Where have you been? They found that years ago and have been gene-therapying up the expedition on Atlan... I mean... What do you mean ancient gene? Really, I have no idea what you're DON'T DISAPPEAR ME PLEASE!!!

And hey, there are at least five factors that this calculation doesn't consider:

The 2 factors that could suggest less planets are:
1) The galaxy's central bulge is probably uninhabitable due to radiation from the high density of stars there
2) Stars on the outer reaches of the galaxy are much more sparse than they are here.

The factor that could suggest more planets that are habitable to us is:
3) This doesn't consider the fact that Gliese 581g is on the lower limit of planets we can detect, and it's over *three times* Earth's size! There could easily be smaller planets much closer than 581g, which changes the math considerably.

Then the two factors that could suggest more planets that are habitable to *someone* are:
4) This doesn't take into account that there are at least a couple *moons* in our own outer solar system that are potentially habitable to life (though not habitable to us). If we factor that in alone, assuming we have Earth and 2 habitable moons and assuming the Gliese 581 system has no habitable moons, we come up with double the above number, or *5 BILLION* potentially inhabitable worlds.
5) This calculation is based on the assumption that life requires liquid water. If there are other forms of life out there that we can't imagine which aren't so reliant on water, well that also changes the math considerably. Can anyone else come up with other factors?

Now if there were only an exoskeleton for my brother's butt...

(Sorry for the shameless plug; I couldn't resist)

How about the size of Wales? I need to know this in area-of-Wales units. Or alternatively, Rhode ISland.

True, but what a lot of these companies should realize is this treatment of IT staff is only worsening their situation.

The company I used to work for was one of the very first to start putting pressure on their IT staff, threatening (and carrying out) pay cuts and layoffs, and in a few cases even outright lying to their employees to misrepresent the financial and employment situation.

In response, all the most qualified and experienced of the IT staff left quickly for other pastures (many even left for lower-paying jobs; they just wanted away from the company that had treated them so poorly). They were promptly replaced by poorly-trained staff overseas, and now IT in the company is an absolute disaster. It's now a study in how not to run IT. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing because the people who were instrumental in that communication left and are not coming back. Most of those who are left are super demoralized because of this miscommunication, because they are no longer given the tools they need to make their former level of productivity possible (many of those who developed and managed those tools are gone), and because they now make less than when they were originally hired years before.

It will take the company years to recover anything resembling efficient IT operations even after the recovery because of how poorly they treated their employees.

Let this serve as a warning to other employers: don't treat your IT like dirt (or at the very least don't lie to them), or you too may see your IT come grinding to a near halt.

All a woman needs to do to land a geeky guy is to quote a line from Star Wars. That is super hot to us.

Yeah, I'm not sure why this concept has been so hard for them. If they really need critical information to be distributable on a system like the internet, all they would really need to do is set up a separate, independent internet using existing technology for their own secure purposes. I'm sure that with their vast resources, they could do it.

Am I right?

I can't believe this... Facebook went down so I started working and then I actually finished and now I can't figure out what to do!

Okay, I'm not quite that bad, but we all know people who are...

Awesome. Does this all mean those cool rare earth magnets are going to get super expensive? I'm going to miss those.

Laptop stickers... The new-computer crapware that you can't uninstall.

Actually, another part of the reason (and I've seen this first-hand in the monster corporation I work for) is that they want to buy up little companies with good ideas before their competitors do. Sometimes all they do is buy it up and shut it down; they don't want to use the company's assets, they just want to prevent competitors from using those assets.

Buying up companies at a frantic pace seems to be the hot trend among powerful corporations.

Soon there will only be two corporations: Microsoft-Cisco-Skype-NBC-Pepsi-McDonnalds-Halliburton-Friskies Corp and Apple-AOL-Time-Warner-CBS-CocaCola-BurgerKing-BP-FancyFeast Corp.

Then you'll start getting weird messages on your computer... "You better not buy Fancy Feast." "We saw you drink that Pepsi."

That's Microsoft's version of a shutdown, right?

I'm going to go out today and patent clicking a mouse.

Yeah, pretty much. AT&T can go suck it. That's really all I have to say about that.

It's great to hear that both of these companies are getting some needed funding! Armadillo has said outright that they have a goal of putting tourists into space and Masten has hinted at it. I for one look forward to lighting a rocket under my butt and launching myself out of the atmosphere.