And if this is one of the Google cars posting messages, I sure hope it's paying attention to the road right now.

The Console font indicates that this is a response from a computer. Is this one of the Google cars posting messages?

It wouldn't be that strange. Europa is theorized to have a liquid ocean due to tidal heating.

I'll let everyone in on a little secret. IBM is getting rid of most of its software developers because it wants to get out of the software development business. The reason is because they, for a variety of reasons, produce mediocre software, and the executives know it.

IBM's strength is its sales channels. It can command high prices for it's software because it is a trusted brand, and it's very good at strong-arming customers into purchasing expensive complicated solutions once they get their foot in the door.

IBM's new software business model is as follows....
1) Find holes in their "portfolio" for providing end-to-end solutions for customers.
2) Purchase existing companies where that software is already implemented (e.g. Rational, ILOG, Green Hat, Cognos, Buildforge, Telelogic, etc...)
3) Sell said software at much higher prices than the original company could have ever gotten away with.
4) Reduce headcount by eliminating developers from purchased company, replacing them with offshore developers whose only purpose is to "maintain" the newly acquired software. Also, eliminate less-profitable niche products and lay off those developers except for the cream of the crop.
5) Reap huge profits.
6) Repeat.

Check out the list of companies they've acquired...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_IBM#Acquisitions_since_1999

So don't think that the executives at IBM are idiots. They're not. They've found a way to squeeze tons of profits from existing software companies. They have no reason to care about employee morale. They don't need developers. They've got too many as it is from all of these acquired companies. Bad morale means employees will leave on their own, meaning they don't have to pay severance.

Also, IBM typically purchases companies for a handful of their product line. That leaves lots of smaller software products that IBM simply has no use for (not a large enough market, duplication of product lines, etc...). Often, "rebalancing" means chopping these products out of existence. IBM has literally THOUSANDS of these small niche products that it wants to eliminate.

So for developers, it sucks, because the IBM executives have no need for you anymore. There's no reason for IBM to produce its own software anymore. Why risk starting development on a complex product when you can just purchase the finished product? You're nothing more than a "resource" that they have too much of and which needs to be reduced through "resource actions".

But for executives and shareholders, it's a wonderful arrangement. Don't be fooled....IBM can be profitable doing this for a very long time. Please keep in mind that IBM reducing US headcount from 130k to 90k is misleading. That number does not include the huge number of employees that they've absorbed through acquisitions. They've laid off many more than 40k US employees, and they have no reason to stop now.

Oh...I forgot the best part...

4) Profit! (for federal government)

1) Get rid of pennies, nickels, and quarters.
2) Replace 50c coins with something nickel-sized. (dollar coins are already quarter-sized)
3) Switch to a deci-dollar based system (e.g. $0.1)

Voila, you have a coins of $0.1 (dime sized), $0.5 (nickel sized), $1.0 (quarter sized) where the coin size is proportional to value. And you just reduced the number of coins in half.

So a planet with about the same surface gravity as Earth, and no iron core. Sounds like a good chance this planet has no magnetic field, and therefore no atmosphere either.

The fact that "everybody is doing it" is irrelevant. People made the same claims about Nike too. But bad press and market pressure made Nike change their ways. Overall, this led to better work conditions for Nike workers.

If you want to improve working conditions for everyone, you've got to strike someone first. Apple has benefited immensely from Chinese labor. Once Apple has caved and improved work conditions for their employees, THEN you can go after the rest (by threatening to only buy Apple products if they don't mend their ways).

It's called leverage.

Even if it is adopted in a place like China, don't expect it to make a difference in the US. As you've already pointed out, intercity travel is fast and comfortable in Europe using trains, but Americans are blissfully unaware of anything that occurs outside of the states.

In general, anytime code has to be generated by a machine, I'm skeptical. That stuff is going to be absolutely unmaintainable in 10 years. And the tools that generated that code will likely be long gone.

I agree that JS is being used for purposes for which it was never intended. For robust, maintainable applications, you need a strongly-typed language. It seems to me that Java Applets would have eventually filled this space perfectly (a strongly-typed language capable of interacting with the DOM). Unfortunately, Applets were introduced about 15 years too soon (and pretty much killed off by Microsoft), and thus suffered from perceptions of poor performance. And now that Java is owned by Oracle, that opportunity is gone forever.

Forget the bar. What about when you're falling asleep at 2am on the interstate, and you don't want to stop in a potentially dangerous rest area for a break?

I'm calling baloney on this. Statistically, paying more attention to kids when they're younger likely makes them more independent as they grow up. However, the natural range of behavior from kid to kid varies dramatically, even from sibling to sibling who got the same 'treatment' growing up. When I hear comments like this, it's usually from parents who have lucked out with particularly well behaved children.

I have two kids...one very well behaved and self sufficient, and one very clingy who wants to be held CONSTANTLY. Both got the same treatment from us the first 6 months of their lives. So if your kids happen to be self sufficient, it's a stretch to assume that your 'good parenting' had more to do with it than pure luck of the draw.

Also, if you're supposed to pay constant attention to your baby during the first 6 months, how are you supposed to get anything else done during those first 6 months? I don't know about you, but every once in a while, I have to use the bathroom.

This whole argument that "corporations are evil" and "corporations should pay their fair share" is based on the bizarre human tendency to anthropomorphize corporations (and groups of people in general). Saying corporations should pay their fair share of taxes is really no different from saying my wallet should pay it's fair share of taxes based on the money it has in it.

Corporations shouldn't be taxed, period. Money that comes OUT of that corporation through stock dividends and wages and bonuses and perks should be taxed. And that should all be taxed as plain old income, not special kinds of income like "capital gains" that has lower rates to compensate for corporate taxes already taken out.

I'm also highly in favor of targeted VATs. For example, the FDA should be entirely funded on a VAT levied on food and drugs. And if people want their food to be safer, then they have to agree to raise the food VAT to pay for it. And if people want to lower taxes by reducing the food VAT, then they have to deal with less safe food. And the FDA would be legally required to have a balanced budget (i.e. they would only get to spend whatever money they got through food and drug VATs). Same goes for all other government spending. For example, the military should be paid for with an X% 'military' income tax, and ONLY the revenue from that tax. If people want to increase military spending, then the only way to do so is to increase the military income tax. I strongly believe that taxes and spending were tightly coupled like this, most people wouldn't have a problem with taxes, and that it could be a path to balanced budgets in this country. But today, nobody wants to pay taxes because it all goes into a huge slush fund with no apparent accountability on how those funds are spent. Why would any sane person want to spend more on taxes in the current system?

This is the most coherent and insightful comment I have seen in a long time.

The problem with that argument is that VERY few people who live in the country are farmers (about 1.4%). And nothing is stopping them from paying for these services themselves (i.e. satellite service). Who knows what kinds of technology would have evolved to serve rural populations if we hadn't mandated this socialized approach?