It is not meaningless. There are people in Britain and worldwide who still want to roll back the clock on gay rights. This move would signal that there is no going back by appropriately acknowledging the collective shame that Britain bears for treating their hero so poorly. It is 2013. Gay oppression is, or ought to be, a thing of the past.

You are realizing how bad things really are in your life, and it depresses you, so you're engaging in a little misogyny in order to feel better about yourself.

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.

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.

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.

The cast of countries that submitted this proposal all share a common trait of disrespecting the freedom of expression of their own citizens. This disrespect is rooted in fear. These governments see their own citizenry as a threat to their own power, especially if those citizens can read anything they want on the global internet.