pentagon's 8" nuclear floppy disk

[dilbert firestorm]

http://time.com/4348494/pentagon-nuclear-floppy-disks/

what kind of generals do we have running our nuclear arsenals that they cannot upgrade computers that run the nuclear systems a priority.???/

[CuteOldGuy]

What the hell do they do with all that money they get? Oh, yeah. They build unnecessary weapons systems to line the pockets of the defense industry, and fund civilian contractors to do the work soldiers should be doing in war zones.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

What the hell do they do with all that money they get? Oh, yeah. They build unnecessary weapons systems to line the pockets of the defense industry, and fund civilian contractors to do the work soldiers should be doing in war zones.

yeah, I know.

screwed up priorities. the executive branch fault in this area.

[JD Barleycorn]

It took 9/11 for FBI to upgrade their systems to computers. This was thanks to Church Committee which prevented the FBI from having the database on purpose.

[JCM800]

Are they still using a C64? ...hell, maybe they got a good deal on them so why upgrade.

[RALPHEY BOY]

Well at least its so old the Chinese cannot hack into it...

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by JCM800

Are they still using a C64? ...hell, maybe they got a good deal on them so why upgrade.
[/URL]

They are still using the Trash-80. It's a warhorse!

[Old-T]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

yeah, I know.

screwed up priorities. the executive branch fault in this area.

There is plenty of fault to go around on this topic.

The Services tend to focus on todays OPs and in very limited budget times they put the priority on "today" and investment, R&D, etc., gets deferred. Just like the decades of ignoring our infrastructure investments in bridges and highways. Once the panic does kick in, the $$$ then goes to the weapon systems and again the derived requirements (C4ISR, logistics) are still skipped over. The thinking is "if I don't have ICBMs then I don't need a C2 system for ICBMs--buy the ICBMs first and worry about the ancillary parts later." The Navy doesn't do it perfectly, but they separate identifying current needs vs future requirements better than the Army or AF in most regards. The AF is better at identifying the necessary enabler support most the time (computers, comms, intel, etc.)

Then the Executive branch jumps in and changes what the Services put forward, often trading away even more of the unglamorous but vital pieces. To be honest, this is completely independent of who the president is, EVERY one since at least Carter has done so to one degree or another (that's as far back as I have direct knowledge). Eisenhower certainty did and said so repeatedly.

But far and away--by a huge amount--the biggest perpetrator is Congress. What district something is or is not built in is far more important to getting funding than what capability is actually needed. Useless items are crammed into the budget strictly because of which company will get the contract. We have warehouses of things the Services never asked for, pushed back on getting, can't use--but were built in the "right district". When the Services have actually done solid homework to find/justify a certain course of action it is often overturned and redirected by Congress. The worst offender over the past couple years is McCain. He wants to legislate his way to be the defacto SecDef and several of his dictatorial edicts are a huge waste of $$$--but no one wants to challenge him on defense issues because of his POW time. He is also pushing for completely stupid changes to Goldwater-Nichols and holding up a number of GOOD changes that other members of Congress are trying to get enacted.

The things we need to do to make significant improvement in DoD spending is known (they certainly won't fix everything, but will improve it) but politics at every level, coupled with massive egos, gets in the way of making those process changes.

[roaringfork]

Originally Posted by RALPHEY BOY

Well at least its so old the Chinese cannot hack into it...

One big reason for my loyalty to the manual transmission. How many little car-jack thugs do you think can drive a stick?

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by roaringfork

One big reason for my loyalty to the manual transmission. How many little car-jack thugs do you think can drive a stick?

I think you assume too much.

carjack thugs can drive shift sticks. they haven't gone out of style and are still in production with many models.

[cptjohnstone]

Originally Posted by gnadfly

They are still using the Trash-80. It's a warhorse!

I wrote a complete accounting package one,1980

[cptjohnstone]

Originally Posted by roaringfork

One big reason for my loyalty to the manual transmission. How many little car-jack thugs do you think can drive a stick?

my brother just bought a porche and said he did not have to worry about his 2 20 yo sons driving it

[Mr MojoRisin]

Originally Posted by RALPHEY BOY

Well at least its so old the Chinese cannot hack into it...

Chinese probably made it. They probably also have secret hacking capabilities built right in, lol.


Jim

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by cptjohnstone

my brother just bought a porche and said he did not have to worry about his 2 20 yo sons driving it

i learned how to drive at 13 on a Chevy pickup with a "3 speed on the tree" meaning a manual 3 speed on the steering column.

3 years later during driver's ed. the instructor was .. "impressed" to say the least. both me and my brother had been driving for years on my uncle's farm, private property .. nice and legal .. and we could easily out-drive any other student. my brother unfortunately had to wait 6 months to take his driving test because he'd broken his collar bone during the winter sledding. so i got my license 6 months ahead of him. lol.

regardless, both of us were driving at 13 years old and could easily pass any driving test. and we did.

both of us drove several cars with clutches. i once had a suped up 1989 IROC-Z. had a 450 hp crate motor in it and a posi 4.11 gear set in the diff. i put a super charger on it and pumped it up to 625 hp. eventuality .. i went to sell it. it needed a new clutch, new cooling fans and new paint and a new head liner.

some guy came over to look at it .. guy my age. he made a mistake. told me he was going to buy it for his 19 year old daughter. said she didn't know how to drive a clutch. told him .. "this car isn't for sale to you" .. he got pissed. then i showed him why i wouldn't sell him the car. i rolled it out onto the street, and even needing a new clutch, i lit up the back tires for 200 yards before letting off the throttle. in first gear only.

next day a dealer came over. offered me my price. sold it to him on the spot. he knew what he was buying. didn't care a rat's ass if he wrapped it around a tree and died. he was old enough to know better. that guy's daughter wasn't.

[lordunsleep]

Well it is open source projects fault for some of these computer hacking or hijacking issue's cause the government latched onto the well it's a small business oppertunity to make new programming applications for the mobil devices. See i spelled it mobil cause we're not in a city in Alabama and i am glad the commador 64 is in use might even pray for some i.b.m. and some Apple Macintosh I.E. there is some hope that as time has changed and we out paced our own advancements in other places besides computing machine's least the calculators on those older system's can calculate and not have the mathematics have a variance between machine's or program's like today's smartphone calulator app's and say Google's if you used the search engine to find calulator program's. Take the pie key for a circumference ratio of a standard protractor or need point end compass for drawing a perfect circle and that button and symbol for pie is to have that preloaded at the push of that button and all of them have some that have differing numerical values entered especially after the decimal point. That will be brushed off by some so smart with a premade excuse that forgets a computer was created for that functionality as its primary reason they exist and took up the size of most homes in the early days when the micro processors and transistors and resistors we're just being invented and made for these machine's to work and exist. So yeah i would take that as a extreme issue with over all opperating system's and have some issue's like that they consider not a factor in 5 years from now they might be wishing they had stuck with a rotary dial corded telephone and not one that can play music that sucks and is over engineered even this throw back to 1960's folk songs and barber shop quartets in rock music. That rock has no roll to it cause well I can sing hold on hold on hold on to me cause I'm a little unsteady for 4 mins over and over with little else added to the song and think yep hold on to those old dinosaur computers cause the new hand held ones gets common core math problems correctly teaching one student something different from the other using the same calculator on his "smart device" that is why so many things are going to have to be looked at from some 1970's and 1980's kid's that know what it is like to not have the internet and social networking but not have text messages but had standard's in there text books in a class room not a e book some one can change the words while driving the educational system down the drain faster.