The Old Testament is extraordinarily similar in most respects but this: Ishmael (the english transliteration of Ismail), the oldest and firstborn of Abraham (Ibrahim), is the son of a servant Hagar. Once Abraham's second son, Issac, is born by his wife Sarai and is weaned, Sarai demanded of Abraham to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham did not want to meet her demand, because Ishmael was his son, but God assured him that though his descendents would be counted through Issac, God would keep Ishmael safe and prosperous. With God's assurance, Abraham packed Hagar and Ishmael with food and water and sent them away. This is where it gets very interesting. After a while the food and water were gone, Hagar lay the boy under a shrub and walked far away, because she didn't want to see her son die. With Hagar weeping over her son, an angel came and told her not to weep because God had heard the boy's cries and would take care of him. God the allowed Hagar to see a well which kept them both alive. As you can see, there are great many parallels. Thanks again, Farhan, I didn't know the Quran's teachings on this either. Note: For a source, i used the NET version of the Bible. From Genesis chapters 16 & 21 D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

While in Atlanta, Georgia, for college last spring (graduated in may!), there was an article in a local paper (Creative Loafing for you locals) about an Emory University professor who had put an implant into a person's brain who was, with practice, able to control a computer to a minimal degree. That is, he could control the mouse and write very basic things, like his name, in a text editor. While intriguing, it's also good to note that he was the biggest success out of a group of ~10 people. All these patients are "shut ins," that is, they have no control over any part of their body except their mind. The biggest hurdle the researchers found was re-training people to control the implants (obviously), but it would just completely exhaust them. In any case, it's kind of fun stuff to keep on. The future of implants and what-not is the size and ability to record signals. This professor is unique in that he was able to keep his patients alive after the implants were in there. Who knows, the future can only hold smaller, more efficient, sensors. D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

In prison, you have Bubba to make you feel "pretty" At work...you don't, thank goodness. D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

What about something that discretely "checks online for updates," and while it's "checking" it also checks to make sure that the activation key is still valid? That way, even if you have a very sophisticated user who can sniff the packets and, somehow, figure out that you are sending data back to a server, you can say it's all part of the update process...plus, if there is an update you can tell them so (maybe even prompt to pay for additional upgrades). D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Q: What time do you go to the dentist? A: Tooth-hurty *ba-dum ching* ...i've got a million of 'em D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Motivating people to have a passion for something is probably the hardest task I know of. While in college i was the head tutor for all athletes for 2 years in Intro to CompSci (it was a required class for everyone). Overall the people I tutored, while not the brightest (example: Q: "What's a function?" Me: "WHAT? This is the last week before finals...you learned that the first week of class!"), but they did want to learn. There were a few, tho, who didn't want to be there. I tried to make them interested, by being interested myself, but just proceeded to make a fool of myself. I never did figure out a great way to make people want to succeed in that class, but I can say for certain that I helped every one of them do better. All that to say, good luck with motivating people; if you can do that, you are an incredably well-rounded computing professional. About having a judgemental attitude, i think it comes down to just that; the attitude. When you see people do patently stupid things, do you see them as sub-human? Or do you just see them as a stupid human? As long as you still know they are another person, it's fine to observe another person's weaknesses. D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Made me think of this: Fear runs down your spine The cursor just laughes at you Your table was dropped D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

This piece from Yahoo! News has the recent poll of just Bhagdad: Yahoo Story[^] This is from the Wall Street Journal, which has polls of 4 other major cities in Iraq: Opinion Journal[^] D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Your intuitions are right. Second paragraph in the EULA tells of having to install the "MyWebSearch" or somesuch crap. Keep away. It's good that you paid attention to your internal spam warning :) -Daniel D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Nah, i think the whole point of this "illusion" is that he is somehow getting his food still brought to him, and he is probably still eating. maybe thru the water, maybe thru an invisible monkey...i don't know. But, to me, that's the illusion here. Bottom line is he is getting food and i don't know how. D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

If technology has it's way, the world (or at least the US at first) may not be dependent upon oil fields for its oil much longer... www.discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article=featoil.html[^] D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

I couldn't agree with you more. One of my favorite quotes when it comes to OS' is, "You pay for your operating system, no matter what it is" (heard on Slashdot, no less. Dont worry, i stopped going there years ago). In any case, i think it rings true for the whole range of OS'. Microsoft, you pay money. Open-source (linux, unix, *bsd) you pay with time. Macs you pay with...well, they're macs (ok, mainly you pay with money, plus a little time getting used to them). In any case, it all comes down to what you're looking for in an OS. D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Did you notice the "Ask the audience" results? I don't know if that many people were truly confused about George W Bush's first name, or they were making fun of her... D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Paul- I'm glad everything's working fine now :) Did you ever figure out what the problem was, or was it simply a NFI (network fixed itself)? -Daniel D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Hey Paul- That is a puzzling problem, and i don't know how well this will help you, but here's a start. I know that when windows cannot find a DHCP server, and it's set to detect the IP automatically, windows sets the IP address to be in the range of 169.254.*.* (on my machine, Win2KPro as well, i ran a test where it set my IP to 169.254.66.67 when it couldn't find a DHCP server). So, based on everything you've said, it sounds like the machine isn't trying to do a DHCP lookup once the PC starts. Check that the DHCP Client service is set to startup as soon as the PC loads. Beyond that, check with your DHCP router that it is receiving a request from the client PC. Hope this has helped some. -Daniel D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

A nicer version[^] D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

Zachery Domo-Kun of DOOM! wrote: Yes, I like knowing exaclty what my code is doing, I don't want to have to assume anything about my code. Assuming makes for bad code. I would image that not knowing "exactly" what VB is doing is simply an issue of not spending enough time around it. Some would call that type of thing (spending time around VB) torture, but that's another issue. At the lower levels, VB and OO langagues will execute a For loop the same way. The bottom line is that I don't think VB is necessarily a bad language simply because of it's syntax. D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears

A great sub sandwich from the deli right next door. Neat little place owned by an old asian couple. The guy hardly speaks any english and his wife does all the food preparation. Alltogether a fun experience. :) D Daniel Larsen, Professional Casanova Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears