LM's hired for technical expertise - as well as delivering the product. And LM focussed only on delivering the product as defined in the contract, and perhaps ill-conceived deviations.
I guess the reason why I can't imagine this happening in my situation is that my current customer is pretty sharp, and probably wouldn't make a decision like this.
Don't get me wrong - one can be pissed off as a taxpayer at the waste that goes on, or the dangers to our troops, and, at the same time, as an engineer, accept that the process happened as it was designed to, and everyone did their best. I normally do a pretty good job of separating those two feelings. When you look at what the American military (and associated industries) are capable of, has accomplished, compared to most other nations, some of the most stupid things seem worthwhile. (ie. maybe it's worth it to pay $1000 for a hammer, because in the context of our technical military success in Bosnia, or the initial Iraq invasion, $1000 hammers are worth every penny - even if they were unnecessary).
It sounds like you feel that not everyone did their best. Not knowing the details, I don't know if that's correct or not, and I probably can't know that. But your background and experience, and your passion, tells me that you're probably right. (though I question your judgement in posting what may be proprietary and national security details to YouTube - again - you probably have your reasons for feeling it was necessary, though I would hope if I were in a similar situation, I'd try to find a way to make my point without violating my SF-312).
I hope this works out for you, because this country needs more passionate and honest engineers, not less.
Sorry - I replied to other posts not realizing you were the person this story is about.
I'd really like to discuss this in more detail. If nothing else, maybe it will give me more insight into how these things work; I'm a relatively low-level employee, and have only been in this business a couple of years. I can't imagine this kind of thing going on on my project. However, I don't think it's a good idea to go into more detail in this forum, and we would both have the responsibility to protect proprietary and controlled information. Which is why I try to speak in analogies and generalities.
All engineering is trade-offs, of course, and some trade-offs, you can't know about ahead of time, no matter how competent or diligent you are. But if you keep your customer informed of the trade-offs as they arise (which, by the processes WE use, they have full and ready access to pretty much all of our engineering data, plans, test results, etc.) and if the customer agrees to the path things are taking, even if they don't get 100% of what they originally wanted, it should be okay, ethically speaking - right? Sailors are at risk - but they're at risk all the time. You can't ever 100% eliminate risk, but you mitigate it. If the Coast Guard accepts the mitigation, then doesn't that make it all right, from a LM perspective? Even if the mitigation (whatever that is - no details!) may not, in the opinion of some engineers, be sufficient? If there's a concern that the individual people making this call were not technical enough to understand the ramifications, I guess there is a duty of the technical engineer to inform. . .
These situations get sticky when you've got multiple customers, subcontractors, independent oversight agencies, etc. in the mix.
Now, if the contractor is not truthful with the customer, that's where the problem can arise. I don't see precisely where that happened - except in the relationship between the DHS and CG. Since LM is getting paid by DHS (right?), that makes this kind of a fuzzy area if the CG okayed the deviation.
Basically I belive LM said take them or we burn more schedule and money.
LM - if it followed it's ethical practices - should never have suggested any of that be accepted.
WTF? If the customer is given a choice: accept it as it is, or we'll have to take the time to fix it - how is that unethical?
It's like taking your car to the shop for an oil change, and the guy telling you that the oil-plug got stripped when he took it out, and he's going to have to order you a new oil pan, and it's going to cost you xxxx more dollars to get your car back in running order. You can either take the car home on a tow truck, or pay to get a new oil pan.
Now - it's possible the guy over-torqued the nut and stripped it - or it's also possible that the last jiffy-lube guy cross-threaded it on the last oil change, and just jammed it back in there, leaving it for the next poor sap. There's no way to know -
The burden is now on the Coast Guard to make the right choice. Either ding the contractor for not meeting obligations, or give them a deviation and take the boats.
We don't know the details of the contract, and what authority the CG had under DHS to make that call, and we don't know if there was a deviation filed. So we can't really say if anyone breeched the contract.
I know what it's like to be passionate about a project, and doing the right thing, so I really do feel for this guy. A lot of these ethical situations really do get very grey and fuzzy. Some of them become very clear when all the details are known, and most of the time, it's impossible to know all the details.
Yes - there were noises (official noises) about trouble with ACS long before it's cancellation. I don't think there was any kind of cover up involved there.
I am willing to bet that there was a customer acceptance of the risk, or a planned fix during the next spiral of development.
More like; the customer didn't really know what they wanted.
While we don't actually know for certain what has happened, I can probably make a fair guess that this guy was frustrated by the bureaucracy of the company.
Not likely. You don't work there very long if you can't handle the bureaucracy. People either learn to live with it, or they're out fairly quickly. Same with other big defense contractors. It's the nature of the business. My take on the attrition issue (in the industry) is that it's a compansation issue - very simple to solve, until you take on the denial component ("no, our engineers don't need to earn enough to be able to buy a house. We're paying the going market rate"). People will leave because of the bureaucracy fairly quickly, no matter what you pay them. The ones that stay, will leave later on, when they realize they could afford to raise a family if they went to work in the private sector. It's that simple.
It's true - technical concerns go up the chain of technical management. Ethical concerns go up the chain of "functional" management. This is not unique to LM - it's called a "matrix organization". In my experience, the functional managers are hired out of the same pool as technical managers, most often they wear two hats, technical and functional, but they're technical manager to the technical team, and functional manager to a different group of workers. There's nothing special about the relative competence between functional and technical managers. LM (as well as most other large corporations in the US) has a separate, anonymous, if necessary, mechanism to report ethics issues up the chain.
(there is still not enough info on what happened to make a stong opinion IMHO).
It is pretty simple. We don't have enough information. Either the Ethics system didn't work for this guy, or there was a deviation letter he didn't know about (why they wouldn't tell him about it after he made such a fuss is beyond me).
What you say can probably be interpreted as "true" - particularly by the Modern McCarthyites out there.
Personally, I think that our National Security is safer if we have Coast Guard boats without vulnerabilities. If they have vulnerabilities, but only a few people know about them, that doesn't make the sailors safe.
Go google "Security by obscurity" - and maybe you'll catch on to why we're better off with these issues made public.
The Enemy will test for these vulnerabilities and find them, just as easily, whether they were made public by a whistleblower or not. The solution is to fix them. Not ineffectively hide them, and punish critics.
LM has nothing to lose and everything to gain by "coming clean" if that's the case.
Past ethical behavior does have a measure of effect on winning future contracts. There are plenty of examples where ethical contractors have pulled the plug - sometimes painfully - on contracts where they knew they couldn't meet the customer's requirements. This short-term pain pays off, in long-term reputation.
The $60,000 question: Did LM get a formal deviation letter for these requirements they could/did not meet?
And if you can say so, where is this money coming from? DoD? DHS? CG?
It sounds like the money's coming from DHS, and the CG has somehow been given de-facto authority over the contract (by not cooperating with the DHS IG, and DHS IG backing down). If that's the case, I think that's the DHS's problem, not LM's or yours. But this is definately not a cut-and-dried issue, ethics-wise.
Now I do think that this might have some merit, but if no one cared at the Coast Guard, the people who are ordering the ships, I don't think there is anything more to say. In the end, they are the ones who need to say that it is unacceptible. They are the ones who need to say that we want X% of money back due to not meeting X requirement(s).
That's not precisely true either.
The people paying for this are the TAXPAYERS. The people making the contract are usually a DoD intermediary of some kind, or a Special Projects Office, etc.
They set the contract requirements, and they pay the contractor.
Not the Coast Guard.
It could be that the Coast Guard is overstepping their bounds here, or is possibly otherwise unable to communicate the actual requirements to the contract authority (whoever that is).
If Lockheed can't meet the requirements, they file for a deviation, with the contract authority (whoever that is in this case). The Coast Guard should have input into the process, but unless the money's coming out of their budget directly, (it's not, it's coming from DHS), then their opinion can be overridden by the folks who are actively paying.
It's difficult to glean the whole story from this guy's video. But I'd be really shocked to find out that the contractor's management and the Coast Guard were in cahoots to deliver a product that didn't meet requirements, without approval of the contract authority. With all the exposure this case has gotten (they guy says there have been ethics reviews, and involvement at the DoD level, and the contractor Executive level), I just really find it hard to believe that this is going on the way he's telling this story.
Say I'm a hypothetical poor college student. Why would I pay Green Day (or whatever) to incent them to produce another album when: A) They may not do it, or B) it may end up being crap, or C) I can always download a free copy from Pirate Bay after other people pay them?
Additionally - the only people who would get commissioned under such a system, are established big names, so we'll be stuck once again with a system that emphasizes Promotion and Salesmanship over Creativity and Innovation. New artists, who may be innovative, who may have new ideas, who are unknown, and not the children of established artists, would not get any exposure, and will be drowned out by the noise of the money-makers. No different than the situation today.
The root of this entire problem is: while Promotion and Salesmanship are necessary to link sellers and buyers, the old model of Promotion and Salesmanship (giant monolithic media megacorporations) are no longer the only method. Social networks (like Napster in the 1990's) and information tools like search engines and such, can go a long way to "removing the middle man". The artists just haven't realized it yet.
I think that the deliciously ironic situation of Apple Computer not being able to be a Music Producer due to contractual agreement with Apple Records, is precisely the situation that's blocking the wholesale elimination of the "old guard" in the Music industry.
If an online music distribution agent such as Apple iTunes Music Store ever got into the Music Production business, and worked directly with artists (or, if the big RIAA members ever got their shit together with a decent online distribution scheme - with more laid-back DRM like Apple's FairPlay) - then the market would finally flow in the natural direction of least resistance - which is where most of us net-folk inherently sense it must eventually go.
DRM is a desire to "control". It's a tool for control.
DRM can be lax, or obnoxiously in-your-face. It can be a carrot, or a stick. It can be a line painted on the ground, or it can be a barbed-wire fence with armed guards, dogs, and mines.
There's an obvious, value-add appeal to lax-DRM. Apple's success in the market so far proves this. For me - Apple's price-point is too high. But the millions of iTMS customers disagree with me, apparently.
The problem with DRM, in general, as Lawrence Lessig pointed out, like 10 years ago, is that it lets a software engineer (and the media company exec who pays him) play the role of Legislator, without the inconvenience of having to be elected, or answer to the Constitutional yardstick imposed by a judiciary.
We don't want media execs making our de facto laws for us (enforced by software code). But we don't want our Legislators writing our software applications for us either. Quite a pickle.
In the meantime, I believe the market has spoken. Someday, the folks who stand to make actual money will give up their childish and unrealistic desire for "control" - and realize that; VHS made Hollywood trillions. MP3 can do the same for the music industry, if given the chance.
I'm as much of a Mac OS X booster as anyone - I have 4 of them in my home.
But until Apple resolves the performance issue that apparently is part of the mach kernal, (which could possibly involve a major re-architecting of the OS), I don't see OS X Server taking much marketshare.
Mac OS X Client, *is* definately poised to steal a bunch of marketshare from Microsoft. (mainly due to Microsoft's incompetence - that monopoly was theirs to lose). But I just don't see the server market going anywhere but Linux anytime soon.
From what he said, it sounds like his management told him to stop investigating where they were possibly not meeting up to contractual obligations. In this case, US sailors lives could be at risk. This also goes against established DoD contracting procedures, and the corporate policies of this guy's employer.
If what this guy is saying in his video is true, Lucy's got some 'splainin' to do.
On the other hand, this guy could be a flake or he could be lying.
Very often, on these kinds of contracts, it turns out that the requirements just can't be met. It's an impossibility, or there isn't enough money left, whoever did the proposal may have done his or her due-diligence, but upon undertaking the actual engineering task, it turns out not to be feasible - for whatever reason. In these cases, the contractor goes back to the negotiating table and gets a waiver or exemption, etc. and they move on - often at a penalty. It's possible that LockMart did this, and this guy was not told about it, and instead was just told to chill. Maybe he assumed that there was wrongdoing going on when he was just not informed.
The kinds of programs I've worked, and the people I've worked with, I find it very difficult to believe it has happened exactly the way he said - there are two sides to every story. Then again, I've heard some pretty detailed stories about some of the contractor fraud that's been going on among playas like Titan, MZM, etc. They must have a different set of rules than what I've ever seen. I can't understand how any of these yo yo's get into the front door at the Pentagon. And then there's Boeing's recent issues (Tanker-lease program, United Launch Alliance, etc.). Just don't know what to think sometimes.
I for one think Iran having nuclear weapons will make us stop taking ill-advised decisions when it comes to meddling in the affairs of small, oil-rich countries.
Ah, so young. So naive.
They'll march other people's kids into the mushroom cloud. While their own will be playing polo.
You're right. I was mistakenly converting what I thought was 100k Kilometers to 60k miles - based on faulty memory of what I read at TDIclub.com last year. Good news for me - because I'm coming up on 60k miles, and was worried I had to change it soon.
I re-read the service guide more carefully. (Actually - the service guide that came with my car was in French for some reason; the rest of my manual is in English - I bought mine used from out of state).
Show me a telephone number which you can dial and that, by the simple act of connection, results in the infiltration of your company's office such that your Intranet data
Think about this. Most of the best hacks are via social engineering. The classic social engineering hacks are done via telephone.
Slashdot Mirror
Invite them over to your place for an evening of "mastrubating to internet porn together".
You'll be the most popular person in the clique for sure.
What about simulated stuffed-animal porn?
Those poor care-bears! They couldn't consent to those acts!
It was true, not too long ago (perhaps still?) that girls as young as 16 could appear in porn, in the UK, with a parent's permission.
I can see where you're coming from now.
LM's hired for technical expertise - as well as delivering the product.
And LM focussed only on delivering the product as defined in the contract, and perhaps ill-conceived deviations.
I guess the reason why I can't imagine this happening in my situation is that my current customer is pretty sharp, and probably wouldn't make a decision like this.
Don't get me wrong - one can be pissed off as a taxpayer at the waste that goes on, or the dangers to our troops, and, at the same time, as an engineer, accept that the process happened as it was designed to, and everyone did their best. I normally do a pretty good job of separating those two feelings. When you look at what the American military (and associated industries) are capable of, has accomplished, compared to most other nations, some of the most stupid things seem worthwhile. (ie. maybe it's worth it to pay $1000 for a hammer, because in the context of our technical military success in Bosnia, or the initial Iraq invasion, $1000 hammers are worth every penny - even if they were unnecessary).
It sounds like you feel that not everyone did their best. Not knowing the details, I don't know if that's correct or not, and I probably can't know that. But your background and experience, and your passion, tells me that you're probably right. (though I question your judgement in posting what may be proprietary and national security details to YouTube - again - you probably have your reasons for feeling it was necessary, though I would hope if I were in a similar situation, I'd try to find a way to make my point without violating my SF-312).
I hope this works out for you, because this country needs more passionate and honest engineers, not less.
Sorry - I replied to other posts not realizing you were the person this story is about.
I'd really like to discuss this in more detail. If nothing else, maybe it will give me more insight into how these things work; I'm a relatively low-level employee, and have only been in this business a couple of years. I can't imagine this kind of thing going on on my project. However, I don't think it's a good idea to go into more detail in this forum, and we would both have the responsibility to protect proprietary and controlled information. Which is why I try to speak in analogies and generalities.
All engineering is trade-offs, of course, and some trade-offs, you can't know about ahead of time, no matter how competent or diligent you are. But if you keep your customer informed of the trade-offs as they arise (which, by the processes WE use, they have full and ready access to pretty much all of our engineering data, plans, test results, etc.) and if the customer agrees to the path things are taking, even if they don't get 100% of what they originally wanted, it should be okay, ethically speaking - right? Sailors are at risk - but they're at risk all the time. You can't ever 100% eliminate risk, but you mitigate it. If the Coast Guard accepts the mitigation, then doesn't that make it all right, from a LM perspective? Even if the mitigation (whatever that is - no details!) may not, in the opinion of some engineers, be sufficient? If there's a concern that the individual people making this call were not technical enough to understand the ramifications, I guess there is a duty of the technical engineer to inform. . .
These situations get sticky when you've got multiple customers, subcontractors, independent oversight agencies, etc. in the mix.
Now, if the contractor is not truthful with the customer, that's where the problem can arise. I don't see precisely where that happened - except in the relationship between the DHS and CG. Since LM is getting paid by DHS (right?), that makes this kind of a fuzzy area if the CG okayed the deviation.
Basically I belive LM said take them or we burn more schedule and money.
LM - if it followed it's ethical practices - should never have suggested any of that be accepted.
WTF?
If the customer is given a choice: accept it as it is, or we'll have to take the time to fix it - how is that unethical?
It's like taking your car to the shop for an oil change, and the guy telling you that the oil-plug got stripped when he took it out, and he's going to have to order you a new oil pan, and it's going to cost you xxxx more dollars to get your car back in running order. You can either take the car home on a tow truck, or pay to get a new oil pan.
Now - it's possible the guy over-torqued the nut and stripped it - or it's also possible that the last jiffy-lube guy cross-threaded it on the last oil change, and just jammed it back in there, leaving it for the next poor sap. There's no way to know -
The burden is now on the Coast Guard to make the right choice.
Either ding the contractor for not meeting obligations, or give them a deviation and take the boats.
We don't know the details of the contract, and what authority the CG had under DHS to make that call, and we don't know if there was a deviation filed. So we can't really say if anyone breeched the contract.
I know what it's like to be passionate about a project, and doing the right thing, so I really do feel for this guy. A lot of these ethical situations really do get very grey and fuzzy.
Some of them become very clear when all the details are known, and most of the time, it's impossible to know all the details.
Ever hear of ACS?
Yes - there were noises (official noises) about trouble with ACS long before it's cancellation. I don't think there was any kind of cover up involved there.
I am willing to bet that there was a customer acceptance of the risk, or a planned fix during the next spiral of development.
More like; the customer didn't really know what they wanted.
While we don't actually know for certain what has happened, I can probably make a fair guess that this guy was frustrated by the bureaucracy of the company.
Not likely. You don't work there very long if you can't handle the bureaucracy. People either learn to live with it, or they're out fairly quickly. Same with other big defense contractors. It's the nature of the business. My take on the attrition issue (in the industry) is that it's a compansation issue - very simple to solve, until you take on the denial component ("no, our engineers don't need to earn enough to be able to buy a house. We're paying the going market rate"). People will leave because of the bureaucracy fairly quickly, no matter what you pay them. The ones that stay, will leave later on, when they realize they could afford to raise a family if they went to work in the private sector. It's that simple.
It's true - technical concerns go up the chain of technical management. Ethical concerns go up the chain of "functional" management. This is not unique to LM - it's called a "matrix organization". In my experience, the functional managers are hired out of the same pool as technical managers, most often they wear two hats, technical and functional, but they're technical manager to the technical team, and functional manager to a different group of workers. There's nothing special about the relative competence between functional and technical managers. LM (as well as most other large corporations in the US) has a separate, anonymous, if necessary, mechanism to report ethics issues up the chain.
(there is still not enough info on what happened to make a stong opinion IMHO).
It is pretty simple. We don't have enough information.
Either the Ethics system didn't work for this guy, or there was a deviation letter he didn't know about (why they wouldn't tell him about it after he made such a fuss is beyond me).
What you say can probably be interpreted as "true" - particularly by the Modern McCarthyites out there.
Personally, I think that our National Security is safer if we have Coast Guard boats without vulnerabilities.
If they have vulnerabilities, but only a few people know about them, that doesn't make the sailors safe.
Go google "Security by obscurity" - and maybe you'll catch on to why we're better off with these issues made public.
The Enemy will test for these vulnerabilities and find them, just as easily, whether they were made public by a whistleblower or not. The solution is to fix them. Not ineffectively hide them, and punish critics.
Do you have any idea what LM's total business is?
LM has nothing to lose and everything to gain by "coming clean" if that's the case.
Past ethical behavior does have a measure of effect on winning future contracts. There are plenty of examples where ethical contractors have pulled the plug - sometimes painfully - on contracts where they knew they couldn't meet the customer's requirements. This short-term pain pays off, in long-term reputation.
It's not just about ethics, it's good business.
The $60,000 question:
Did LM get a formal deviation letter for these requirements they could/did not meet?
And if you can say so, where is this money coming from? DoD? DHS? CG?
It sounds like the money's coming from DHS, and the CG has somehow been given de-facto authority over the contract (by not cooperating with the DHS IG, and DHS IG backing down). If that's the case, I think that's the DHS's problem, not LM's or yours. But this is definately not a cut-and-dried issue, ethics-wise.
Now I do think that this might have some merit, but if no one cared at the Coast Guard, the people who are ordering the ships, I don't think there is anything more to say. In the end, they are the ones who need to say that it is unacceptible. They are the ones who need to say that we want X% of money back due to not meeting X requirement(s).
That's not precisely true either.
The people paying for this are the TAXPAYERS.
The people making the contract are usually a DoD intermediary of some kind, or a Special Projects Office, etc.
They set the contract requirements, and they pay the contractor.
Not the Coast Guard.
It could be that the Coast Guard is overstepping their bounds here, or is possibly otherwise unable to communicate the actual requirements to the contract authority (whoever that is).
If Lockheed can't meet the requirements, they file for a deviation, with the contract authority (whoever that is in this case). The Coast Guard should have input into the process, but unless the money's coming out of their budget directly, (it's not, it's coming from DHS), then their opinion can be overridden by the folks who are actively paying.
It's difficult to glean the whole story from this guy's video. But I'd be really shocked to find out that the contractor's management and the Coast Guard were in cahoots to deliver a product that didn't meet requirements, without approval of the contract authority. With all the exposure this case has gotten (they guy says there have been ethics reviews, and involvement at the DoD level, and the contractor Executive level), I just really find it hard to believe that this is going on the way he's telling this story.
I agree.
Say I'm a hypothetical poor college student. Why would I pay Green Day (or whatever) to incent them to produce another album when: A) They may not do it, or B) it may end up being crap, or C) I can always download a free copy from Pirate Bay after other people pay them?
Additionally - the only people who would get commissioned under such a system, are established big names, so we'll be stuck once again with a system that emphasizes Promotion and Salesmanship over Creativity and Innovation. New artists, who may be innovative, who may have new ideas, who are unknown, and not the children of established artists, would not get any exposure, and will be drowned out by the noise of the money-makers. No different than the situation today.
The root of this entire problem is: while Promotion and Salesmanship are necessary to link sellers and buyers, the old model of Promotion and Salesmanship (giant monolithic media megacorporations) are no longer the only method. Social networks (like Napster in the 1990's) and information tools like search engines and such, can go a long way to "removing the middle man". The artists just haven't realized it yet.
I think that the deliciously ironic situation of Apple Computer not being able to be a Music Producer due to contractual agreement with Apple Records, is precisely the situation that's blocking the wholesale elimination of the "old guard" in the Music industry.
If an online music distribution agent such as Apple iTunes Music Store ever got into the Music Production business, and worked directly with artists (or, if the big RIAA members ever got their shit together with a decent online distribution scheme - with more laid-back DRM like Apple's FairPlay) - then the market would finally flow in the natural direction of least resistance - which is where most of us net-folk inherently sense it must eventually go.
DRM is a desire to "control". It's a tool for control.
DRM can be lax, or obnoxiously in-your-face. It can be a carrot, or a stick. It can be a line painted on the ground, or it can be a barbed-wire fence with armed guards, dogs, and mines.
There's an obvious, value-add appeal to lax-DRM. Apple's success in the market so far proves this. For me - Apple's price-point is too high. But the millions of iTMS customers disagree with me, apparently.
The problem with DRM, in general, as Lawrence Lessig pointed out, like 10 years ago, is that it lets a software engineer (and the media company exec who pays him) play the role of Legislator, without the inconvenience of having to be elected, or answer to the Constitutional yardstick imposed by a judiciary.
We don't want media execs making our de facto laws for us (enforced by software code).
But we don't want our Legislators writing our software applications for us either.
Quite a pickle.
In the meantime, I believe the market has spoken.
Someday, the folks who stand to make actual money will give up their childish and unrealistic desire for "control" - and realize that; VHS made Hollywood trillions. MP3 can do the same for the music industry, if given the chance.
I'm as much of a Mac OS X booster as anyone - I have 4 of them in my home.
But until Apple resolves the performance issue that apparently is part of the mach kernal, (which could possibly involve a major re-architecting of the OS), I don't see OS X Server taking much marketshare.
Mac OS X Client, *is* definately poised to steal a bunch of marketshare from Microsoft. (mainly due to Microsoft's incompetence - that monopoly was theirs to lose). But I just don't see the server market going anywhere but Linux anytime soon.
From what he said, it sounds like his management told him to stop investigating where they were possibly not meeting up to contractual obligations. In this case, US sailors lives could be at risk. This also goes against established DoD contracting procedures, and the corporate policies of this guy's employer.
If what this guy is saying in his video is true, Lucy's got some 'splainin' to do.
On the other hand, this guy could be a flake or he could be lying.
Very often, on these kinds of contracts, it turns out that the requirements just can't be met. It's an impossibility, or there isn't enough money left, whoever did the proposal may have done his or her due-diligence, but upon undertaking the actual engineering task, it turns out not to be feasible - for whatever reason. In these cases, the contractor goes back to the negotiating table and gets a waiver or exemption, etc. and they move on - often at a penalty. It's possible that LockMart did this, and this guy was not told about it, and instead was just told to chill. Maybe he assumed that there was wrongdoing going on when he was just not informed.
The kinds of programs I've worked, and the people I've worked with, I find it very difficult to believe it has happened exactly the way he said - there are two sides to every story. Then again, I've heard some pretty detailed stories about some of the contractor fraud that's been going on among playas like Titan, MZM, etc. They must have a different set of rules than what I've ever seen. I can't understand how any of these yo yo's get into the front door at the Pentagon. And then there's Boeing's recent issues (Tanker-lease program, United Launch Alliance, etc.). Just don't know what to think sometimes.
I dunno, $200/bbl oil might be a good thing.
Imagine how much less traffic there will be.
Less pollution.
They'll be cranking out electric cars, and alternative fuel, and solar panels.
Oil can't hit $200/bbl soon enough.
Survival of the cutest.
I for one think Iran having nuclear weapons will make us stop taking ill-advised decisions when it comes to meddling in the affairs of small, oil-rich countries.
Ah, so young. So naive.
They'll march other people's kids into the mushroom cloud. While their own will be playing polo.
The real problem is that Iran is not letting international inspectors see their installations. Remember what happened to Iraq in a similar case?
Um, yeah.
Saddam finally caved, let the inspectors in, they found zilch, and we invaded anyway.
And we found zilch.
Ummm, I'm gonna guess it's something involving some beer, a pickup, and a gun?
I was thinking more like a pig, some vaseline, and a pack of Marlboros.
You're right. I was mistakenly converting what I thought was 100k Kilometers to 60k miles - based on faulty memory of what I read at TDIclub.com last year. Good news for me - because I'm coming up on 60k miles, and was worried I had to change it soon.
I re-read the service guide more carefully. (Actually - the service guide that came with my car was in French for some reason; the rest of my manual is in English - I bought mine used from out of state).
Bah.
My TDI is 3 years old. Never smokes.
Get a lap-top, VAG-COM cable, and software. Keep her tuned.
www.tdiclub.com
And don't forget to change your timing belt at 60k miles.
Show me a telephone number which you can dial and that, by the simple act of connection, results in the infiltration of your company's office such that your Intranet data
Think about this.
Most of the best hacks are via social engineering.
The classic social engineering hacks are done via telephone.
I dunno.
I was depressed because I sucked as an artist.
Then I quit art, and started fixing computers for a living.
I'm much happier now.
And I'm told my code is sheer poetry. (damn groupies)
Here's harsh enough:
Have him defend himself, in a court of law, against 20 million plaintiffs.
They're scaling-back Office for Mac. I highly doubt they're seriously planning a Linux version. This is FUD to scare away OpenOffice development.