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So glad to see this. Military IT has been atrocious. I viewed the Navy Marine Corp Internet (NMCI) as damn near treasonous levels of awful when I got out a de

So glad to see this. Military IT has been atrocious. I viewed the Navy Marine Corp Internet (NMCI) as damn near treasonous levels of awful when I got out a decade ago and assumed little improvement with the way contracts are done and the entrenched vendors. Happy to see Google win this not just because I prefer the solution now to MS, but that some change is happening. I still can’t believe we spent $7T on the global war on terror and no one is asking questions.

sure_about_that 4y ago
== I still can’t believe we spent $7T on the global war on terror and no one is asking questions.== Everyone who asked before we started that “war” was called a traitor.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
- jti107 4y ago
  dont forget the tax cuts and bailouts for big business that is added to the US national debt. currently at 31 trillion...but investing in education and healthcare for normal people is socialism ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - exq 4y ago
    Student load forgiveness is socialism, but hundreds of billions in PPP loans with no obligation to repay is "stimulating the economy" Classy.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      The government shut down businesses so it makes sense to compensate them. The government didn't force people to go the college or take out loans to pay for it.
      - hackyhacky 4y ago
        The government has an interest in educating its citizens. Just like how every other Western country subsidizes education.
        refurb 4y ago
        The government in the US does subsidize education. Nobody was forced to take on debt they can repay because their were no job prospects.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        Has nothing to do with my point. The government required some businesses to shut down. They didn't force you to take out college loans. If you want to say there shouldn't be loans for college or whatever that is fine. The fact is, the US is not in that situation.
        hackyhacky 4y ago
        The government didn't force businesses to take out loans either. Complying with the law doesn't automatically mean you deserve compensation. Nevertheless, the government allowed businesses to take out loans, and in many cases forgave those loans, because it benefits the country. The government allowed students to take out loans, and in many cases forgave those loans, because it benefits the country. I'm not saying there shouldn't be college loans. I am saying the job of the government is to help people, and both kinds of loans, an both kinds of loan forgiveness, fall into that category.
      - hashin 4y ago
        Actually government does. It makes sense to nudge people towards acquiring more skills and they routinely do that. Also, the economy is punishing for those who don't have a college degree (it always was, but perhaps not at this level.) And how did we reach here? Government policies. I am not saying that these policies were bad. But there can be no denying that government is the major reason why more and more people are going to college. And definitely, if college is not free or subsidised, they will be forced to take loans. Again, because economy is punishing for those who don't have a college education.
    - User23 4y ago
      Both are direct expansions of the M1 money supply, which generally speaking will increase demand. Although sustainably stimulating the economy requires sustained investment on the supply side of the demand equation.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  Not to put a fine point on it, but if you want to know what it was like back then, just say something like "I don't think we should finance the war in Ukraine. What is happening in Eastern Europe isn't our problem. Neutrality is the best policy" and see the rhetoric you'll hear. Usually blind allegations of shilling, being a Russian stooge, being a sock puppet, and so on. It was several times worse in the early days of the GWOT. Sikh's were getting killed for looking too Muslim. The stuff you see now where people want to include mandatory "Fact checks" in internet searches sort of paled to the crap we saw in the GWOT of Extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation, the Bush doctrine, destroying privacy laws in the name of patriotism, and so on. We've already started forgetting what happened.
  - petersellers 4y ago
    > Not to put a fine point on it, but if you want to know what it was like back then, just say something like "I don't think we should finance the war in Ukraine. What is happening in Eastern Europe isn't our problem. Neutrality is the best policy" and see the rhetoric you'll hear What's happening now is not remotely comparable to what the US did in response to 9/11 - if anything, it's the opposite (we are defending a country from being invaded for BS reasons vs invading another country for BS reasons)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - somenameforme 4y ago
      At the beginning of the Iraq War, and for sometime thereafter, we were led to believe that Iraq was actively developing WMD. We weren't invading a country, but saving the world from imminent catastrophe at the hands of an unhinged and crazy dictator. The proof included claims by dozens of different intelligence agencies, testimony from high level insiders in the Iraq government, surveillance photos of mobile biological weapons laboratories, definitive proof of purchase of Uranium for nuclear weapons purposes, under oath testimony, and of course endless propaganda: --- Washington Post - "Irrefutable" : https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/irrefutable/e598b1be-a78a-4a42-8e1a-c336f7a217f4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i... NYTimes - "Irrefutable and Undeniable" : https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-undeniable.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u... --- To imagine all of this was fabricated or based on lies would make even the most enthusiastic conspiracy theorist look at you a bit funny. These events played a major role in shaping my worldview. And what we're going through today is even more extreme. The one bright side of this is that if we can manage to avoid nuclear annihilation, I expect an even larger chunk of the population will join the jaded and cynical asshole family. It's not a pleasant worldview, but probably necessary for the survival of humanity in the age of mass media and mass weapons.
thelittleone 4y ago
War on terror or war on anything. It's a complex thing. To hold on to power, a country must be constantly training their war machine. Wars are the best training for war. So say $7T is the cost of retaining power. What would the cost be of losing that power? Despite this grim perspective, I have hope for the future of humanity.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- exq 4y ago
  Causing the deaths of 40-200 thousand civilians, thousands of our own armed forces and tens of thousands returning home wounded was just the cost of working that military muscle? Sorry but that's even more f'd up than the official reason we got told.
- redanddead 4y ago
  7T is a nice chunk of all the money in the world. What the fuck. Scammed to the sun and back.
- UtopiaPunk 4y ago
  Yikes
daniel-cussen 4y ago
throwaway892238 4y ago
Questioning military spending (or anything the military does) is still evidence that you're a traitor who hates America and the troops.
- bruce511 4y ago
  There is the false connection linking the Military with People. It is deliberately engineered to prevent criticism of the military. There is also the idea that the "military" are not to blame for wars, wars are created by politicians not the military. The truth is of course that generals want to go to war because it keeps their budget allocation high. These myths make it hard to both support Joe who's back from the war, and yet be anti the war in the first place. It's hard to mention that the overall military budget seems like a lot, without sounding like you're anti-joe. Even something as simple as "thank you for your service" is in some ways a propoganda. To ask an ex serviceman about the point of the Afgan war, to ask them if 100 000 dead Afghans makes up for 3000 on 9/11, to question the logic of signing up to serve in an army currently fighting an unjust war, would seem antagonistic. To question how Afghanistan is different to Ukraine would be unthinkable. [1] In truth one can (and should) support veterans, but perhaps can also raise questions about the scale of US military spending, and question the wisdom of having an enormous standing military which needs to get involved in conflicts of dubious value, simply to justify its own existance. [1] they are of course very different in a lot of ways, but in effect are the same in more ways we'd care to admit.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    Have you ever actually tried to have such a conversation? You might be surprised at how many veterans feel about their time in Afghanistan or who they think really disrespected their service.
    - bruce511 4y ago
      An excellent question. The short answer is "not a lot" - primarily because I think it's a conversation best had in person, not via forums. It's hard to create the nuance such a discussion would need when typing. But, perhaps more to the point, it's not veterans that worry me. I suspect (as I think do you) that many are disillusioned with the real outcomes of the war. Just like those who served in Vietnam etc. No, the people who worry me are the "politicals". Those who see _any_ criticism of the military as being anti-troops. (As noted above, this is expressly the outcome the military-industrial-complex has been working on forever.) And the messaging is so successful that, on either side of the isle, it's basically political suicide to "vote against the military". While reducing the spending on the military may garner some support from those who have actually served (although I doubt in significant percentages) - it's the blow-back from those not actually in the military (military families, and everyone else) which is most concerning. There are not so supportive as those who are not actually doing any of the work or in any of the danger.
QuarterReptile 4y ago
It's quite possible that NMCI works just as poorly now. In my office we have desktops running Windows 10 on 8gb RAM and HDD (spinning drives.) It should surprise no one that Windows 10 has bloated beyond the capability of slow hard drives to keep up; I maintain maxed out disk read utilization at all times, and consequent here maximum number of browser tabs before lag kicks in is none. Outlook is even worse than Chrome (new official browser of DoD websites.) The fastest way to check email at work is to go out to my car and connect laptop via Hotspot for OWA. Next best way is to go home and use OWA there, with using the work computer the slowest option by about 10 minutes.
User23 4y ago
I can, off the top of my head, think of seven trillion reasons why.
drewpc 4y ago
I agree that military IT has been atrocious. I disagree that NMCI was "damn near treasonous levels of awful." NMCI was a large, Department of the Navy (DoN) -wide contract that had incredibly challenging tasks it needed to complete to be successful. The first few years were bad but it got better over time and, by the time the next transition was set to happen, it was running pretty smoothly. When people complained about not getting the things they wanted, what they were really railing against was the fact that they didn't get what they wanted all the time anymore; the military grew accustomed to telling someone "I want X" and it happened, regardless of cost, lifecycle sustainment, security, etc. NMCI forced the DoN to develop and articulate requirements properly, write good contracts, budget for software and hardware sustainment, and generally operate professionally. In short, I would take an NMCI computer and enterprise services from 2010 versus a Marine Corps Enterprise Network computer and enterprise services from 2022 any day of the week. Disclosure: I have been a Marine Corps Communications Officer for almost 20 years; starting before NMCI. I worked at the regional and enterprise levels to transition ownership back from the NMCI program/contractor to government owned.
- alexjplant 4y ago
  > . I disagree that NMCI was "damn near treasonous levels of awful." In 2018 I was issued an NMCI laptop with a hard disk drive in it... with platters and a spindle and everything. Each time I powered it on I spent 20 minutes being serenaded by its deliciously clicky retro soundtrack as I waited for a desktop with a working Start menu (and I use the term "working" loosely since it took 5 seconds to appear when clicked). If I didn't have work to do it might have been comforting - it kind of reminded me of my old Presario V2555 from the late 90s. Constant McAfee updates and poorly-designed bespoke MFC management apps completed the aesthetic nicely. "Treasonous" might be hyperbole but it isn't entirely unwarranted.
  - navbaker 4y ago
    This was 100% my experience. It was a standing joke in our Navy command of ~1200 people that the morning routine was to get into the office, type username/pw, then go get coffee and BS with co-workers for 30 minutes and by the time you got back, Outlook would just be finished coming up.

sure_about_that 4y ago

== I still can’t believe we spent $7T on the global war on terror and no one is asking questions.== Everyone who asked before we started that “war” was called a traitor.

daniel-cussen 4y ago
jti107 4y ago
dont forget the tax cuts and bailouts for big business that is added to the US national debt. currently at 31 trillion...but investing in education and healthcare for normal people is socialism ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- exq 4y ago
  Student load forgiveness is socialism, but hundreds of billions in PPP loans with no obligation to repay is "stimulating the economy" Classy.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    The government shut down businesses so it makes sense to compensate them. The government didn't force people to go the college or take out loans to pay for it.
    - hackyhacky 4y ago
      The government has an interest in educating its citizens. Just like how every other Western country subsidizes education.
      - refurb 4y ago
        The government in the US does subsidize education. Nobody was forced to take on debt they can repay because their were no job prospects.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        Has nothing to do with my point. The government required some businesses to shut down. They didn't force you to take out college loans. If you want to say there shouldn't be loans for college or whatever that is fine. The fact is, the US is not in that situation.
        hackyhacky 4y ago
        The government didn't force businesses to take out loans either. Complying with the law doesn't automatically mean you deserve compensation. Nevertheless, the government allowed businesses to take out loans, and in many cases forgave those loans, because it benefits the country. The government allowed students to take out loans, and in many cases forgave those loans, because it benefits the country. I'm not saying there shouldn't be college loans. I am saying the job of the government is to help people, and both kinds of loans, an both kinds of loan forgiveness, fall into that category.
    - hashin 4y ago
      Actually government does. It makes sense to nudge people towards acquiring more skills and they routinely do that. Also, the economy is punishing for those who don't have a college degree (it always was, but perhaps not at this level.) And how did we reach here? Government policies. I am not saying that these policies were bad. But there can be no denying that government is the major reason why more and more people are going to college. And definitely, if college is not free or subsidised, they will be forced to take loans. Again, because economy is punishing for those who don't have a college education.
  - User23 4y ago
    Both are direct expansions of the M1 money supply, which generally speaking will increase demand. Although sustainably stimulating the economy requires sustained investment on the supply side of the demand equation.
faeriechangling 4y ago
Not to put a fine point on it, but if you want to know what it was like back then, just say something like "I don't think we should finance the war in Ukraine. What is happening in Eastern Europe isn't our problem. Neutrality is the best policy" and see the rhetoric you'll hear. Usually blind allegations of shilling, being a Russian stooge, being a sock puppet, and so on. It was several times worse in the early days of the GWOT. Sikh's were getting killed for looking too Muslim. The stuff you see now where people want to include mandatory "Fact checks" in internet searches sort of paled to the crap we saw in the GWOT of Extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation, the Bush doctrine, destroying privacy laws in the name of patriotism, and so on. We've already started forgetting what happened.
- petersellers 4y ago
  > Not to put a fine point on it, but if you want to know what it was like back then, just say something like "I don't think we should finance the war in Ukraine. What is happening in Eastern Europe isn't our problem. Neutrality is the best policy" and see the rhetoric you'll hear What's happening now is not remotely comparable to what the US did in response to 9/11 - if anything, it's the opposite (we are defending a country from being invaded for BS reasons vs invading another country for BS reasons)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    At the beginning of the Iraq War, and for sometime thereafter, we were led to believe that Iraq was actively developing WMD. We weren't invading a country, but saving the world from imminent catastrophe at the hands of an unhinged and crazy dictator. The proof included claims by dozens of different intelligence agencies, testimony from high level insiders in the Iraq government, surveillance photos of mobile biological weapons laboratories, definitive proof of purchase of Uranium for nuclear weapons purposes, under oath testimony, and of course endless propaganda: --- Washington Post - "Irrefutable" : https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/irrefutable/e598b1be-a78a-4a42-8e1a-c336f7a217f4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i... NYTimes - "Irrefutable and Undeniable" : https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-undeniable.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u... --- To imagine all of this was fabricated or based on lies would make even the most enthusiastic conspiracy theorist look at you a bit funny. These events played a major role in shaping my worldview. And what we're going through today is even more extreme. The one bright side of this is that if we can manage to avoid nuclear annihilation, I expect an even larger chunk of the population will join the jaded and cynical asshole family. It's not a pleasant worldview, but probably necessary for the survival of humanity in the age of mass media and mass weapons.

thelittleone 4y ago

War on terror or war on anything. It's a complex thing. To hold on to power, a country must be constantly training their war machine. Wars are the best training for war. So say $7T is the cost of retaining power. What would the cost be of losing that power? Despite this grim perspective, I have hope for the future of humanity.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
exq 4y ago
Causing the deaths of 40-200 thousand civilians, thousands of our own armed forces and tens of thousands returning home wounded was just the cost of working that military muscle? Sorry but that's even more f'd up than the official reason we got told.
redanddead 4y ago
7T is a nice chunk of all the money in the world. What the fuck. Scammed to the sun and back.
UtopiaPunk 4y ago
Yikes

daniel-cussen 4y ago

throwaway892238 4y ago

Questioning military spending (or anything the military does) is still evidence that you're a traitor who hates America and the troops.

bruce511 4y ago
There is the false connection linking the Military with People. It is deliberately engineered to prevent criticism of the military. There is also the idea that the "military" are not to blame for wars, wars are created by politicians not the military. The truth is of course that generals want to go to war because it keeps their budget allocation high. These myths make it hard to both support Joe who's back from the war, and yet be anti the war in the first place. It's hard to mention that the overall military budget seems like a lot, without sounding like you're anti-joe. Even something as simple as "thank you for your service" is in some ways a propoganda. To ask an ex serviceman about the point of the Afgan war, to ask them if 100 000 dead Afghans makes up for 3000 on 9/11, to question the logic of signing up to serve in an army currently fighting an unjust war, would seem antagonistic. To question how Afghanistan is different to Ukraine would be unthinkable. [1] In truth one can (and should) support veterans, but perhaps can also raise questions about the scale of US military spending, and question the wisdom of having an enormous standing military which needs to get involved in conflicts of dubious value, simply to justify its own existance. [1] they are of course very different in a lot of ways, but in effect are the same in more ways we'd care to admit.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  Have you ever actually tried to have such a conversation? You might be surprised at how many veterans feel about their time in Afghanistan or who they think really disrespected their service.
  - bruce511 4y ago
    An excellent question. The short answer is "not a lot" - primarily because I think it's a conversation best had in person, not via forums. It's hard to create the nuance such a discussion would need when typing. But, perhaps more to the point, it's not veterans that worry me. I suspect (as I think do you) that many are disillusioned with the real outcomes of the war. Just like those who served in Vietnam etc. No, the people who worry me are the "politicals". Those who see _any_ criticism of the military as being anti-troops. (As noted above, this is expressly the outcome the military-industrial-complex has been working on forever.) And the messaging is so successful that, on either side of the isle, it's basically political suicide to "vote against the military". While reducing the spending on the military may garner some support from those who have actually served (although I doubt in significant percentages) - it's the blow-back from those not actually in the military (military families, and everyone else) which is most concerning. There are not so supportive as those who are not actually doing any of the work or in any of the danger.

QuarterReptile 4y ago

It's quite possible that NMCI works just as poorly now. In my office we have desktops running Windows 10 on 8gb RAM and HDD (spinning drives.) It should surprise no one that Windows 10 has bloated beyond the capability of slow hard drives to keep up; I maintain maxed out disk read utilization at all times, and consequent here maximum number of browser tabs before lag kicks in is none. Outlook is even worse than Chrome (new official browser of DoD websites.) The fastest way to check email at work is to go out to my car and connect laptop via Hotspot for OWA. Next best way is to go home and use OWA there, with using the work computer the slowest option by about 10 minutes.

User23 4y ago

I can, off the top of my head, think of seven trillion reasons why.

drewpc 4y ago

I agree that military IT has been atrocious. I disagree that NMCI was "damn near treasonous levels of awful." NMCI was a large, Department of the Navy (DoN) -wide contract that had incredibly challenging tasks it needed to complete to be successful. The first few years were bad but it got better over time and, by the time the next transition was set to happen, it was running pretty smoothly. When people complained about not getting the things they wanted, what they were really railing against was the fact that they didn't get what they wanted all the time anymore; the military grew accustomed to telling someone "I want X" and it happened, regardless of cost, lifecycle sustainment, security, etc. NMCI forced the DoN to develop and articulate requirements properly, write good contracts, budget for software and hardware sustainment, and generally operate professionally. In short, I would take an NMCI computer and enterprise services from 2010 versus a Marine Corps Enterprise Network computer and enterprise services from 2022 any day of the week. Disclosure: I have been a Marine Corps Communications Officer for almost 20 years; starting before NMCI. I worked at the regional and enterprise levels to transition ownership back from the NMCI program/contractor to government owned.

alexjplant 4y ago
> . I disagree that NMCI was "damn near treasonous levels of awful." In 2018 I was issued an NMCI laptop with a hard disk drive in it... with platters and a spindle and everything. Each time I powered it on I spent 20 minutes being serenaded by its deliciously clicky retro soundtrack as I waited for a desktop with a working Start menu (and I use the term "working" loosely since it took 5 seconds to appear when clicked). If I didn't have work to do it might have been comforting - it kind of reminded me of my old Presario V2555 from the late 90s. Constant McAfee updates and poorly-designed bespoke MFC management apps completed the aesthetic nicely. "Treasonous" might be hyperbole but it isn't entirely unwarranted.
- navbaker 4y ago
  This was 100% my experience. It was a standing joke in our Navy command of ~1200 people that the morning routine was to get into the office, type username/pw, then go get coffee and BS with co-workers for 30 minutes and by the time you got back, Outlook would just be finished coming up.