In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned America of the ever-growing power of the military-industrial complex.  While most critics feel that Eisenhower said this because he felt the military-industrial complex was a threat to democracy, they are mistaken.  Ike warned against the growing power of the M-IC because they come up with such useless and pointless classes as the one you are about to witness.

The following class could really be about any piece of military equipment, but this particular one is about the Electronic Data Manager (EDM), or as the pilots call it, "an electronic kneeboard", which is essentially all it really is.  (Kneeboards are the little notepad-like folders pilots strap to their thighs so that they can have their maps and mission notes strapped to them in flight)  Normally, I wouldn't go into this much detail on a piece of military equipment, but since Raytheon readily advertises the thing all over the Internet, there's really no security risk in talking about it here.

"Greetings.  As you might have noticed by the fact that I'm wearing civilian clothes and my gut is hanging over my belt, I'm a contractor for [insert company here].  I'll be teaching you this four-hour class today on this piece of equipment.  Now, I'm not a pilot, I'm a programmer.  This means that not only am I unable to empathize with what aviators truly want to know about this piece of equipment, but also with people in general.  This is why I'm starting class eight minutes past the hour, even though I should have taken a hint by noticing how bored you all were arrying on an in-depth conversation on how Ferris Bueller can attend all the events he did in the course of one school day. 

So let's get started.   I'm first going to tell you how great our company is and the names of all the civilians for whom I work.  You have no idea who these people are, but I just like talking about them and my job anyway, even though it has little real relevence to you.  Anyway, here's about an hour's worth of information on the programming code and telecommunications built into this thing.  None of this actually applies to you, but it applies to me, the programmer, and to the people who are buying this thing.  Like I said before, I can't really empathize with the needs of pilots, I just feel the need to drone on about the sales pitch for this thing.

Anyway, here's what this thing will be coming out with in the future.  Again, it doesn't affect you now, but it affects the buyer, so here I am talking about it.  It says here on this PowerPoint slide that in the future, this thing will be able to check weather.  Is weather important to pilots?  I heard that it was.

Anyway, you've been in class for an hour, so it's now time for a break.  I can tell you really got a kick out of everything that I talked about, because you instantly went back into your conversation about Ferris Bueller once I stopped talking.

Now that you're back from your break, let's talk about the history of this product, shall we?  I know that's not important to you, but I like talking about my job, so here goes.  This EDM (you guys are just going to call it an electronic kneeboard, but I think I'll use another useless acronym to refer to it) has been in development since 1999--which means that it's been in development longer than the Apollo 11 program.  Since it's been in development for the last 9 years, it uses a computing system equivilant to a 1999 laptop--which has less processing power than the Blackberry you currently have in your pocket.  It's bulkier, slower, more expensive and less user-friendly than other electronic moving-map kneeboards on the market from Garmin right now.  But of course, you're well aware of that--you've already bought the Garmin with your own hard-earned money as it features more accurate GPS signals than the 1990-model GPS in your Blackhawk. 

You'll also notice that this product is made in states like New York and California, adding to the truly American spirit of this piece of equipment.  It also guarantees that if the Army realizes what a colossal piece of junk this is and decides not to buy it, even the most liberal senators will get upset and raise hell for cutting jobs on the senate floor.

But let's finally begin with the product itself.  It runs on a 800 mhz processor and has 632 MB of RAM and runs Windows XP.  Haha, I know you're thinking, 'why would we use Windows XP if it's prone to so much crashing and malware'?  Well, it's because most aviators are familiar with Windows XP.  Nevertheless, I will spend at least an hour teaching you how to save a file, create a directory, drag and drop, and do everything that you can easily figure out by simply hitting the "help" button.  There's good news, too, for the development of this product.  This 800 MHZ machine will soon be upgraded to run on Windows Vista!  Now this thing is sure to run much better!

Rest assured that you are receiving only the best and most technologically advanced equipment Raytheon and the US military has to offer.  This revolutionary new technology is in use in such aircraft as the V-22 Osprey [ed note:  I wish I were making this line up.  A collective "oh shit" came up from the peanut gallery at this line and at the Windows Vista line]

Now, I've noticed that in the past few hours, you've taken the liberty to ignore everything that I've said and have started to use this thing on your own.  Granted, you've learned more in two hours of playing with this system on your own than you would have learned by me talking to you, but please don't work ahead.

You'll also notice that there are icons on the screen which represent individual units which you can communicate with via a text-messaging service.  This is an revolutionary concept designed by generals and programmers to increase the former's situational awareness and justify the latter's jobs.  Granted, we should have realized that text messaging is dangerous enough while driving, let alone flying around power lines, talking on five different radios at once, and dodging the occasional missile, but we're certain you'll find a way to communicate great information through...

...wait, would the aviator who text messaged "Medics are gay" to the Medevac aircraft and "If you ain't Cav, you ain't a flaming homosexual" to the Cav's squadron commander please stop doing that?  I would expect this sort of behavior from teenage boys, not from adults.  Female adults, no less.

Wait, it looks like I have a text message on my EDM.  Who's 'bloodninja' and why is he talking about a robe and wizard hat?"

Focus:  Agree or disagree.