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by kro0ub 4567 days ago
Where can more info be found on the "ACE" metric?
1 comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane's_Fighting_Ships

Or if you're lazy you just Google up this Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_of_t...

The USA has ten active Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. Wikipedia claims that the most recent, the USS George H.W. Bush, was completed in 2009 at a cost of $6.2 billion. A bargain compared to the projected cost of the USS Gerald R. Ford, now under construction with a budget of $15.5 billion.

These numbers are ridiculously overlarge in this context, of course, which is the point. Access to the Windows build toolchain is not even a $10M project. It's not a technical problem. You start by just offering the money to the company. A few million dollars, plus a history of enforcing your TOP SECRET security clearances, plus credible assurances that you're not going to launch a competing product, is probably enough to convince the company to just give you what you want. Quietly, of course. No need to spook the other customers.

If that doesn't work, there's always espionage.