Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#281

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 8:50 AM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #278

chrisseaton wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the situation that we had at the time, what do you think the Allies should have done as Hitler marched into Poland? Declared war? Or offered to make love? Sometimes you need to be prepared to say 'no' and back it up with a stick. If you've only invested in 'love' what the fuck are you going to do now?

This is quiet a false dichotomy you're running with here. You write as if the only choice is between funding global military efforts at their current levels or caving to the Nazis. Of course declaring war on Germany upon their invasion of Poland was the right thing to do. But it doesn't make declaring war before that the even righter thing to do. And it has little bearing on our choices today, that was another time.…

> This is quiet a false dichotomy you're running with here.

Hang on no I’m arguing against the false dichotomy someone else presented, subscribing totally to ‘love not war’. I don’t think it’s either-or, that’s what they said.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#282

Post by moolcool » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 10:25 AM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #140

spaced-out wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we say "military spending", much of it is not actually spent on wasted resources - it is sort of welfare for the military industrial complex and its dependent people. And what if instead of paying those people to develop weapons, we paid them to develop tech and infrastructure that would provide utility to every day people?

I don't think he's talking about Raytheon engineers. ~50% of the military budget is literally just compensation and personnel costs for the enlistees.

And what if instead of paying those people to d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶ ̶w̶e̶a̶p̶o̶n̶s̶ be in the military, we paid them to develop tech and infrastructure that would provide utility to every day people?

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#283

Post by tmotwu » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

mav3rick wrote: post #273

tmotwu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, outspoken internal employee groups exist and higher ups acknowledge them. Satya drives home the empathy and feelings message more than any other CEO. And AFAIK, I don't recall an instance of Microsoft suppressing an employee's voice similar to what happens at Google frequently. They tried getting their employees to participate in their internal social networks but it never caught any attention. Microsoft just…

LOL Microsoft has few forums to even voice your concern. You can't even share your salaries within Microsoft. It's such a joke to tout it as more employee friendly than Google. For starters it pays lesser across the board. Google has also backed out of many contracts when dissent was raised. The voices aren't suppressed at Microsoft, because there're no avenues to raise them anyway.

Yet people do voice and raise their concerns through those avenues. Just because it's underutilized, it certainly counts. Does Google have more than I am not aware about? You can't share your salaries internally at many places through official means, but it's not uncommon for people to create giant anonymous spreadsheets on salaries and share them among colleagues. Microsoft isn't THAT secretive on salaries and salary levels. I'm not exactly sure what point you're refuting?

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#284

Post by mnd999 » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:01 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #232

mnd999 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t see this being used by infantry for all the reasons you list foremost being that by the time the MIL STD folks are done with it, it’ll be way too heavy. Most likely HQ so the brass can play command and conquer with the infantry and at a push on vehicles similar to the Helmets on the F-32.

Do you mean F-35?

Yes, oops.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#285

Post by DubiousPusher » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #281

DubiousPusher wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quiet a false dichotomy you're running with here. You write as if the only choice is between funding global military efforts at their current levels or caving to the Nazis. Of course declaring war on Germany upon their invasion of Poland was the right thing to do. But it doesn't make declaring war before that the even righter thing to do. And it has little bearing on our choices today, that was another time.…

> This is quiet a false dichotomy you're running with here. Hang on no I’m arguing against the false dichotomy someone else presented, subscribing totally to ‘love not war’. I don’t think it’s either-or, that’s what they said.

You realize that when most people use that cliche they aren't saying, "no war ever". They just generally mean you should avoid war if possible and invest more in constructive activities and less in destructive. As with most cliches the language is totalizing in a way the sentiment is not.

Personally I am very nearly a pacifist. But I still support a strong defense (but an actual focus on defense which is far from what we have now). So I may employ this cliche from time to time but meaning we should lean away from our first strike and global capabilities. Not that we should abandon having any military altogether. There are some who feel that we should but they are very few and far between.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#286

Post by missedthecue » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

moolcool wrote: post #282

missedthecue wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he's talking about Raytheon engineers. ~50% of the military budget is literally just compensation and personnel costs for the enlistees.

And what if instead of paying those people to d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶ ̶w̶e̶a̶p̶o̶n̶s̶ be in the military, we paid them to develop tech and infrastructure that would provide utility to every day people?

Because it's not like your average 19 year old in Parris Island was plucked from the deans list at MIT

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#287

Post by mav3rick » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

tmotwu wrote: post #283

mav3rick wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL Microsoft has few forums to even voice your concern. You can't even share your salaries within Microsoft. It's such a joke to tout it as more employee friendly than Google. For starters it pays lesser across the board. Google has also backed out of many contracts when dissent was raised. The voices aren't suppressed at Microsoft, because there're no avenues to raise them anyway.

Yet people do voice and raise their concerns through those avenues. Just because it's underutilized, it certainly counts. Does Google have more than I am not aware about? You can't share your salaries internally at many places through official means, but it's not uncommon for people to create giant anonymous spreadsheets on salaries and share them among colleagues. Microsoft isn't THAT secretive on salaries and salar…

The point I'm refuting is that there are far less avenues in Microsoft for employees to collectively complain or share information together or dissent against the top brass.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#288

Post by mav3rick » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

tmotwu wrote: post #283

mav3rick wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL Microsoft has few forums to even voice your concern. You can't even share your salaries within Microsoft. It's such a joke to tout it as more employee friendly than Google. For starters it pays lesser across the board. Google has also backed out of many contracts when dissent was raised. The voices aren't suppressed at Microsoft, because there're no avenues to raise them anyway.

Yet people do voice and raise their concerns through those avenues. Just because it's underutilized, it certainly counts. Does Google have more than I am not aware about? You can't share your salaries internally at many places through official means, but it's not uncommon for people to create giant anonymous spreadsheets on salaries and share them among colleagues. Microsoft isn't THAT secretive on salaries and salar…

Lol just 94 people protested this contract at msft. I don't want to debate if it's the people at Microsoft or the suppressed voice by upper management. Either way Microsoft gets away with a lot of contentious business decisions as employees are more inclined to keep their head down.

Also about salaries, try creating a spreadsheet for salaries at Microsoft. I guarantee you, you will be fired within the week.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#289

Post by fwip » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

verdverm wrote: post #142

wcarss wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not necessarily supportive of the contract or the spending or whatever, but I just want to present a reframing of the costs: imagine it's just 1000 headsets, but they're so useful they cut $1B/year+ in costs (or allow for $1B/year+ in extra operational capacity) annually for the next 50+ years. This is, allegedly, foundational work on a transformative technology, so maybe that's "the dream". Now ... is that reali…

You're on point, these will save the military more money than they are spending. There are two very key areas off the battlefield, planning and maintenance, where this will save big time on people hours / salary

So say that they're for planning and maintenance, and we only need 50 thousand headsets. That's $450,000 per headset/person. You'd have to have some pretty amazing efficiency upgrades to save money on salary.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#290

Post by fwip » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

herewulf wrote: post #279

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, they'll need much more than 1 per soldier. But a Hololens 2 Industrial Edition costs $5k. This works out to $44k per soldier, and obviously not every soldier in the Army will get or need one. Let's get real, this is just outrageous, typical boondoggle military spending.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, a good chunk of the contract must be for R&D. The US Army isn't buying a ready made, commercial off-the-shelf product.

Commercial AR/VR products also have the cost of R&D factored into the price tag.