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Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

nytimes.com

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Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#331

Post by philwelch »

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.

The US is a truly gargantuan country; large states like Texas are already richer, bigger, and more populous than many or most independent countries. In fact Texas once was an independent country.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#332

Post by einpoklum »

techsupporter wrote: post #87
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that weird?

As a native Texan, it's weird for a few reasons: a) Pragmatically, separating from the rest of the United States would be devastating to our economy. Much like the United Kingdom from the EU, but on a much larger scale, because the vast majority of our trade, people, and connectedness come from being part of the U.S. Texans like to trot out the factoid that relatively little land in Texas is owned by the federal gove…

a. That depends on the relations with the US afterwards. For the UK example - think of their relations with Europe after 1945, before they'd entered the EU. It was fine. I mean, after 500 years or wars, but, you know, bygones. b. Isn't it more that the supremacist attitude fuels the secessionism, rather than the other way around? c. Secession from the US empire of some of these states might not be such a bad idea for those states.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#333

Post by tyingq »

LordN00b wrote: post #319
bnt wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Azure Functions are pretty nice, hope they continue evolving the service.

As long as they fix the blasted runtime. Azure Functions has it's own dll loader, and other complexities that means it doesn't place nice with .net or the larger ecosystem. Currently it does not support .net 3, and I can't even use the most recent version of System.Data.SqlClient. I like functions it was a good move, but the 'not-quite-.net' keeps getting in the way.

That's exactly what I meant by "up their game" and well stated.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#334

Post by Havoc »

xref wrote: 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”

That was also my impression. Good to see that both were viable contenders though

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#335

Post by philwelch »

techsupporter wrote: post #169
skissane wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt Texas is going to secede from the US any time soon. And I honestly wouldn't care either way if it did or didn't. But, I don't know if some of your arguments necessarily work. > Pragmatically, separating from the rest of the United States would be devastating to our economy. Much like the United Kingdom from the EU, but on a much larger scale, because the vast majority of our trade, people, and connectedness c…

It could, but the thing I think you and the others who are replying to say "but what about..." are not fully considering is just how tight the entanglements are even though Texans don't seem to want to acknowledge them. 174 years of trade, legal, cultural, financial, and infrastructure policy would be astoundingly difficult to untangle. Given that any business of any size currently operating in Texas would have 51 (i…

> The United States military has such a large presence in Texas because the United States Military is such a large organization, generally. There would be no reason for Texas to have such a comparatively large military, nor, I think, would an independent Texas be able to afford one.

Texans already pay the federal taxes that purportedly fund the US military, though. I’m not sure if the US has more military assets in Texas than Texas itself can afford to pay for, but Texas is a big, rich state so I’d say there’s a chance that they’re effectively subsidizing some of the military bases in other states.

Texas could and likely would contribute military forces to various US-led coalition efforts at times.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#336

Post by einpoklum »

skissane wrote: post #156
techsupporter wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a native Texan, it's weird for a few reasons: a) Pragmatically, separating from the rest of the United States would be devastating to our economy. Much like the United Kingdom from the EU, but on a much larger scale, because the vast majority of our trade, people, and connectedness come from being part of the U.S. Texans like to trot out the factoid that relatively little land in Texas is owned by the federal gove…

I doubt Texas is going to secede from the US any time soon. And I honestly wouldn't care either way if it did or didn't. But, I don't know if some of your arguments necessarily work. > Pragmatically, separating from the rest of the United States would be devastating to our economy. Much like the United Kingdom from the EU, but on a much larger scale, because the vast majority of our trade, people, and connectedness c…

> If Texas seceeded from the US, it would need its own military. Given it has roughly 8% of US population, why could it not claim roughly 8% of the US military's assets and personnel?

Absolutely not. The US has a huge military with a budget that exceeds the next top-8 or so military spender states in the world. And - almost all of its activity is foreign deployment for proto/pseudo-colonialism, occupations, pressuring other states with the threat of force etc. Texas wouldn't need any of that stuff. Now, obviously it would not be able to militarily defend itself from the US, so if it seceded at all its military would be mostly focused on Mexico, if at all. So - try 1% of asset and 2% of personnel maybe.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#338

Post by Rainymood »

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

Only after their employees revolted. Never forget this. Only after the employees spoke up.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#340

Post by ne9xt »

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

come on... do you really think that's the reason google didn't go after a 10B contract? does google not like money or prefer to avoid working with the US government?? because I think they do...
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