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[–] 105 points 4 months ago (14 children)

The cheapest possible product that meets the requirements.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    As opposed to the vast majority of consumer products?

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Exactly the point. Military grade means nothing in regard to its actual quality. It's just another inane marketing tactic.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    It actually does mean something, most of the contracts for anything you can buy surplus are now public. So you can look up that exact specs the military required and can be ensured you're getting that.

    Consumer specs can often times be buzzwords or misleading.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    It means something in regard to military contracts, though it's still the bare minimum. For consumer products, though? No. There's no law, as far as I know, against 'misuse' of the term. That means companies can freely market their consumer products as military grade, even if it wouldn't actually meet the specs. Nevermind the fact that it's misleading. They know people see 'military grade' and think that it's top quality, despite that not actually being the case.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Unfortunately in this case meets requirements just means it ticks a box. The meme is talking about people thinking military grade is top of the line. Like how the cheapest tire you can buy is legal and meets regulations, but it doesn’t mean it’s good.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The same way building contractors advertise their work with “everything built to code”. Yeah, building code is the bare minimum requirement for something to be legally put on the market. Building to code isn’t a brag. It’s saying “we do everything as cheaply as possible. If we cut any more corners, the house would literally be illegal to sell.”

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    It depends on how well you specified the requirements. Like not leaving out things you might consider obvious. Eg if you're specifying a sight that includes a range scale, make sure you include that the ranges should be calibrated such that calibrating it at one range will make it accurate at the others instead of just adding random lines and numbers that look like it shows correct range dropoff, and that the ranges correspond to the ammunition that will be fired instead of just copy/pasting from a .22 range sight.

    Think of it like making a wish from a genie (folklore genie, not disney).

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    I review bids for government frequently. The requirement is to accept the lowest bid that meets all the requirements. The thing is, if the requirements aren't written well, it can be a very, very bad deal.

    For instance we bid out for a janitorial contract where the bid did not include refilling cleaner bottles from the dispenser in the janitorial closet, so we had to accept a bid where that wasn't included, and they charged us $60 every time they topped off the bottles.

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