Getting tired of that damn constant blue screen.

that silly BSD thing

They changed the background from blue to black. Can't blue screen of death anymore!!

something like "An error in Windows has occurred". That got quoted so often, they moved to a much more complicated description that wasn't a sound bite. After that, they moved to this elaborate blue screen loaded with text, but the populus shortened that to simple "the blue screen of death" (or BSOD) and now apparently it's black.

On the bright side, you can still call it the BSOD, except now the "B" for "blue" stands for "black".

I would imagine it runs NALCOMIS, STASS, the INTEGRITY system (GreenHills Software) or a host of other specialized OS.

In 2011 or 2012, the US Navy payed $28 mil to Raytheon to install a modified (read: secured) versions of Linux on its VTOL drones.

But I don't know if those result in blue screen or not.

All of the engine and fight controls I've worked on employed s/w you never see in commercial work. Maybe times have changed. Simulators use LINUX OS and C++. The sims and real boxes are isolated from the outside, making work on them very difficult, but keeps the s/w clean. The flight and engine computers I've worked on have backup systems which may be degraded slightly, less bells and whistles, but still do the basic work.

the WAR industry. And it did. That's all those machines are supposed to do.

We can't afford to:

• provide Medicare for All healthcare to all citizens.
  
• fix our crumbling infrastructure,
  
• provide free college for our young people,
  
• provide quality child care for working parents at low or no cost.
  
• Add your own list!!!!

dollars are spent on fixing the fuck ups.
My friends are int he defense industry, in IT work, and they say "I was supposed to be there until May and it's been two years now".. all the time. We need more money. More money.

The war profiteers buy the Treasury's buyers--we call them Congress--and they get unlimited access to that treasure.

Our government is owned, we the people are owned.

of this nonsense creating jobs in their states or districts.

Fat chance it will disappear. Even things the Pentagon doesn't want get funded for this reason.

About right, when I was in the military, those things (aircraft/gadgets) always failed to work properly. But its the American way, the rich get richer and the poor keep dying in their wars.

My boss would tear me a new one if I showed a half-penny rounding error on a multi-billion dollar calculation. Certainly such grievous failure would be cited as an excuse to withhold a raise or bonus.

But somehow our cutting edge military technology can tolerate all manner of fuck-ups as long as we keep heaving cash at it.

For a Fighter Jet... that has zero tested capability to resist cyber attacks, a faulty radar system - and vulnerability to lightning strikes. Hmm. A trillion dollars. You know, I just can't find words vile enough to describe how I feel about that.

In 2014, the cost of the F-35 program up to that point could buy every homeless person in the U.S. a $600,000 home, unilaterally fund most recognized humanitarian crises, feed all schoolchildren in the U.S., or fund much of the desperately needed $1.1 trillion in repairs civil engineers estimate is needed to rejuvenate U.S. infrastructure.

Pretty damn telling where the priorities are among the powers that be, isn't it? Trillions in off shore accounts, trillions in the MIC funding, trillions for wars... but, well, fuck the poor, the homeless, education, infrastructure, healthcare... and pretty much everything else... because, you know... uh, corporations are people, money is personhood personified or some shit.

Forgive my vulgar language, this stuff just makes me so sick. How much could we do with that money if we put it to decent purposes? Me and my aching back and my non-existent bank account are feeling the Bern right now... but also feeling the immense disgust with established politics and the almost unimaginable greed and corruption of the MIC, corporate America, Super PACs and so on and so forth.

A trillion dollars for a damned fighter jet that we'd be stupid to use for it's intended purpose. How much will it cost to get the bugs out? Sick sick sick.

it's slower and less maneuverable than the MIG-29.
It costs a lot more though: 400% and growing.

We have to fund Cheney's secret government somehow, right?
Besides, what else could we use the money for? might as well make the 1% richer.

And the financial world can't figure how to pay for healthcare and college?

you'll get in trouble.

...we don't take blood oaths or demand perfect syncopation. We're all Democrats on a Democratic discussion board.

...if it means needed jobs for their state or district. The MIC has its tentacles into everything and everyone.
Yes, it's wrong, and Yes it needs to change.

Who is most likely to bring change to that scenario Warhawk Clinton - you know, best buds with war criminals and neocons, or Sanders?

And honestly, between Hill and Bernie: who's gonna be the first to start that war or push that button?

And don't get me wrong: the stranglehold the MIC has on this country is disgusting. But that was the underlying strategy: MIC-related facilities IN EVERY STATE, no one in government could turn them away.

And he has already admitted it would NOT be on his chopping block when he starts taking on the military waste if he becomes president! A HUGE chunk of taxpayer dollars have been, and will continue to be, wasted on this, and yet Bernie will not add it to his list of "wasteful military spending cuts"!

If he were to ever become the nominee

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/09/bernie-sanders-loves-this-1-trillion-war-machine.html

In fact, they would be reaching for everything they could possibly find to try and throw at Bernie. Now Hill, on the other hand, will be the recipient OF YEARS OF INBORN GENETIC RETHUGLICAN HATE.

You want to have a real conversation about Hillary being the Democratic nominee? Fine. Let's talk about her national electability. The numbers last night out of Michigan for her perceived honesty and trustworthiness were downright scary.

The primary season is not over yet, not by a long shot. And if by hook or by crook - emphasis on the crook - Hillary is the nominee, prepare to lose the Presidency. Y'all in the Hillary Hive may not want to look in that direction or have that conversation, but let me assure you, that conversation is taking place in all kinds of places today.

Hillary Clinton is ballot box poison in the general election.

The "Defense Contractors".

The F-35 is getting a lot of flak, but it's the at the crux of our future military capability. Yes, it is a work in progress, but all new major roll-outs of war birds encounter the same birthing pains. Nobody else comes close to this aircraft.

been made redundant by updates to Radar.

It may yet be one more billion dollar weapon system that can be brought down by a teenager with a sling shot and a bottle cap.

Nothing says "jobs programs " like military contacts.

to join Veterans For Peace.

It amazes me that so many Americans only complain
mildly, if at all, as the MIC steals our country.

(little pun there..lol)

maintain/modernize the current airframes, and those costs will also escalate as the frames continue to age, right?? And at the end of the day we'd still only have one 5th-gen jet (F-22A) which is out of production while Russia and China continue to develop multiple 5th-gens...

F-35A = Air Force
F-35B = Marines
F-35C = Navy

Here's the same story minus the screechy editorializing: http://www.janes.com/article/58561/f-35-mission-software-stability-poses-greatest-risk-to-usaf-ioc

February 25, 2016

The U.S. Air Force has given up on trying to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft at least until 2022 and likely well beyond, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

After repeatedly losing the battle with Congress over continued funding for the aircraft, Carter said that the fiscal 2017 proposed budget for the Pentagon was putting off the next fight over retiring the aircraft known as the “Warthog” to generations of ground troops until 2022.

Even then, Carter said the Air Force and the Defense Department would approach sending the A-10s to the “boneyard” for outdated aircraft carefully, given the aircraft’s strong performance in Iraq and Syria and likely continued support in Congress unless there is a radical makeover in the membership.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2016/02/25/air-force-shelves-a-10-retirement-plan-until-next-decade/

They operate at orders of magnitude less expense and out-perform the F-35 at the slow speed ground support stuff.

Send them up on party balloons.

Such colors, such textures, such lines. No one else in the world dresses so fine.

they are too big, too complex, with too many new things, trying to do them all at once.

the private sector does them as well, eg. GM10 platform.

DOD (and Gov't generally) needs to be forced to limit the novelty in their procurements.

right now they have the mentality that any new plane must have: new materials, new construction methods, new surface coatings, new control surface design, new flight control software, new weapons control software, new weapons systems, new engine technologies, as well as greater range, higher speed, STOL and on and on....

If there was political leadership that said, "no, you cannot have 20 new things, you get to do three, and for the rest of it, use existing tech that is known to work", these projects would have much less chance of being a fiasco.

(faint hope) maybe we will get some reform if Trump is elected: he has no ties to military contractors, and he does not like projects that are over budget and late.

any part of our government.