Spaceship-like setups include a 135-inch viewscreen, huge multi-touchscreen desks and fancy equipment and screens being scattered all over the damned place. Essentially, it looks like the future.

All this stuff is designed to tackle things like network-enabled warfare and management and systems designs, somewhat boring stuff compared to laser guns and the like, but probably way more important in future conflicts. In any case, I look forward to the time when they put all this stuff on a spaceship.

[CNET via Fast Company]

The Death and Taxes poster shows every single expense according to the president's 2010 budget request. The circles you see here are proportional in size to their actual weight in the total budget. Each of the figures include the percentage change compared to 2009.

Defense spending is more or less the same, only increasing by 2%. And still, everything else looks minuscule.

Since your budget for buying posters is probably minuscule too, you can get a 50% discount if you buy two or more posters if you are a Gizmodo reader. Just enter "gizmodo" as your discount code when ordering. [WallStats]

Frame: Double butted 7005 Series Aluminum Front and Rear Triangle
Front Suspension: RST CAPA-T8 Suspension, disc mount, adjustable preload with CLIX™ Ramps
Folded Size: 36" x 28" x 12"
Color: Cammy Green
Gearing: SRAM 24-Speed

I always thought that folding bikes made you look like an oversized clown named Zappo, but the Montague Paratrooper Tactical Folding Mountain Bike is different. It may be the combination of its design and the cammy green finish, but it just looks good enough to buy one, even if it costs $800. [Military Bikes—Thanks W]

The 17 pirates on what is being called a mothership were in the midst of attacking the Egyptian-flagged Motor Vessel Amira with assault rifles and RPGs when the Navy responded to their distress call. Mothership? Seriously? To be honest, it looks like a well-equipped strike force holding up a floating outhouse—but I digress. [The State via Danger Room]

The NYT published an interesting piece categorizing the new role of cadets from West Point as digital information sabotage—scenarios like mailbombs flooding email servers in hot zones —becomes a worrisome daily hurdle in a war.

During a senior elective class at West Point, the cadets competed with the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine to thwart attacks from the N.S.A. The students went so far as to hang a sign reading "Information Warfare Live Fire Range" outside their class.

In other words, military dudes can now pwn your ass in analog and digital. [NYT]

Gizmag says Free Electron Lasers move at the speed of light and are capable of outputting a megawatt of power, which the military requires for adequate defense. FELs differ from gas or solid state lasers because they're not atomically bound. Instead the electrons are contained in a magnetic-based structure that lets the particles move freely. The FEL will be part of the foundation for the Navy's plan to develop an all-electric ship, which would be as capable as current Naval ships. [Gizmag] (Image Courtesy of the NYT)

In addition to email, British Naval commanders are always in contact via satellite link to coordinate amongst themselves (and with other foreign military agencies) in figuring out who is nearest and best-equipped to take on any given pirate threat.

The military has even adopted a trick the pirates have been using for the last few years, where they let the naval destroyer serve as a mothership where they deploy smaller, faster boats to run pirates down. They've even resumed the practice of boarding enemy ships for some good ol' fashioned Pirates vs Navy swashbuckling action, minus the swords, puffy shirts and parrots. No word on eyepatches and peglegs. Anyways, the whole article is available over at [Wired].

The catch is, the Navy is insisting upon donating it in tandem with a giant, ugly, rust-laden submsersible barge called the Hughes Mining Barge. The vessel was actually used as a floating dock for the Sea Shadow, protecting it from the prying eyes of Soviet spy satellites.

The WSJ has a great story on Frank Lennon, a Naval museum operator in Providence, RI whose sole attraction—a retired old Soviet sub—was sunk by a tidal wave. While it has recently been exhumed from the deep, Frank has his eye on the Sea Shadow as his next big crowd-getter. Now he just has to figure out what to do with ths shitty old barge it comes with.

Anyone want to take on old Frank for the prize? The Navy is waiting for your calls. [WSJ]

The system they are proposing dubbed "Deep Siren" works by deploying a communications buoy through the sub's trash chute. Once the submarine is far enough away, the buoy ascends to the surface and sends a message to the command center via satellite. When a connection has been established, it lowers an antenna deep into the water where "a transducer takes messages, translates them into acoustic energy and sends a pulse out through the water in an area greater than 50 nautical square miles." After a number of days, the buoy will either sink by itself or by the order of the command center. During the time that it is active however, hundreds of text messages can be transmitted.

So far, tests of the system have proven successful, but the ball is now in the Navy's court as far as funding and moving the project forward is concerned. If it does get approved, it is unsettling to think that a simple text message could set off WWIII. [National Defense via Danger Room]

Now finishing its testing phase as it gets ready to enter action next action, the EA-18G will replace the current and aging EA-6B Prowler. With its two F414-GE-400 engines, totalling 44,000-pound of trust, it's a much more powerful beast than the 4-seater Prowler.

The EA-18G's mission is to jam the enemy networks from the air, using a variety of systems installed on a pallet in the gun bay and in two wingtip pods. The remaining nine weapons stations are available for other pods containing the electronics necessary for standoff jamming, escort jamming, time critical strike, and communications countermeasures.

In the cockpit, it has an active electronically scanned array radar, which is capable of pinpointing the targets that need to be jammed (or destroyed using specialized radio-bound missiles) with greater accuracy than ever before. In other words, to give mess with the Wi-Fi network of all those terrorist living in their desert caves.

Several crashes of military aircraft can be attributed to knockoff chips, but more insidiously, internal military data might be at risk. Melissa E. Hathaway, a head of cybersecurity at the FBI, says, "Counterfeit products have been linked to the crash of mission-critical networks, and may also contain hidden 'back doors' enabling network security to be bypassed and sensitive data accessed [by hackers, thieves, and spies]." Robert P. Ernst, who investigates counterfeiting for the U.S. Navy, estimates that 15% of the spare or replacement microchips bought by the Pentagon are fake. Where do these parts actually come from?

Made in, as BusinessWeek colorfully puts it, the "Chinese hinterland," a lot of these components are made on the cheap and sold to the government for much less than name-brands can offer. To be fair, no evidence of terrifying espionage has been found; all of the problems are due to crappy chips failing to work at the worst times, which really should have been expected, since the military has been paying half the price for the same product.

But you can start to take off that tin foil hat, because steps are being taken. After the inquiries the military has decided to effect a rule requiring the source of all chips be ascertained before they place a bid. I'm satisfied, aren't you? [BusinessWeek]

Apparently Papagno was stealing in such volume he had to stash lots of it in the homes of his neighbors, because his own house was quickly stuffed full. The game was up when, after a domestic violence arrest (surprise!), Mrs. Papagno called up Victor's employer, saying she wanted all of his work gear out of the house. "Um, what work gear?" was the response. The rest is history.

Our recommendation is to avoid attempting such a large-scale heist if your employer is the US Navy—apparently no secrets or strategically sensitive information was ever taken, or else Victor would be facing a lot more jail time than the two years proposed currently. [WTOP via Network World via /.]

Unfortunately, as Jesus points out, the dangling, 40-inch nylon loops that do the ensnaring don't exactly sound animal-friendly, especially if they get tangled and twisted. Unlike ninjas, who would kill pirates, and only pirates, with absolute precision. The Navy should look in to getting some. [Danger Room]

[Danger Room via Dvice and M Ship Co]

As Cindy L. Van Dover, a marine biologist who has logged hundred of hours in Alvin, puts it:

“Depth is a big deal,” she said. “It’s hard to wax lyrical on the subject because we don’t know what’s there. So we can’t guarantee a discovery. Yet we know that every time we extend our ability to go somewhere, we discover new things about how the planet works, about how life on the planet is adapted.”

Unfortunately and as one might expect, the project's budget has ballooned (titanium alone has had a 5x increase in cost since work began), and researchers are having to get creative to scrape up the necessary funding. So 2015 is now the still somewhat shaky current target date for the bigger, badder sub's first dive. But before then, old Alvin may get some of its successor's new gear (like its titanium crew sphere) until the whole thing comes together. [NY Times]

Hell, you could be sitting in a Port-a-Potty in the middle of the desert and this thing would probably drop out of the sky hurling torpedoes up the toilet. And the best part is that the price tag tops out at only $208 million, which is fairly frugal for the US government. That's why the Navy plans on building 55 of them in the near future. [instapinch via DVICE]