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The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

(steveblank.com)
285 points ridruejo | 2 comments | 11 Nov 25 14:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.037s | source
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stackskipton ◴[11 Nov 25 21:26 UTC] No.45893105[source]▶
As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally.

Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue.

Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when brand new jet acts up and results in crashes.

Oh yea, F-35 was built with move fast, they rolled models off the production line quickly, so Lockheed could get more money, but it looks like whole "We will fix busted models later" might have been more expensive. Time will tell.

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almosthere ◴[12 Nov 25 07:08 UTC] No.45897182[source]▶
> brand new jet acts up and results in crashes

The thing is, we waste so much money it's better to crash 15 jets but build 2000 of them than waste the same amount of money and build 5 jets.

Even us SWEs out in the wild, we sometimes... disable tests (gasp heard everywhere) so that a refactor can work.

I mean it's why we have the expression "sometimes you have to crack a few eggs".

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efnx ◴[12 Nov 25 07:11 UTC] No.45897202[source]▶
That’s putting a pretty low price on human life.
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almosthere ◴[12 Nov 25 07:13 UTC] No.45897213{3}[source]▶
No, it's putting a high price on human life, but it depends on how you look at it. We can be a nation that gets bombed into nothingness, or the only country that can defend our own or another one. But we can't do that unless we're willing to actually build weapons of war.

It's why WWII vets did what they did knowing not every bomb, aircraft or handheld weapon was perfect but still ran in to stop Hitler. I would say that put a high price on human life. These last few generations won't get it until it gets its WW.

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watwut ◴[12 Nov 25 07:42 UTC] No.45897357{4}[source]▶
Right now USA is cpintry that threatens others and is primary threat to stabilily. Its rhetoric is not building up to defense.
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1. almosthere ◴[12 Nov 25 07:50 UTC] No.45897417{5}[source]▶
I don't know to me it sounds like Isreal and Russia if you ask, well anyone. NK wants a lot of people dead too.
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2. watwut ◴[12 Nov 25 09:21 UTC] No.45898071[source]▶
Although Israel is committing genocide, it is not a threat to worldwide stability. NK is not threat to world wide stability either, as evil they are, they are no where near to that. USA half switched alliance to Russia, so yeah. Current American leadership admires how Russia does things and wants to be more like them.

There is a reason why USA is currently seen as the biggest threat to stability - because USA is intentionally trying to make the world unstable.