PowerBook, Because Lives Are On The Line

WCityMike writes "Major Shawn Weed, an intelligence planner with the Third Infantry Division, eschewed his Panasonic Toughbook because it wasn't fast enough in processing giant satellite and reconnaissance images. He put in a requisition for and received a PowerBook G4, the only Apple currently being used in the entire Middle East theater. 'Frankly, lives are in the balance here, so the quicker I can get stuff done accurately, the better,' Weed says."

Comments

Re:It's not ruggedized.

[C0LDFusion]

Perhaps you guys missed the demonstration where the Powerbook G4 was run over by an 18-wheeler, then it backed up (over the powerbook) and ran over it again...then someone walked up, picked it up and started it up fine? I've seen it done, and I've never met anyone who has had physical damage disable a powerbook, except when the LCD was directly struck (while it was open).

With my luck...

[(H)elix1]

I'll be the one pulling the laptop out from underneath the Major's corpse trying to figure out where the heck is the second mouse button went. Faster/better/different is great until you have to take over someones job unexpectedly. More of an occupational hazard in his area... though the Valley is not much safer (job wise).

Re:You think Apple's prices are high?

[Nipsy356]

I can understand inflated prices on aircraft parts. I can understand inflated prices on boomers. I can understand inflated prices in missile control silos.

However, aside from the fact that the initial post was intended to be humorous, the military spending is still out of control, and full of pork.

From: Price Trends for Defense Logistics Agency's Weapon System (GAO November 2000), which found that between 1997, and 1998, prices of 2,993 different spare parts purchased by the military increased over one thousand percent, and 14 percent of the total spare parts ordered from defense contractors increased at least 50 percent in price in that one year. Contractors have been underbidding the prices, then jacking up the prices upon time for billing. Parts like a bolt, initially quoted at $40, ended up being $1,887, or a self-locking nut, quoted at $2.69, ended up costing $2, 185. These are not nearly the worst examples of cost increases . . . A linear microcircuit, original 1997 price $0.11 cents, cost $5,788.76, thermal insulation that really cost $1, ended up costing $3,390, or the boss nipple, costing $1, cost the US military $1,498.48.

Ok serious question

[Holi]

If the military is using intel equipped notebooks running windows 2000, then changing from his too slow but rugged notebook to a powerbook I would tend to think he is using some off the shefl commercial app. Why? because I really doubt the military would spend the time or effort to redevelop some custom app for processing satellite images just so one Major can run non-standard equipment. Infact it is rare that the military will let anyone use non-standard equipment in a critical position. So I tend to think this guy is probably not in a critcal position and may actually be in some PR department in the army where he may be using Photoshop or the like to touch up images for dispersal to various news organizations.

Re:Ok serious question

[2nd Post!]

There's no reason he couldn't be doing imagine manipulation, enhancement, and analysis using Photoshop; so long as the image is in a standard image format (and why not?), it's just pixels and filters.

I mean, even if it's just simple stuff:
Overlays of two images taken in different spectrums (IR and visible)
Time-lapse animation (multiple layers transformed into an animation, not unlike an animated GIF)
Edge detection/feature enhancement
Cropping to remove useless data
Rotation, perspective, and skewing to transform poorly captured or framed images into more easily understood images
Overlay of before/after shots (perhaps using difference blending)
Comparison of two different photos with an identical feature (perhaps identifing buildings, known vs unknown, performed again with overlays and blends)
Scaling of a photo so a comparison to a similar photo, taken with different settings, can be accomplished
Enhancement of a photo to compensate for low light levels (levels, etc)
Normalization of a photo (perspective, levels, colors, scale) so comparisons between two different photos can be accomplished

All of those are trivial with Photoshop.

Re:Ok serious question

[nettdata]

And of course, I just thought of something...

It'd be interesting to see what software he's using since he can do the same job on both the Winows 2000 and the OS X platform... I wonder if it IS photoshop that they're using, of if it's some internal military app?

If it was some internal, special app, maybe it's been ported to both Unix and Windows, meaning the OSX box just had to recompile it.

Maybe all he did was install Fink and then recompile the thing, and now it works. Wouldn't THAT be a story!

In a way it'd be kind of boring to think that all he did was use Photoshop. *sigh*

Re:Ok serious question

[BWJones]

I'll answer this for you.

You certainly *can* use Photoshop for many of these functions and I know/have used it for these purposes. Photoshop is one of the most powerful applications in the history of computing for its intended purpose. In addition, there is other software that performs specific GIS functionality (image classification, image registration etc...) on OS X. Some of it written *by* folks in the U.S. Army, the NRO and NIMA.

Durability, then vs. now?

[JMZorko]

A couple of years ago, my brother called me up and said "do you want an iBook?" I said "Sure, what's up?" His story was that a friend of his got it when he enlisted in the Army, he was discharged early for some reason and got to keep it, and he needed $$$ so he sold it to my brother, who gave it to me. I don't know if this story is true, but the iBook had OS9, 96MB RAM and the Airport card. This was the original tangerine 300mhz model.

So I pose, if this is true, and the Army buys computers in bulk for general-purpose use without regard to what applications they might be used for, a.) why they chose the iBook then, and b.) why they didn't this time. Are the old iBooks somehow more durable than the new (they're definitely a lot heavier)?

Regards,

John

Re:Is this a good idea...

[doooras]

funny thing about duct tape... this is from an article i read last week in either the NY Times, WSJ or USA Today, don't remember which.

Duct tape was originally developed for military use to keep water out of ammo cases, and it was called "duck tape"

It wasn't called "duct tape" until the 70's when some company advertised it as such, and it stuck.

Not the only...

[Dak RIT]

Actually it's not the *only* PowerBook G4 being used here right now. I've got an 867MHz PowerBook G4 I bought back in July 2002 that I am using while stationed in Camp Va, Kuwait. I use it for very similar reasons to Major Weed, although I had to purchase mine myself.

Re:It's not ruggedized.

[Wyatt Earp]

I've had TiBooks for two years (a 400 and a 550) and they've both stood up fine in travel and mobile use.

In fact after 1 year of using the 400 everyday at home and work and transporting it back and forth, and taking it back and forth across 1,500 miles in MR-2s and United Airlines 737s the person I sold it too thought it was brand new.

I've always used either a Burton DJ bag - http://www.burton.com/gear/pr_bags.asp?productID=6 51

Or an Oakley Computer Bag - http://www.oakley.com/ostore/apparel/spring_02_com puter_bag/

I also use a piece of foam between the keyboard and screen.

After two years my laptops have gotten a few little scratches.