[acc_297]

Funny anecdote from the full article

"Equipment provided by Raytheon as part of a multi-million dollar contract broke the winter after it was installed. One U.S. official said most of the detectors had been designed by Raytheon for the desert environment of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Kazakhs, on their own initiative, sourced equipment designed to withstand Siberian winters from a Russian military supplier; it cost half the amount of the U.S. contract, and easily survived the winter."

[alistairSH]

We overpaid for equipment not fit for purpose... Not sure I'd call that "funny". Depressing or maddening, maybe.

[soneil]

Possibly. We'd need to know whether the Siberian equipment could survive Nevada to make that call.

[alistairSH]

I don't follow - the problem stated was the purchase of desert-spec sensors for use in the cold. Unless there's more context, we didn't buy Siberian-spec items for use on the Mexico border.