Honestly the fact that at least someone commented on this is the reason I read ycombinator, I first checked the article's comment section but saw no mention of the above.
It's actually a good selection of books and the Navy would be better for it if the soldiers digest them
This program is linked to a weight/refit time reduction initiative. MWR usually supplies reading material like this(personal), which with a little scale can add up. That being said MWR is a sudo-military-ish thing that is very much suppose to supply the actual wants of service members and not so much mission anything. Somehow in all the red tape of the military they happen to really do well at being current and engaging with their supplies.
Also, Sailors rarely enjoy being referred to as Soldiers. Use service member in all cases where the proper reference is uncertain.
You might be surprised to hear that there are many free-thinkers in the military. It's a little slice of America, with just about every subculture represented.
What I'm surprised to hear is that they're including a bunch of military reading on these. While I love war books and tactics, when I'm off doing military shit 24/7, the last thing I want to do with my rare free time is read a military book. Give me something that gets my mind off it all.
Just like everywhere else, there are also workaholics in the military. But unlike everywhere else (except hospitals), you can't just turn off the submarine and send everyone home each night, to make sure that at least a little leisure time is forced upon them. In this sort of situation, one of the only ways you can get the workaholic to take a break is by justifying the break as a different kind of productivity--"reading up on strategy" for one.
People can and do have a personal interest in their field of work, and that's a good thing.
Let's assume that you're a software engineer and for the sake of argument that your employer has to provide you with your reading: If that reading compendium included SICP and Code Complete (besides a large selection of mainstream fiction and sci-fi etc), would you be "surprised to hear" that, too?
The software engineer parallel isn't totally the same. It's hard to understand unless you've been there but military exercises/war are an all-encompassing thing. You're eating and breathing this stuff 24/7 whether you like it or not. During these things, it can be difficult to feel like you're a civilian, especially when you can't even wear civilian clothes.
But yeah, you are right, there are some people who can do it all day and night and still not get enough. War movies and books are very popular with Soldiers.
Note that the cost of each device includes "the rights to all the books loaded on it," so this is more like a civilian e-reader with a lot of content on it than just an empty $3k Kindle or equivalent.
Still, I wonder how many of the titles were free, or nearly so,
and what kind of price break one could get on 100's of titles.
For those wondering: why not a Kindle/Android/etc.? - same
reason you can't bring a Furby toy into a secured area -
it contains a recording device!
> same reason you can't bring a Furby toy into a secured area - it contains a recording device!
Well, technically speaking, a Furby doesn't contain a recording device at all. But the important thing is that it might. It doesn't, but it might! Can America take that risk?
Your code contains an eval($_GET['foo']);. Technically speaking, your UI is doing nothing bad, but the important thing is that it might. Can your company take that risk?
Seriously, it's not worth calling something a secured area if you ignore the most obvious attack vectors. Banning Furbies is a reasonable action.
Banning furbies because they "learn and repeat words" is a stupid reason, because they had an inbuilt list of about 100 English words that they could "learn".
Thus, you could talk state secrets to it all day every day for a year and all it would learn would be its internal list of words.
Having said that banning furbies is probably a good way to remind people about recording devices and banning furbies was probably a sensible thing to do.
General-purpose computers are capable of doing anything if the right (wrong) code is executed, so it makes sense to be paranoid about them even if you believe the code you put on them is safe. A Furby is not a general-purpose computer and does not contain a recording device. It is no more capable of recording conversations than a plastic spork is. I'm sure someone could open a Furby up and install a recording device, but at that point you've just committed to banning all physical objects from secure government installations.
The way they were originally marketing indicated they learned from the people playing with them, which means they had some way of observing things and recording information about what they saw.
I think it was later worked out they did no such thing, but by that time they were already banned from secure installations.
It's pretty much an open secret that most of the crew takes their own devices with them. Not sure how 5 per boat is going to change that, particularly with a fixed reading selection.
Presumably in the same way having a physical library aboard would--if someone wants to read a particular (classic) book, they can, even during a radio-silent mission.
> Fiction: “The Lord of the Rings” (J.R.R. Tolkien); “Game of Thrones” (George R.R. Martin); “Slaughterhouse Five” (Kurt Vonnegut); “Blood Meridian” (Cormac McCarthy); “The Stand” (Stephen King).
> Nonfiction: “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” (Tom Wolfe); “Halsey’s Typhoon” (Tom Clavin); “Band of Brothers” (Stephen Ambrose); “Into the Wild” (Jon Krakauer); “Guns of August” (Barbara Tuchman).
about 300 titles (not sure what the proportion of navy specific material, public domain and commercially licensed title are).
Note the high price -- $3k/unit. That is typical in that domain. It is funny because a lot of things they assert to have is actually lack of features -- lack of wifi, lack of cameras. And probably most important -- presumably made in US. In that market there are really ridiculous markups. You just have to know someone who knows someone to get the contract. It (this market) is also mostly immune to being exported overseas -- just due to basic security and trade regulations.
Informally one can say, "a new mac is cheaper than that!". And yeah it is. But this is a mac built to spec, all made in Ohio probably. Interesting what macs would cost in that case if there built to order in smaller batches and made in Ohio, all having strange requirements like FIPS-140-2 compliant crypto libraries enabled and other random red tape restrictions slapped on them....
You're forgetting to price in the endless hours in consultation with the military brass, traversing all the red tape involved in dealing with devices that must interact with security clearances, etc etc.
And just plain low volume. There's no economy of scale with 385 units. Let's say the injection molding tooling costs $20k (cheap!) - that's over $50 per unit just for the plastic enclosure. Ditto for circuit board production, engineering time, software development, prototype and validation units, testing and qualification, and all the other things that go into a product that have setup charges or nonrecurring cost. Not to mention you'll get gouged on the components themselves if you're buying such a low quantity (and if any parts need to be mil-spec - I am guessing not in a device like this but who knows - then that drives up the cost even more).
Hard to say, they seem to imply it, but maybe they only have those titles listed as "samples" in the article that they had to pay for, everything else could be public domain and navy doctrine for example.
You cannot deploy portable electronic devices on the submarine fleet without being absolutely certain there is nothing in it logging any data (sound, g-forces, pressure etc.).
Interestingly, the opposite is also true. The Navy SEALs (and everyone else) use consumer GPS devices because they cannot risk losing a classified M-code capable GPS device.
> The Navy SEALs (and everyone else) use consumer GPS devices because they cannot risk losing a classified M-code capable GPS device
And presumably because they can eschew many rules that others are bound by. If they wanted iPhones, they could probably get iPhones. They also often have black budgets and it is a real nice if you can sell to them. They release the money quickly, less red tape. Those deals are hard to come by though.
Nothing surprising - Reading Rogue Warrior - Marchinco stated that when he created Team 6 his explicit goal was to move the unit outside of the military everything. The guys had to be able to blend, so they put a lot of emphasis on improvisation, sourcing weapons and equipment on site, not looking like military etc ...
The whole thing is utter BS. When at Lockheed; we sold POS Panasonic ToughBooks in a Pelican case with foam lining, an overall retail value of $2,500 to the DOD at a nice price of $25,000.
No, don't be fooled in thinking "oh, that must have included software licensing costs for X Y or Z."
NOPE
That was millions in separate fees... literally a $25 charge for $2,500 in equipment costs at their RETAIL value (i.e. not what the actual cost TO Lockheed was, as they were bought in qty)
Was there a support requirement? One of the things that typically drives up the price in military purchases is requirements that replacement items with identical specs, and replacement parts with identical specs, by available for some long (in civilian tech terms) time like 20 or 30 years.
30 years from now, will anyone make the RAM those systems use? The LCD panel? The motherboard? The processor? The battery? The pointing device? Probably not. Much of that high price might be going to dealing with that.
300 paperbacks don't take up that much space and there are no security concerns with them. Heck, each sailor can bring 1 paperback as part of their kit, then they swap as they read them.
And besides, to get a secure device, they could take an ordinary Kindle, load it up, then physically remove the wifi and usb circuitry.
I've been listening to the ANTIC 8-bit Atari computer podcast, and one of the hosts is a former submariner. He has a story about bringing his 8-bit Atari computer on a tour once and writing some utility software that helped with sub operations on his downtime.
It seems submariners have a pretty wide berth (pun intended) to bring on all sorts of stuff if they can fit it in their very tiny personal spaces.
If I had to guess, I'd bet most of the folks on board a sub have "solved" their e-reader problem in various ways already. I'm also kind of surprised various manuals and procedure guides haven't found their way onto official e-readers/tablets in each compartment already.
Partly the math sounds bad because it is bad math. Someone saw that they got a $1M contract and delivered the first 300 custom e-readers. The next 300 probably won't cost that much, and then the numbers won't be so interesting. To me that doesn't sound that bad if they really developed everything from scratch.
45 comments
[ 16.3 ms ] story [ 85.1 ms ] threadIt's actually a good selection of books and the Navy would be better for it if the soldiers digest them
Also, Sailors rarely enjoy being referred to as Soldiers. Use service member in all cases where the proper reference is uncertain.
What I'm surprised to hear is that they're including a bunch of military reading on these. While I love war books and tactics, when I'm off doing military shit 24/7, the last thing I want to do with my rare free time is read a military book. Give me something that gets my mind off it all.
Indeed. I was in the Navy six years, and a large portion of "people who opened my eyes" I met in the Navy.
In general, people are not what you see in the movies. Just because people look the same doesn't mean they are the same. Variety is everywhere.
Let's assume that you're a software engineer and for the sake of argument that your employer has to provide you with your reading: If that reading compendium included SICP and Code Complete (besides a large selection of mainstream fiction and sci-fi etc), would you be "surprised to hear" that, too?
But yeah, you are right, there are some people who can do it all day and night and still not get enough. War movies and books are very popular with Soldiers.
It's not like Tom Wolfe is a raging radical. Interesting reporting, yes, colorful prose, yes, burn-it-to-the-ground calls, no.
Check out his book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Probably applies better to current practices.
Still, I wonder how many of the titles were free, or nearly so, and what kind of price break one could get on 100's of titles.
For those wondering: why not a Kindle/Android/etc.? - same reason you can't bring a Furby toy into a secured area - it contains a recording device!
Well, technically speaking, a Furby doesn't contain a recording device at all. But the important thing is that it might. It doesn't, but it might! Can America take that risk?
Seriously, it's not worth calling something a secured area if you ignore the most obvious attack vectors. Banning Furbies is a reasonable action.
Thus, you could talk state secrets to it all day every day for a year and all it would learn would be its internal list of words.
Having said that banning furbies is probably a good way to remind people about recording devices and banning furbies was probably a sensible thing to do.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/254094.stm
General-purpose computers are capable of doing anything if the right (wrong) code is executed, so it makes sense to be paranoid about them even if you believe the code you put on them is safe. A Furby is not a general-purpose computer and does not contain a recording device. It is no more capable of recording conversations than a plastic spork is. I'm sure someone could open a Furby up and install a recording device, but at that point you've just committed to banning all physical objects from secure government installations.
I think it was later worked out they did no such thing, but by that time they were already banned from secure installations.
> Nonfiction: “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” (Tom Wolfe); “Halsey’s Typhoon” (Tom Clavin); “Band of Brothers” (Stephen Ambrose); “Into the Wild” (Jon Krakauer); “Guns of August” (Barbara Tuchman).
about 300 titles (not sure what the proportion of navy specific material, public domain and commercially licensed title are).
Note the high price -- $3k/unit. That is typical in that domain. It is funny because a lot of things they assert to have is actually lack of features -- lack of wifi, lack of cameras. And probably most important -- presumably made in US. In that market there are really ridiculous markups. You just have to know someone who knows someone to get the contract. It (this market) is also mostly immune to being exported overseas -- just due to basic security and trade regulations.
Informally one can say, "a new mac is cheaper than that!". And yeah it is. But this is a mac built to spec, all made in Ohio probably. Interesting what macs would cost in that case if there built to order in smaller batches and made in Ohio, all having strange requirements like FIPS-140-2 compliant crypto libraries enabled and other random red tape restrictions slapped on them....
Given what they did say, $3K per box is a screwjob if there ever was one. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a $2800 per box screwjob.
You cannot deploy portable electronic devices on the submarine fleet without being absolutely certain there is nothing in it logging any data (sound, g-forces, pressure etc.).
Interestingly, the opposite is also true. The Navy SEALs (and everyone else) use consumer GPS devices because they cannot risk losing a classified M-code capable GPS device.
And presumably because they can eschew many rules that others are bound by. If they wanted iPhones, they could probably get iPhones. They also often have black budgets and it is a real nice if you can sell to them. They release the money quickly, less red tape. Those deals are hard to come by though.
Even the reading times of the crew in a submarine would provide precious patterns.
Incidentally, should we consider this would be the cost of consumer electronics if we needed proper privacy?
No, don't be fooled in thinking "oh, that must have included software licensing costs for X Y or Z."
NOPE
That was millions in separate fees... literally a $25 charge for $2,500 in equipment costs at their RETAIL value (i.e. not what the actual cost TO Lockheed was, as they were bought in qty)
This is a prime example!
30 years from now, will anyone make the RAM those systems use? The LCD panel? The motherboard? The processor? The battery? The pointing device? Probably not. Much of that high price might be going to dealing with that.
And besides, to get a secure device, they could take an ordinary Kindle, load it up, then physically remove the wifi and usb circuitry.
It seems submariners have a pretty wide berth (pun intended) to bring on all sorts of stuff if they can fit it in their very tiny personal spaces.
If I had to guess, I'd bet most of the folks on board a sub have "solved" their e-reader problem in various ways already. I'm also kind of surprised various manuals and procedure guides haven't found their way onto official e-readers/tablets in each compartment already.