Bad developers are bad developers, whether they are supported by classic IT or using the cloud. Great developers, however, don't do the nonsense you are referring to. They care a lot about security, DR, performance, availability, etc. It is this top tier developer that, given an API that procures new hardware, does not really need classic IT support.

From this article: "like tightening the reins on developers who turned to the cloud without permission"

Let me state this in other words: "Insecure IT guys are afraid for their own jobs if they can't lord it over developers". Seriously, developers working in an API driven cloud just don't need a classic IT organization around to manage servers for them. Cloud is a disruptive threat to classic IT orgs.

I wouldn't expect Korea to ask for the US to withdraw or want it. I think it would be more likely that in return for an end to the North Korean regime the US would come to an agreement with China that Korea would unify under the South's government, China would agree to not oppose the reunification or interfere in any way and the United States would agree to withdraw from the mainland within some mutually agreed time-frame. Essentially Korea wouldn't have a say in it. Now I can imagine a lot would be made of the US selling Korea down the river but seriously, China borders a lot of countries and it's not like they invade their neighbors all the time. Ok, you got Nepal and then there was that little dust-up with Vietnam a while back. I mean, it's not unheard of but I think they'd keep to their word as long as the US did. There's no good reason to maintain that mess with the two Korea's anymore not from our perspective or China's. With the kind of range that aircraft today possess it's not like falling back to Japan would leave Korea hanging. a US-China conflict is going to be all aircraft and missiles anyway so seriously doubt either side wants that.

I think at this point China wouldn't have anywhere hear the concerns they had 60 years ago with a unified Korea provided that unification got an agreement from the US to withdraw from the mainland. The resulting "Korea" would be a competitor but not a military threat and it would be a competitor that was saddled with the cost of trying to absorb the North. I think that the US pulling back to Japan would be well worth the trouble of shutting down "Best Korea".

Your assertion is only true if your IT needs are mostly static. In my experience the following things happen continuously:

Our online service is growing 5 times faster than we predicted. We need 5X capacity in the next two weeks.

We've changed our software application design and the hardware we have in not appropriate for the new design. Get rid of it and bring in a new hardware design, all while keeping the service running.

That's the reality for any nimble and fast growing business. That's why cloud is the default choice for me.

Regulations designed to protect the incumbent status quo, rather than serving the needs of real users, is the kind of thing that has kept France out of the picture for innovation. France must import their innovation.

2 years ago Google offered $5B to $6B to buy Groupon. Groupon turned them down and today their market cap is $3B. Oops.

You know, I wonder if Lucas understood that the prequels would necessarily be a "fill in the blanks" excercise and tried to avert that with all that added shit that nobody liked. I don't think he's by any means as completely out of touch as many think. I think he's every bit is incompetent as your post portrays him though so I think he tried to fill out the already carved in stone narrative with bad ideas not knowing the difference between good ideas and bad ones anymore.

Scope? You mean you would shoot at my RC airplane with a scoped rifle? I doubt that you could hit it. Regardless, shooting a rifle at a high angle into the air is a remarkably reckless thing to do. That bullet will come down with lethal velocity at a random location, perhaps several miles away. Perhaps you should give your idea more thought.

I play around with RC planes and my kids want to attach a camera to our next project. Does that make me a criminal? I thought it made me a cool Dad!

I live in the boonies with limited bandwidth. Will this help with very long distance wifi (miles) in the forest?

You sound like a smart person who wants to be surrounded by great colleagues. There is a tremendous shortage of computer science talent nationwide. You don't have to work for a company that 'does not get it'.

The 787 is having problems because of the bloated feature creep that went into its design. It will eventually be seen as a classic example of 2nd System Effect.

There is a solution for Dave's dilemma. He should start a rival service to flickr (i.e. pay for it) and then personally guarantee to keep it and its API running for free forever. Go ahead Dave! What is stopping you?

This has not been my experience as a hiring manager. Hire the best people. Their visa status is a check mark that does not influence compensation. H1B folks pay tons in taxes and they are deeply devoted to raising well educated children. We need to let in as many as will come.