Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

nytimes.com

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Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#321

Post by 7thaccount »

gtirloni wrote: post #37
rshnotsecure wrote: post #26

Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has done a significant amount of work for the NSA. AWS has had GovCloud, and it is true the CIA uses AWS, but MSFT has built out quite well some of the more exotic requests of the NSA. The crown jewel of the NSA’s MSFT partnership is the San Antonio, Texas data center. The “5150 Rogers Road” data center was chosen because Texas has cheap electricity, which is an enormous cost outlay f…

> 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...

It isn't really separate...there are several DC ties where AC power flowing from or into the Eastern Interconnect is exchanged. This gets them out of FERC jurisdiction, but not NERC.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#322

Post by z3t4 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #286
z3t4 wrote: post #48

What do the military need 10 billion US dollars in cloud computing for ? Are they going to fork Bitcoin? DDOS attack? If they are for example going to archive video footage, it's probably much cheaper to print it to film.

They spend about a billion a year just on email. Another billion per year of cloud stuff is nothing

With 2 M email accounts that number should be at least one order of magnitude lower. Computers are great at solving problems at scale. The marginal cost of hosting another email account when you already have hundreds is close to zero.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#323

Post by 205guy »

ramraj07 wrote: post #270
meddlepal wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've had the (mis? Fortune) of living in that one state in every country - Texas, Quebec and "Tamil Nadu" in India

What about Catalonia? They seem to actually want independence more than the ones you list.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#324

Post by DKnoll »

dang wrote: post #294
infecto wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be fun to work with.

Personal attacks aren't allowed here, no matter how wrong or annoying another comment is. Would you please review the site guidelines and follow them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In regards to 'wrong or annoying,' was there something I could have done or said better, Dan?

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#325

Post by mytailorisrich »

Zaheer wrote: post #19

Original post from U.S. DoD: https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/... There's several other contracts mentioned in the post. It's a good reminder of how much money goes into the military–industrial complex. The JEDI contract was by far the largest contract awarded in this round. The rest of contracts total roughly 1.5 billion dollars.

The official budget of the Pentagon is $693 billion for 2019. In other word, they are allowed to spend $1.9 billion PER DAY.

This is huge.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#326

Post by Transfinity »

kd3 wrote: post #140

Taking government money is taking blood money. I'm glad I'm on a trajectory of getting rid of Microsoft tech in my life.

I love the sentiment, but where else would you turn? AWS takes money from the CIA, Google has drones and Dragonfly, and Oracle doesn't even pretend to be a bastion of freedom.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#327

Post by mav3rick »

phil9987 wrote: post #310

"Google dropped out last October without submitting a formal bid, saying the military work conflicted with its corporate principles, which preclude the use of artificial intelligence in weaponry." <3

Thanks for acknowledging this. They did the right thing at least in my eyes.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#328

Post by jariel »

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.

Those are all separate things.

A) Texans often think of themselves as 'Texans before Americans' in a completely different way than Californians or New Yorkers do. There is no nationalist/separatist streak in 'CA before USA' it's more of a cultural thing. Texas is like Quebec in this way.

B) I think 'nation' is an existential thing, different than family and community. In the end, we always put ourselves/family first really, but we also join Armies and sign up to defend the nation in ways that we don't contemplate at other levels. Many people feel very, very loyal to the concept of America, it's just in different terms than they might community.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#329

Post by mav3rick »

Transfinity wrote: post #326
kd3 wrote: post #140

Taking government money is taking blood money. I'm glad I'm on a trajectory of getting rid of Microsoft tech in my life.

I love the sentiment, but where else would you turn? AWS takes money from the CIA, Google has drones and Dragonfly, and Oracle doesn't even pretend to be a bastion of freedom.

Dragonfly, right, like it's already launched.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#330

Post by neffy »

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.

In which case I guess it's good that they already have a significant part of the US military C&C under their control.
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