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The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

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Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#361

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

JamesBarney wrote: post #360
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on a radar system that could see precipitation- think doppler radar map view. The ability to do this was in the contract but there was no way to view it. We had Matlab scripts so we the devs could view it and the weather people wanted them. We weren't allowed to hand them over without a contract. They'd pop in multiple times a day to view our doppler. The adversarial nature that defense companies treat our m…

A lot of this adversarial nature comes down to how projects are awarded. Government employees have very little discretion to choose projects, so they always go with the cheapest bid. But no large software project ever has had 0 change orders. So the only profitable way to win these contracts is offer the cheapest bid by delivering as little as possible while being in spec, and then pillaging on the change orders.

What about the "new defense" companies, who use VC money to build demos? Surely they eventually want to build moats and sell razor blades, but for now what they're doing seems different?

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#364

Post by einpoklum »

culi wrote: post #262
mcdonje wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the government can pay people to build better infrastructure instead.

Yes but you can never sell this to the right. You have to package it up into something like "fight the war" or "build a wall" (another useless project that's only meant as a job creation program to boost support in areas where the president needs it). Conservatives and liberals alike agree on job creation programs

> Yes but you can never sell this to the right.

Just don't delude yourself that "the right" is the Republican parties. Both large political parties in the US are staunchly right-wing parties by most criteria.

> Conservatives and liberals alike agree on job creation programs

No, they do not. I mean, they agree on funding large corporations and the military as though that's a job creation program.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#365

Post by [deleted] »

TrackerFF wrote: post #124

I had the pleasure of being involved in a software project where the contractor was one of the usual suspects (Raytheon, Lockheed, etc.). Prior to this, I had no idea why defense projects were so expensive and slow. You have to understand, there are so many levels of negotiation, over the smallest changes imaginable. There's no such thing as "open source code" in these projects, everything is either modified off-the-…

[deleted]

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#366

Post by giantrobot »

throwway120385 wrote: post #186
smallerfish wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to spin up a production facility for a run of four trash cans. I guarantee there are ad hoc metal shops aplenty. Cut some sheet metal on the CNC, run it through a folder-thingy, rivet/weld it up, add some hinge hardware. You're talking one guy and 2-4 days, including the CAD work.

Having been through this process with "some pieces of sheet metal" and "a design" $200k sounds reasonable if you want something produced to an actual specification. It costs a lot of money to pay "a guy in a metal shop" to build tooling to reproduce a design to a specification. I could probably get it done for a 5-figure NRE in certain quantities but the per-unit price goes up as the NRE goes down. You should probabl…

> It sounds dumb in isolation because it's a trash can, but if you want predictability and low failure rates you really do have to test everything.

It would really suck to lose an air crew because a trash can of all things made by some rando in their garage flew out of its mount in a wing over maneuver on a training exercise.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#367

Post by ajmurmann »

immibis wrote: post #356
ajmurmann wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to contrast this with all the complaints about the Titan sub using off-the-shelf components.

They are red herrings. For the price of one of these trash cans the Titan could've had perhaps three complete independent control systems including Logitech gaming controllers.

I somehow thought it would be much more expensive than $50k to produce a small number of custom controllers, especially if you were to do the proper thing and have them pass certifications.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#368

Post by einpoklum »

lesuorac wrote: post #118
einpoklum wrote: post #36

The problem is not the Pentagon's $52,000 trash can, but the US' $858,000,000,000 trash heap which is the defense budget: other than massive corruption and unaccountable-for assets - the actual delivery of this budget is military intervention, occupation and war-mongering all over the world. Not to mention the danger of nuclear holocaust. And - almost all members of the congress vote for these monstrosities. Here are…

US Military is one of the largest (the largest?) Jobs Creator in the US. Cities can literally be made or break by the Military (and other Gov functions) moving there or leaving. A vote against the military is a vote for more unemployment in your district.

Your approach worked rather well for the Germans getting over the economic crisis in the 1930s. The events of the early 1940s, however, gave them cause to reconsider this course of action.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#369

Post by DropInIn »

ben_w wrote: post #231
DropInIn wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sort of business sounds like what we want in milsec and government suppliers, no? Reliable even down to the bug behaviors...

I imagine it depends on the specifics. Closest I got[0] to the defence industry was all the anecdotes my dad had about Plessey and GEC Marconi. I'm sure it's important to have a stable technology to train on in the military; at the same time, I remember one of their open-days they were showing off a civilian in-flight entertainment system that was so clearly overpriced for what it was that I knew even as I saw it tha…

If they just buy whatever is most cost affordable then the risk factor for trojans goes sky high. Even with major brands this would be a significant issue (see HDD manufacturers bs with drives shipping with malware in the firmware).

Theres a reason there's so many steps to accept hardware.

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