Having studied the Opium Wars in some depth, China's government was certainly decadent and corrupt at the time. However, what caused their continued defeats and humiliations was their serial welching on every treaty they signed. The mandarins were so racist they kept convincing themselves that treaties with white guys weren't binding, and they were so stupid that they kept repeating the experiment until the Summer Palace was burned to the ground.

Naturally (and especially in China) there has been much revisionist history written about this period. But if you go and look at the primary materials, you can get a pretty good idea of what actually happened.

That's not to say the the Western powers (and their trading companies) were pure by any means. But China's problem was vastly magnified by their own actions.

I agree that Javascript is a horrible language.

Pragmatically, however, it is becoming ridiculously powerful because of all the optimization work, especially by the Google Chrome team. A couple of years back I saw http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/ and realized that JS, for all its faults, was going to be a big part of the future.

There'll always be a place for centralized data crunching. But JS allows you to scale outwards in a platform independent way, and do vastly more computing than any server farm could. I'm currently involved in a bunch of experimental projects in JS that go far beyond just UI.

I'm just hoping that someone designs a better language that can be layered on JS and eventually supplant it...

Double tap. You think it’s dead, one more makes 100% sure. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.

I find it amusing that you expect customers to bend over backwards, and that you can not entertain the notion that not only is IT not always right, but sometimes he's a foul mouthed post boy for the idea that recalcitrance should be unemployed. It is not rational, ethical nor moral to pass blame to crazy legal mandates passed by your own body politic and then expect the rest of the world, who have nothing to do with your self-inflicted laws, to care one whit.

Stop whining about your own laws. If you don't like them, get them changed.

Oh dear. We *are* a little upset aren't we?

Let's run through you list, shall we? 1. I am aware of no law that prevents a sysdamin from being professional and customer focused. You are creating straw men arguments to excuse poor performance and behaviour. 2. I wouldn't let somone with your demonstrated emotional instability anywhere near my home network. And it's working fine thanks (wired and wireless, IPv4 and IPv6, public servers and secured compartments), so I have no need of your dubious services. 3. If you believe that mobile devices are less secure than PCs (which may indeed be true, although the devil is in the detail) then that is an even stronger argument for key separation. You didn't really think that through, did you? 3. Indeed you are correct about "fifthly" being more consistent. I stand corrected. However your claim that once someone "gets into" your network they can always "jump off that into your internal network" exhibits a remarkable lack of technical terminology, skill or knowledge of the art. Your security thinking is hopelessly mired in the 1990's. Defense in depth is not particularly controversial, and modern networks have quite fuzzy boundaries indeed. 4. While I am not in a position to know what your customers want or need, I suspect you have displayed to the world that neither do you. But you sure can use the same few cuss words over and over. Does shouting help too?

Stepping back a little, your post is probably mostly hyperbole. I imagine you have a difficult job working with difficult customers, who on occasion make things much harder and less pleasant that they could be. Guess what? Most people face this most days. Your profession does not have a monopoly. Try to relax, ease up on the profanity, deal with your control issues, and engage your customers more constructively. You may find it improves things.

Finally, I'd like to thank you for recognizing my dick as superior.

It's not clear to me from the posting if it took three weeks to diagnose or not. If it indeed took three weeks, I stand by my claim of incompetence. If not, then the problem didn't take three weeks to resolve. It was resolved as soon as it was shown to have nothing to do with the company infrastructure.

Now, users can be assholes. I've seen my share. The correct response is to use internal grievance processes, or (as a last resort) statutory law against workplace bullying. The incorrect response is to run around doing your own name calling. If you act professionally, people will treat you that way.

Who told you about my penises?

That you for once again demonstrating the propensity for some IT people to resort to name calling and profanity rather than reasoned discourse. You complain that IT should be involved by co-workers "from the start". Perhaps you should to reflect on how your behaviour might be anathema to your goals?

The parent post demonstrates many of the problems with modern IT departments.

Firstly, note the unnecessary and repetitive use of derogatory terms for customers and general profanity. Hardly professional.

Second, complaints that the users are undermining IT perfect systems by buying devices or installing software. Basic economics tells us that users are investing money and time in these thing because they deliver value. Value that It is not delivering to a demand from their user base.

Thirdly, complaints about having to troubleshoot problems. Isn't that what the business pays you for? In the case of a downed DSL service, a competent network engineer could diagnose that in minutes. I'm sorry it took you three weeks, but transferring your aggression to others is not productive.

Fourthly, assuming that when users ask for something new that they must be dumb. Why should my phone and PC use the same email password? Basic key separation suggests distinct keys are superior. Note also, that a phone is not a PC. It may be difficult or impossible to respond to a mandated password change from a phone using systems that assume a PC interface, so usability is served by having different mechanisms and perhaps different password change policies. Now, I understand that the software you are currently using may not be sophisticated enough to meet evolving user demands. But that is not a user issue.

Fifth, the wireless access point anecdote highlights appalling sysadmin practices. One point of access into the network and the bad guy was able to destroy critical infrastructure. Way to put all your eggs in one basket. The sysadmin of that network was incompetent, negligent, or both. Yes, the user did something stupid. But the real fool was the the person who did not design for defense in depth.

It seems that many IT departments see themselves as a law unto themselves, dictating to users what they can and can't do. We've seen this cycle before. It was last at its peak during the mainframe/mini era, and those IT cathedrals were obsoleted by the PC. My advice? Pay attention to your customers and give them what they want. That way, you'll always have great job prospects.

FYI Intel has 600GB 2.5" consumer grade SSDs on the market right now. Not quite 1TB yet, but come back in 12-18 months...

I bought two of these WD drives mid-June (i.e. 1.5 months ago) from Amazon. So they aren't exactly new or hard to source.
So far they are proving to be fast, quiet, cool and reliable. Standby mode works well, unlike some earlier WD 2.5" drives.