I thought it was hard enough to meet girls when I was in Computer Science classes in college, but these people want to make it harder. They plan to moor a cruise ship off the coast of California, hook it up with a wireless T3 connection, and proceed to underpay non-US citizens in international waters. Wow, this is the ultimate in complete isolation from members of the opposite sex: crossing programmers with sailors.

By stationing the ship in international waters, the company, called SeaCode, will be able to remain close to U.S. clients while picking and choosing IT talent from around the world—something that tightening H1B visa requirements have made difficult in the U.S.

Depending on your point of view, it may also allow them to pay less than the rate a team of U.S. developers would command.

On the other hand, perhaps the founders of SeaCode had other plans…

Cook also says that SeaCode will be able to hire many highly talented women developers, who because of social norms often have difficulty finding work in third-world countries. “If you go to India, some incredibly talented women [developers] have a very difficult time getting a job.” In contrast, Cook says, his company specifically plans to hire some percentage of women to take advantage of that overlooked talent pool.

That’s right…a cruise ship with full facilities intact (that means bar, hot tubs, pool with awesome slide) and girls. It’ll make it easy to forget about the $8 an hour you’re raking in.