Another interesting twist is that by having different units, people think differently about similar distances, weights, volumes etc, running 10Kph sounds a lot harder to than 6 mph or 10 minute miles. This is an emotional shift that occurs when you look at dissimilar numbers that represent an identical measurement. How bad does it sound to have spilled 4200 gallons or 15898 liters vs 100 barrels of oil. Units are just units, but the way they comparatively represent the same information can have an effect on the transmitter and receivers of that information. Ask any newsperson that has ever been tasked to rewrite a story to change it's flavor.

Part 1: Basically, the military is all about a balance between usability and security, Dead on. I have spent 10 months of a 12 month tour as a staff pog on Camp Fallujah. I have been pecking away with feverish worry for the last few months b/c of the disasters that occurred. I am using old IBM Thinkpads for NIPR and SIPR. They are just plain unreliable. I have had help desk in here un-fucking these things every month. I lost both NIPR and SIPR machines in August when HD's crashed. Help desk was not talented enough to recover data. SIPR crashed again (another used machine with another used HD) in October. I was lucky and drafted a Civ Techrep to do basic maintenance on NIPR that was acting up. He did a fair job, but the hardware is still flaky goes into a bootloop when cold booting from being shutoff overnight, boots after 5th or 10th retry. Now I just don't turn it off anymore. NIPR web surfing is dead dog slow because of all the inefficient filtering processes that block hundreds of web sites that are NOT streaming media, entertainment, or shopping. In a job where sending 3-5mb files is common having a 1-2 MB send limit is ridiculous, and crippling when the fast-moving pace of staff work is what gets information into the hands and brains of the decision maker. Especially when higher GO's need to make a hundred, informed decisions a day, with little to no time to for extensive background briefing. Very graphics, and photo heavy. Part 2: and MACs, except for the IT guys, are going to be as useful as a brick to the people that actually use and need the system, Have to disagree here. Macs can run office. I use office tools everyday on windows, and very often on Mac. Hardware-wise there has been NO PROBLEMS with Mac. At all. I take it when I travel to remote locations and work on reports (yes, unclass) to turn in while waiting to RTB. Can I log it onto NIPR. Not yet. They use MAC address filtering with fixed IP addresses. But it works every time. Every Time.