Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Oh, make no mistake : the aircrafts the US produce are easily the best you can find. The only "problem" is that your approach to the problem (of military R&D and procurement in general) seems to be "throw tons of cash to a fuckload of contractors to answers our incredibly vague Specifications, and let's see what will come out of it".

Of course you're going to get great results out of it, after a while. The problem is how much cash you'll have spent, and how long it will have taken for the thing to enter service after the first round of Specifications came out of the DoD.

[Guest]

someone's bait?:

[Harmony Ltd.]

it was posted last page, last.

[cb5]

Oh, make no mistake : the aircrafts the US produce are easily the best you can find. The only "problem" is that your approach to the problem (of military R&D and procurement in general) seems to be "throw tons of cash to a fuckload of contractors to answers our incredibly vague Specifications, and let's see what will come out of it".

Of course you're going to get great results out of it, after a while. The problem is how much cash you'll have spent, and how long it will have taken for the thing to enter service after the first round of Specifications came out of the DoD.

They should just buy a certain amount of what they already have yearly and every year the company upgrade the aircraft.

Like bring back the A-10 and call it the A-10.1, then next year the A-10.2, then the A-10.3

[Guest]

Oh. Oops.

[Guest]

Yeah sorry buddy, I beat ya to that one.

[Frost]

Oh, make no mistake : the aircrafts the US produce are easily the best you can find. The only "problem" is that your approach to the problem (of military R&D and procurement in general) seems to be "throw tons of cash to a fuckload of contractors to answers our incredibly vague Specifications, and let's see what will come out of it".

Of course you're going to get great results out of it, after a while. The problem is how much cash you'll have spent, and how long it will have taken for the thing to enter service after the first round of Specifications came out of the DoD.

A lot of the U.S. Military, and the government in general, is hampered by tradition. The Army/Marines and Navy/Air Force, for instance, are so mutually redundant that merging each respective branch could probably cut the budget by a massive margin with minimal reduction in actual fighting capability. But, because of each branch's "Proud history", no one seems to want to slim down anything.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Oh, make no mistake : the aircrafts the US produce are easily the best you can find. The only "problem" is that your approach to the problem (of military R&D and procurement in general) seems to be "throw tons of cash to a fuckload of contractors to answers our incredibly vague Specifications, and let's see what will come out of it".

Of course you're going to get great results out of it, after a while. The problem is how much cash you'll have spent, and how long it will have taken for the thing to enter service after the first round of Specifications came out of the DoD.

They should just buy a certain amount of what they already have yearly and every year the company upgrade the aircraft.

Like bring back the A-10 and call it the A-10.1, then next year the A-10.2, then the A-10.3

Not taking into account the fact that the A-10 itself is obsolete and "we" don't have the tooling to produce them anymore,

that's not how things work. or more exactly, it's already what's being done today, but not like you seem to imagine.

Without going into too much depth, military equipment is already subjected to spirals of development, deployment, evaluation, improvement and retro-fitting of the already deployed equipment to the latest standard, and production of new units to the latest standard.

However, there's just so many times you can do that before you hit the point of diminishing return - you could try to improve a P-51 Mustang to be able to compete with a F-22, but it's doubtful the result will be worth the cost, if you ever manage to reach your goal. So regularly you have to produce radically new designs, taking account of not only the threats you'll be facing today, but also of the threats you'll be facing in 10 years, in 20 years, and making rooms for further improvement down the line that will be made once the system enter service and enter the cycle of described above.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Oh, make no mistake : the aircrafts the US produce are easily the best you can find. The only "problem" is that your approach to the problem (of military R&D and procurement in general) seems to be "throw tons of cash to a fuckload of contractors to answers our incredibly vague Specifications, and let's see what will come out of it".

Of course you're going to get great results out of it, after a while. The problem is how much cash you'll have spent, and how long it will have taken for the thing to enter service after the first round of Specifications came out of the DoD.

A lot of the U.S. Military, and the government in general, is hampered by tradition. The Army/Marines and Navy/Air Force, for instance, are so mutually redundant that merging each respective branch could probably cut the budget by a massive margin with minimal reduction in actual fighting capability. But, because of each branch's "Proud history", no one seems to want to slim down anything.

Tradition is the bane of Efficiency

[Frost]

Oh, make no mistake : the aircrafts the US produce are easily the best you can find. The only "problem" is that your approach to the problem (of military R&D and procurement in general) seems to be "throw tons of cash to a fuckload of contractors to answers our incredibly vague Specifications, and let's see what will come out of it".

Of course you're going to get great results out of it, after a while. The problem is how much cash you'll have spent, and how long it will have taken for the thing to enter service after the first round of Specifications came out of the DoD.

A lot of the U.S. Military, and the government in general, is hampered by tradition. The Army/Marines and Navy/Air Force, for instance, are so mutually redundant that merging each respective branch could probably cut the budget by a massive margin with minimal reduction in actual fighting capability. But, because of each branch's "Proud history", no one seems to want to slim down anything.

Tradition is the bane of Efficiency

True. I often find myself wondering how much of our enormous, enormous, enormous military budget could be stripped away if we didn't have a ludicrous number of overlapping systems, like the dozen-odd IFV's in service (rather than just picking one and focus manufacturing on making it in bulk) and the same for different planes, utility vehicles, and even small arms. Basically, going through with a fine-tooth comb and making sure all the shit is straight. Problem is, people seem to think that the tiniest bit of attention paid toward cost-effectiveness in the military automatically means "OH GOD HE'S GOING TO DISMANTLE THE MILITARY SO THE COMMIES CAN INVADE HE'S A SPY SHOOT HIM NOW."

[Moodyman90]

Wasn't the A-10 a case of the military going "Here's the gun, build the plane around that"?

Actually got into a small conversation about that today. Really, the A-10 is only good if you have air superiority, which hasn't been a problem for the U.S. in a long while.


Granted it's not the only thing but one problem with military spending, and government spending also, is the mind set of "If we don't spend the remaining $9 billion of the $12 billion we got at the start of this year, we're only going to get $3 billion next year! Quick, do whatever you want with the money, we'll just say we bought $9 billion worth of hammers and other random crap!"

[O. Hinds]

Ah, but could the Apollo Program go into space? Wait, fuck.

Heh.

You know, I'd like to see the "Pentagon War" version making fun of the JSF program, ten to twenty years from now.

Hey, yeah!

Also, funny that this should come up now; we'll be watching "The Pentagon Wars" next week in my Systems Engineering class (though I've already seen it).

[Frost]

Why do you think this is all about pride? Why can't it be 'bout the cash put aside?
Not jobs but careers, not livings but lives,the government needs this money, it's hollow inside. 
It doesn't get how to shrink... just to grow. It doesn't get how to think, just to know.
No one watches the watchmen, no one taxes tax takers; you can't challenge a system so held up by its makers.

You know, at this point, the rhyming thing is impeding your ability to make actual sense.

[Harmony Ltd.]

You know, I'd like to see the "Pentagon War" version making fun of the JSF program, ten to twenty years from now.

Hey, yeah!

Also, funny that this should come up now; we'll be watching "The Pentagon Wars" next week in my Systems Engineering class (though I've already seen it).

"Wait, it is single-engined ?"
"Yes, and don't ask about how much payload it can carry."

[Stringtheory]

@frost
...fine, I'll try to make all of my posts pretty plain.
It's a little less fun, but a little more sane.

But sanity is for the weak!

[Valikdu]

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Spoiler:

[Frost]

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Spoiler:

Highlander 2 4/12: The Friendening.

[Frost]

I think I see, good sir, what it is that you mean.er.
The government is, naturally, looking out for its own.ally.
They hold all the cards, and intend to keep them.ards.
I really, as you can tell, didn't put much effort into this poem.ell.

[StoneSlinger88]

I gave it some thought, and here's what I meant, I'll admit that it's slanted... even a bit bent.
The government's set up to grow every year, adding to its employment without fear.
There's never a realistic ceiling in place. Every big shot's protected so they can save face.
Republicans hold up a budget increase... they still get their paychecks even if others' cease.
I don't think it's fair, but why would they care? It's all in their hands, but not in their hair.
...by which I mean that they control the whole thing, but are not affected by the crap that they fling.

People put all of their lives in this beast; lifetimes of funding that never cease.
If it's in their control, why should heads ever roll? They keep all their budget and their branches stay whole.
The government's the largest employer there is. While industries get leaner, they forgo that biz.
There is no incentive to cutting their staff. Asking them to would elicit a laugh.
This isn't about the pride that merging would dent, it's just about securing all their employment.

So, I hope what I've said is now plain-enough... I'm not always the best at explaining my stuff.

I don't know how or why, but I read that as a poem.

[cb5]

I gave it some thought, and here's what I meant, I'll admit that it's slanted... even a bit bent.
The government's set up to grow every year, adding to its employment without fear.
There's never a realistic ceiling in place. Every big shot's protected so they can save face.
Republicans hold up a budget increase... they still get their paychecks even if others' cease.
I don't think it's fair, but why would they care? It's all in their hands, but not in their hair.
...by which I mean that they control the whole thing, but are not affected by the crap that they fling.

People put all of their lives in this beast; lifetimes of funding that never cease.
If it's in their control, why should heads ever roll? They keep all their budget and their branches stay whole.
The government's the largest employer there is. While industries get leaner, they forgo that biz.
There is no incentive to cutting their staff. Asking them to would elicit a laugh.
This isn't about the pride that merging would dent, it's just about securing all their employment.

So, I hope what I've said is now plain-enough... I'm not always the best at explaining my stuff.

The biggest problem right now is that causes the problem of whenever there's a recession or a depression the government needs to spend more to boost the economy and well with as large of a deficit that causes the problem of inflation.  Inflation is good for cheating your way out of a large deficit by decreasing the value of money, but that's for when a economy is out of a recession cause causing inflation during a recession or when a economy is recovering is a bad idea.

What they should be doing is cutting the budget during a economic boom, then increase the budget during a recession with the saved up money from the boom and then cause inflation when the recession is over to cheat your way out of having to pay back all that money.  What's worse is that if they do severly cut the budget right now then well the economy will stall, if they don't cut the budget then no amount of intentional inflation will ever fix the deficit.  Not to mention that the EU is economically screwed.  The EU is recovering, but most of that economic recovering is from france and germany the rest of the countries are still fucked.  What is probably going to happen in the long run is that germany and france are going to control the EU economically and thus control the EU cause if the other countries leave they're screwed, the USA is going to hit a economic boom and then the budget is going to get slashed like crazy, but the deficit being reduced exponentially over time with inflation.  What I mean by that is at first we'll start paying off the deficit by hundreds of millions of dollars then billions of dollars and then twenty years down the line the dollar is going to lose a lot of it's worth, but the economy will be fine.

Tl:dr; my money is on twenty years from now the value of the dollar will be in the toilet, most of the deficit will be paid off cause the value of the dollar will be down, the economy will be recovered, the EU will be controlled primarily by Germany and France and the other countries won't be able to leave or their economies will go down the drain.

[Ironmonger]

Damn striped folk.

[Frost]

Damn striped folk.

This used to be a nice neighborhood

[Guest]

The latest update to the Slice of Pony Life comic is really quite excellent.

EDIT: Don't be a butt Cobalt post a link to what you are talking about.

[Guest]

Frost/Iron/40kbait:

[Frost]

Frost/Iron/40kbait:

Noice.

[Harmony Ltd.]

You know that Discord's voice was quite memorable when you, not a native speaker, can't help but read something that he says in his voice.

[Ironmonger]

Upon taking my Yorkie-Poo named Bear Bear out to scare the stray cats:

"Better run, kitty cats! The SS is comin'!"

[Harmony Ltd.]

Remember when we were talking about "rape culture" ?

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/09/penny-arcade-expo-dickwolves/

[Aonee]

And just to make sure the rest of PA's side is heard, since I didn't see a link to it in the article: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/04/some-clarification

[Harmony Ltd.]

Interesting.

But even if he is apologizing, the reaction of his fans is a display of the aforementioned culture.

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