Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[mmx1]

If the domestic supply chain isn’t capable of producing a commercially competitive product we’re paying a premium for junk, which is what I thought we were trying to avoid.

I’m not saying it’s not worth doing, I’m saying it’s a national industrial decade plus strategy like (in line with) the CHIPS act and not something we’re going to solve with a sweatshop, excuse me, a startup of college students.

 

[Lawman]

If the domestic supply chain isn’t capable of producing a commercially competitive product we’re paying a premium for junk, which is what I thought we were trying to avoid.

I’m not saying it’s not worth doing, I’m saying it’s a national industrial decade plus strategy like (in line with) the CHIPS act and not something we’re going to solve with a sweatshop, excuse me, a startup of college students.

Most of the chip work Taiwan did the building fabrication is/are highly exportable, it’s just one of those things like China where previous sunk cost has people dragging their feet in new investment because venture capital in MDCOA isn't exactly what their investors want to hear. The chips act rightly tried to make some effort on this.

There‘s nothing not understood about EUV chip production. They’ve built a few sites stateside using the same methods so we can build to quality, but quantity needs some “motivation.” Thats part of the argument in moving funds and changing bureaucracy rules.

Arguably at the low end we don’t need that kind of leveling of the playground to make drones unless we really want to squeeze high capability AI into the smallest group 1/2s. We can 3D print a 200 dollar single point of control FPV today in an office or garage environment. Scale is a matter of inputs. The advantage of the extreme high end over other chips is less about the total GPU being made, and more the ability to get that performance for fractional power/weight costs into platforms where grams matter.

 

[Spekkio]

If you actually believe this statement, you're an insane person. FFS.

Um, okay? Thanks for telling me what I have or have not experienced.

I think I'm quite sane. At least, that's what my other personality tells me .

To recap: there are civilian federal employees and contractors who are worth their weight in gold solving tough problems. Usually you see this at the GS-14 and above level.

And there are guys who spend 6 hours a day watching YouTube / FoxNews / CNN and hem and haw when you need them to do their job, and there's no accountability for that. There's more of these than GS-14+.

So why aren’t they attacking that problem? They follow rules Congress and Trump makes.

Most likely because 'attacking that problem' requires a change in statute, and Trump is at least smart enough to know that nothing he wants to do will get bi-partisan support. He's already had his EOs on this issue blocked by federal courts.

But also... our system is set up by design to be slow at changing things. You come in as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed post-CO or major commander and have grand ideas and the civilian deputy who's been there for 10-20 years is just thinking 'yea, we're just gonna table all this chaff' because it's not on their personal priority lists. They are pros at slow-rolling, especially after they've seen 8+ 'bosses' come in and try to kick down the china cabinet.

But the reason for acting like a bull in a China shop is that it takes like a year to accomplish what you can get done in a day in an operational command.

It's worth noting that there's stray voltage in the communication lines. Similar to how USAF went high-and-right to delete the Tuskagee Airmen when Trump signed the DEI memo - and since re-instated because that wasn't the intent - federal agencies are being given discretion on who to fire.

But the messaging is so poor that quality employees are resigning / retiring instead.

In all reality, I think it's an interesting leadership case study, insofar as the objective and on-paper process is well-reasoned, but the communication and messaging has everyone in an uproar.

The old adage is sailors hate 2 things: the way things are and change. This kind of demonstrates that it's just a human factor, and not a Navy culture thing.

But hey, you could run on "Hope and Change" and then basically be a carbon copy of your predecessor with a different letter next to his name.