The unfortunate truth of the matter is that the military's best personnel leaves shortly after their first or second enlistment, while officers tend to grow like fruit, and not "ripen" until they've hit the 10-15 year mark. The military is rife with incompetence, to the point that it's amazing that anything ever gets done.
Speaking of classified documents, I seen plenty of accidental disclosures turn into proceedings because some idiot felt justified to work with the material on their own laptop.
And while I think the military has a great level of incompetence, you should see the contractors we hire! The problem I think you fail to see is that this isn't something anywhere near related to a "counter-insurgency" scheme. This issue is related to contractors working in the Engineering field.
There's a fundamental problem in the hiring of contractors in the military, one that stems from some crazy belief that it is better to hook up a retiring service member with an extremely technical job (despite lack of qualifications) than a school trained engineer. Case in point, I work with a supposed "Microsoft Certified Security Expert" (a retiree "double-dipping" as they call it) who doesn't know what the.NET Architecture is...This guy is responsible for the integrity of some DOD Web Servers, most of which are running SharePoint Services! Unfortunately, this is only one example of the many blatantly obvious conflicts of interest that serve to degrade our capabilities.
My response to the read is to join up and go work in an intel shop. I did about a years stint in one overseas and was dramatically underwhelmed.
If your in California, it's take them home and neuter them, or violate the law and get 30 years in jail. Then spend the next 20 years in appeals bitter because your child molester cell mate got out after 3 months on "Good Behavior".
PROCESSOR: XPS 410, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6320 (1.86GHz,1066FSB) with 4MB cache
OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium
MEMORY: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE: DataSafe 250GB (Includes main hard drive plus a hidden reserve hard drive)
OPTICAL DRIVE Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable
MONITORS: 20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
VIDEO CARD: 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
SOUND CARD: Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
SPEAKERS: Dell AS501PA 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for Analog Flat Panels
KEYBOARD & MOUSE: Dell USB Keyboard
MOUSE: Dell Optical USB Mouse
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER: No Floppy Drive Included
MODEM 56K PCI Data Fax Modem
PRODUCTIVITY No Productivity software pre-installed
PHOTOS, MUSIC & MORE! No Entertainment software pre-installed
WARRANTY AND SERVICE DellCare Premium
DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS No ISP requested
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0
Labels Windows Vista(TM) Premium
ANTI-VIRUS & SECURITY I chose Security with Value, Plus,or Premium Warranty Bundle
PRICE: $1,437
I only paid about $1000 for my Ubuntu Desktop with the same specs...
Being relatively a noob to Linux I decided to purchase a desktop with Ubuntu from Dell and have nothing but great things to say about it. I usually build my own computers, which is an easy process for me using Windows because it's easy to guarantee combatibility with the OS. But now with Vista out, my fears of losing all my purchased apps, plus a desire not to get locked into another cost ineffective software solution lead me to trying Ubuntu.
In the past, I've tried different distrobutions (SUSE, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, among others) and have always taken it off my system because some annoying little hardware incompatibility caused me problems. So, while Dell may be charging a little extra for Ubuntu, I think there's something to be said about getting a Linux computer that will "just work" right out of the box.
I also have to mention that I don't feel cheated. I have a great system, 20" Widescreen Flat Panel, 2 GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo (1.X can't remember), the NVIDIA GFX (7300 Lite or something) card, 250 GB SATA HDD, DVD+-RW Dual Layer and another DVD-ROM as well. As some of the other posters had mentioned, this may have not been the "perfect deal" but I only paid about $1000 for the whole system. To me this is a sight better than paying $900 for the same machine using Vista and then having to repurchase Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks; does VS 2005 work on Vista?
Funny enough though, while Vista's having all these compatibility issues with the previous generation's software, I'm using the old Studio 8 suite on Linux under WINE and it's running faster than it did in Windows.
I love how the RIAA and MPAA can buy access to the FBI, yet the millions of Americans (heck non-Americans as well) are second-class citizens in the eyes of the Dept of Justice. You mean to tell me the abating intellectual property theft in Europe is more pertinent of an issue than fighting "white collar" crime? Ask the victims of Corporate Criminals (Enron) or dirty politicians (Randy Cunningham) whether they want a 16 year old boy downloading music jailed, or someone who violates the American people's faith in their government? I bet if we looked deep enough, we would find Jack Abramoff's dirty little paw prints all over this!
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The unfortunate truth of the matter is that the military's best personnel leaves shortly after their first or second enlistment, while officers tend to grow like fruit, and not "ripen" until they've hit the 10-15 year mark. The military is rife with incompetence, to the point that it's amazing that anything ever gets done. Speaking of classified documents, I seen plenty of accidental disclosures turn into proceedings because some idiot felt justified to work with the material on their own laptop. And while I think the military has a great level of incompetence, you should see the contractors we hire! The problem I think you fail to see is that this isn't something anywhere near related to a "counter-insurgency" scheme. This issue is related to contractors working in the Engineering field. There's a fundamental problem in the hiring of contractors in the military, one that stems from some crazy belief that it is better to hook up a retiring service member with an extremely technical job (despite lack of qualifications) than a school trained engineer. Case in point, I work with a supposed "Microsoft Certified Security Expert" (a retiree "double-dipping" as they call it) who doesn't know what the .NET Architecture is...This guy is responsible for the integrity of some DOD Web Servers, most of which are running SharePoint Services! Unfortunately, this is only one example of the many blatantly obvious conflicts of interest that serve to degrade our capabilities.
My response to the read is to join up and go work in an intel shop. I did about a years stint in one overseas and was dramatically underwhelmed.
If your in California, it's take them home and neuter them, or violate the law and get 30 years in jail. Then spend the next 20 years in appeals bitter because your child molester cell mate got out after 3 months on "Good Behavior".
PROCESSOR: XPS 410, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6320 (1.86GHz,1066FSB) with 4MB cache OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium MEMORY: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 DIMMs HARD DRIVE: DataSafe 250GB (Includes main hard drive plus a hidden reserve hard drive) OPTICAL DRIVE Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable MONITORS: 20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel VIDEO CARD: 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache SOUND CARD: Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio SPEAKERS: Dell AS501PA 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for Analog Flat Panels KEYBOARD & MOUSE: Dell USB Keyboard MOUSE: Dell Optical USB Mouse FLOPPY & MEDIA READER: No Floppy Drive Included MODEM 56K PCI Data Fax Modem PRODUCTIVITY No Productivity software pre-installed PHOTOS, MUSIC & MORE! No Entertainment software pre-installed WARRANTY AND SERVICE DellCare Premium DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS No ISP requested ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0 Labels Windows Vista(TM) Premium ANTI-VIRUS & SECURITY I chose Security with Value, Plus,or Premium Warranty Bundle PRICE: $1,437 I only paid about $1000 for my Ubuntu Desktop with the same specs...
Being relatively a noob to Linux I decided to purchase a desktop with Ubuntu from Dell and have nothing but great things to say about it. I usually build my own computers, which is an easy process for me using Windows because it's easy to guarantee combatibility with the OS. But now with Vista out, my fears of losing all my purchased apps, plus a desire not to get locked into another cost ineffective software solution lead me to trying Ubuntu.
In the past, I've tried different distrobutions (SUSE, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, among others) and have always taken it off my system because some annoying little hardware incompatibility caused me problems. So, while Dell may be charging a little extra for Ubuntu, I think there's something to be said about getting a Linux computer that will "just work" right out of the box.
I also have to mention that I don't feel cheated. I have a great system, 20" Widescreen Flat Panel, 2 GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo (1.X can't remember), the NVIDIA GFX (7300 Lite or something) card, 250 GB SATA HDD, DVD+-RW Dual Layer and another DVD-ROM as well. As some of the other posters had mentioned, this may have not been the "perfect deal" but I only paid about $1000 for the whole system. To me this is a sight better than paying $900 for the same machine using Vista and then having to repurchase Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks; does VS 2005 work on Vista?
Funny enough though, while Vista's having all these compatibility issues with the previous generation's software, I'm using the old Studio 8 suite on Linux under WINE and it's running faster than it did in Windows.
I love how the RIAA and MPAA can buy access to the FBI, yet the millions of Americans (heck non-Americans as well) are second-class citizens in the eyes of the Dept of Justice. You mean to tell me the abating intellectual property theft in Europe is more pertinent of an issue than fighting "white collar" crime? Ask the victims of Corporate Criminals (Enron) or dirty politicians (Randy Cunningham) whether they want a 16 year old boy downloading music jailed, or someone who violates the American people's faith in their government? I bet if we looked deep enough, we would find Jack Abramoff's dirty little paw prints all over this!