Failing audits is frankly independent from failing programs. The audits usually have problems tracking money flows and then property within the government. The contractor's expenditures are closely monitored. That doesn't mean they're in-line, but they're auditable. And when the audit discovers problems, there are ways for the government to respond. I've seen those applied rather frequently.

One common pattern is a program starts down the wrong path, and blows initial cost/schedule/performance. But that capability is needed badly (often because its predecessor program didn't deliver). So the Service piles on more requirements and 'readjusts the baseline' for additional funding, because "if we don't get it in this Program of Record, it'll be at least a decade before we can start a new Program of Record to get what we need." That just adds requirements to something that is already behind. If I had to guess what happened here, I bet there's some of that flavor over the execution. In my experience, most programs started with the combination of unachievable or under-specified requirements AND unachievable/unrealistic schedule.

(A 'Program of Record', by the way, consists of an approved requirements document, an approved POM budget for the next 5 years showing the RDTE money, the OPA purchasing money, and the OMA maintenance money FOR EACH FISCAL YEAR. If you run out of RDTE money but haven't finished the design, you're in trouble. The third element is the approved procurement strategy, that says how you'll buy it. That includes the kind of contract, firm fixed price or cost plus, the kinds of oversight, when and how prototypes will be delivered and tested, etc.)

Aerospace (and other FFRDCs like MITRE) exist to prevent massive failures like this. I wonder what the Aerospace corporate explanation is. I know from working at another FFRDC that often the worker-bees know the program is heading to disaster, but the managers won't carry the bad news to the customer. Other times, the bad news is delivered, but the government manager decides to carry on anyway. That can be due to pressure within the Service ("Don't f**k this up!, Colonel!"), or pressure from the contractor ("Trust us, these problems are temporary.")

The causes are often requirements instability, overly ambitious/unimplementable/unrealistic requirements, impossible initial schedule ("1 month to make the baby with 9 women"), technology problems (immature technology, vendors can't deliver as promised), and occasionally manufacturing/assembly/integration problems. And of course, substantial amounts of the functionality is in software, and this community knows the ways software projects can go south.

It's no consolation to this project,, its leadership, prime contractors, and customer community, but the last major project I worked on failed at 2 1/2 times the sunk cost of this one.

Well, that does mesh with the article about "maybe we should start charging for Open Source".... https://developers.slashdot.or...

Exploding washing machines: https://www.consumerreports.or... See also https://www.elliott.org/?s=sam... Consumer issues with Samsung where help was needed to resolve the issue.

Given both the quality issues and the enshittification issues, I don't know why anyone would buy Samsung -anything-.

You know, it's funny. During the 2 1/2 years I lived/worked in Canada (British Columbia, under an NDP provincial government), I had the same view of Canadians and their politicians. What I observed was how the party in power was enabled to rule without many constraints. At that time, the US legislative gridlock made me tell my Canadian friends, "Better no government than bad government." But with Trump's success issuing EOs, Congress' willingness to go along, and the active support of the Supreme Court, we have the "party in power can rule" of a Parliamentary system withOUT the ability to rapidly change that government through no-confidence votes.

I'm still not a fan of Parliamentary systems, but I think the current US system is badly broken, with multiple contributors to the political failures.

System crash/panic with reboot? Or just application abnormal termination?

https://storage.courtlistener....

IANAL, but it sure seems to me the administration lost on all of the claims (except for one or two where the judge said, "I don't need to go here, because I've already made it moot.")

Now there's still the other case on this, which is in the DC Court of Appeals, addressing one specific law where the recourse is that venue. Briefs are due in April, so the first hearing will probably be in May. Track that case here: https://www.courtlistener.com/...

I recently stayed in a furnished rental during some business travel. The lease move-out checklist included an item "sign out of all accounts on the smart TV".

Yes. We should all be our own FDA, EPA, and OSHA. That worked *really well* in the past.

I have Google Maps and Apple Maps next to each other on my iPhone. I really tried to give Apple a shot but it has always been a sub-par experience for me. And I already highly detest ads (goodbye iTunes). This has to stop. Like forcing an iOS upgrade that throttles my phone to being far less usable than before, while I am simultaneously budgeting to buy the highest end Mac hardware I can, before rampocalypse, is so frustrating. And you know what? I am finding my M2 Max MBP and iPhone 11 Pro Max are.. maybe.. enough. I did buy AirPods Pro but you know what? I hate em and will likely spend more time on over the ear headphones. If you want to kill the excitement, just keep on shitting everything up, Apple.

Sometimes can make you sick!

There's more to it than just 'smaller'. Cellphone OS are designed to provide a smaller attack surfaces. They provide less access (iOS provides no conventional user-visible file system) in exchange for that security.

But consider: Here an iOS vulnerability makes headlines. A new Windows vulnerability is just "meh".

I find it interesting that some here would want operating system vendors to be legally liable for security vulnerabilities? Will they also accept legal liability for bugs in their own applications? I've been calling for that for decades, but have been mostly shouted down by people who won't accept that responsibility for their own code. (When I left the job where I wrote real production code, I gave my successor a personal warranty. "If you find a bug, call, and I'll help find and fix it for free." She never called, and years later I talked to her. "No problems reported with that package", which was widely used across the application to glue the user interface to the application logic.)

People keep asking why bother submitting apps for iOS if Apple can just de-list or reject anything they like, at any time.

The obvious answer is that you stand to make a lot of profit and considerable brand recognition if your app is listed there and becomes popular.

The reality is, Apple isn't just going around, randomly kicking apps or app developers out of their store, though. They have actual reasons. People usually just happen to disagree with them.

I'm not familiar with this Musi app, but from the Slashdot description at least? It sounds like another useless "front end" app that just pulled from YouTube and regurgitated their audio content to users. I'd put it under "apps nobody needed". Their own web site says. "Discover Musi, the free app that allows you to stream and organize the music that you want. With unlimited playlists, crossfade, equalizer and more".

Honestly, that's nonsense. You can organize your YouTube streams using their own app. I know people who paid for YouTube Red (ad free) who listen to custom playlists all the time from it. Maybe there's no built-in cross-fade option but would you *really* install another app just to hear your tracks cross-fade between each one when you stream them? You can set a global EQ for what you listen to from your iOS device too. If you feel a need to keep messing with it for various songs you're streaming? You probably just need to find better sources for those streams! Low resolution digital sampling of the original content is your likely culprit.

Mark Gurman says a lot of stuff about Apple that turns out to be false. How will that be functionally different from AI Hallucinations about Apple?

EVs require a different paradigm for charging than filling a tank with gas for a traditional vehicle.

The main advantage with an EV is that an owner gets to charge it overnight while they sleep, so it has a "full tank of energy" each day, ready to use.

Nobody is interested in having to stop and charge one all the time at a service station or other charging station around town. That would take a good 20-60 minutes (depending on the vehicle and charge level). That's tolerable but not ideal for long road trips, but not for daily driving/commutes.