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It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

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Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#151
post #98

It lost because Trump hates Jeff Bezos for some reason.

>It lost because Trump hates Jeff Bezos for some reason. Bezos is a Democrat and owner of the Washington Post, a paper which has been openly critical of Trump's administration.

Bezos is not a Democrat, but yes WaPo like all reputable journalists has been critical of Trump.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews

There's such a thing as a written interview. There's no indication they answered the questions in a written form; it appears quite clear the White House asserted privilege, which would apply to any form of questioning.

If "during interviews" was meant to cover any form of questioning then the sentence is obviously and improperly redundant.

>barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews.

vs

>barred from answering questions on the subject when asked questions on the subject.

vs

>barred from answering questions on the subject.

It's a limiting modifier phrase, so the default is to assume it was meant to modify the meaning.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course academia is a "radical left" arena, as it's the domain of our youth and that is a natural expression of their view of the world. All news has bias, but some are more biased than others, and that bias varies from personal and ingrained to organizational and intentional. It's important to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Project Veritas is a right-wing, extremely partisan organization…

Not to accuse James O'Keefe of sainthood, but I've an order of magnitude more regard for him and Veritas than any of the cable news networks.

We're in dangerous political territory, so I'll preface my question in the context of being genuinely curious and not judgmental (of you).

My awareness of him is from several "stunts" where he "went undercover" and interviewed his targets surreptitiously and then dishonestly edited the results to support his ideological narrative.

I associate cable news with general incompetence, corporate shilling and whatnot, but generally a "noisy" signal. PV, on the other hand, is driven purely by right-wing ideological goals.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#154
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sentence seems purpose-build to be so obviously trying to hide the truth as to be giving it away. It means the " DoD personnel who evaluated proposals " were not pressured by senior DoD leaders, but by White House officials directly. Or why would the statement explicitly mention "DoD leaders more senior to them"? If they were not pressured, why not simply say "DoD personnel were not pressured to award..."? And w…

This is the sort of thing I think of when I hear the term "fake news". Sentences that get buried, sentences that get purposefully constructed in order to obscure/misdirect, etc. Personally, I don't care for an article or piece to be "artistic" in any way, they just need to give us facts and explanations, along with all the things they tried to ask, what they investigated, what info they weren't able to find, etc. Jou…

This is what I think of when I hear "reading comprehension is going downhill. Most people are functionally illiterate these days."

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's such a thing as a written interview. There's no indication they answered the questions in a written form; it appears quite clear the White House asserted privilege, which would apply to any form of questioning.

If "during interviews" was meant to cover any form of questioning then the sentence is obviously and improperly redundant. >barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews . vs >barred from answering questions on the subject when asked questions on the subject . vs >barred from answering questions on the subject. It's a limiting modifier phrase, so the default is to assume it was meant to modify the…

You can read the report, if you like.

It indicates the WH claimed privilege. Privilege applies to the questions/answers, not the medium in which they’re asked.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#156
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh, ^please^... not "every dominant giant company ever" has been found by U.S. federal court to have engaged in monopolistic / anti-competitive behavior. legality aside, that's to say nothing of all their no-walter-its-not-illegal-youre-just-an-asshole shenanigans contemporaneous with, and preceding, the lawsuit. playing dumb and conflating what Microsoft did with "every dominant giant company ever" only serves to wh…

> not "every dominant giant company ever" has been found by U.S. federal court That's only because as times changed so did the US mostly lost interest in punishing or even investigating its own companies (that's subjectively understandable, nobody wants to hit their own). Voices say they're trying to change this, we'll just have to wait and see. On the other hand I'm sure you agree that "U.S. federal court" is not th…

it's been long enough you may not even see this, but i appreciated the fair, well-reasoned response so i figured i would respond (paragraph-by-paragraph correspondence to your comment above):

- fair enough point, i agree that it is debatable whether Microsoft was "particularly deserving" of this reputation because of the limited scope and interest of the justice dept., etc., though on balance i still _personally_ find it most likely that they stood out in their bad-actor-ness in some way

- wtf is a "global standard in justice"? the existence of that is news to me. unless it is rather just "whatever court makes the kinds of judgments i agree with"? if the EU judicial process (to determine whether the EU should fine some exogenous bag of money an enormous amount of money) is so impartial, then why was their biggest upshot to put Margrethe Vestager, a maximally-ambitious politician, on the map? i know you're just trying to suggest an alternate judicial authority, but come on: you picked one that is even less likely to have been a "global standard in justice", whatever that is. and that all is to apparently exonerate Microsoft because a couple other companies, that grew up in Microsoft's shadow, used the same playbook later on?

- though i appreciate the argumentative tone / parallelism thing going on here, i think it's a biit of a stretch in this case-- i don't really feel like i'm conflating them at all. the valence of my comment is definitely that "Microsoft deserves to stand out here", not that they are uniquely guilty of this by any measure.

and, re bias: ultimately, insofar as i am "biased" (an affliction that actually affects everyone, regardless of opinion :^) it is because they (Microsoft) hurt my feelings by doing a bunch of mean things to technologically-related stuff that i loved during my techno-formative years. so, yeah--their abuses of market power stood out more to me than they may have to others, and are clearly grounded in a personal, subjective value judgment. the world still revolved then, and still continues to revolve-- there are more important abuses of power to be truly exercised about in the world, etc., etc.

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