By directly comparing her to another woman and saying she's much much more beautiful then the other woman. (careful, not to a woman, but to the woman and not saying that you thing she's more beautiful, but that she is...) That's a nasty one so keep it for urself and use it only in very difficult situations. ;-) Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

...and with military resolution of 1 cm! http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12052002/reu\_49124.asp He, he... Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

http://people.aol.com/people/special/0,11859,392026-1,00.html That's it, I found a pattern. An ugly and stupid guy gets popular as soon as he openly starts dating a beautiful woman. Do you also recognize this? Think about that little brat (Britney's ex) and this Ben guy. Is the society changing? Will we start measuring men by the women they have on their side and not the opposite? Is the next century going to be "the female century"? Regards, Tomaz

Waiting in vain for some Indian to oppose this view and be extremely upset with it. :-( Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

Well why don't you then offer to donate 4 cents a person? In my country we have a nice saying that translates close to: "Put up or shut up..." ;-) Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

Simon, your question is probably for the very narrow communicty within the same educational system? I have a university degree in software engineering. I didn't work hard for it at all, I worked smart. Whew, what a cliche! The first thing I would do at university on the first day of new study year is I would go from student to student and ask for telephone number and contact info. Besides immediately being known to everyone I also picked up telephone numbers from all chicks in the class. Don't know if this would work in the States. People don't trust other people there that much. But perhaps do it in the second or the third day. Then I created two lists and was "maintainer" of these throughout the year. The list of unfinished exams for every student and the list of notes. At university I organized groups of students to do "repetitive work" for every exam. We would study and meet two or three times before the exam to share knowledge and discuss unclear issues. I got really great results. For my second degree (first one was on 2.5 yrs programme), I never failed an exam. With the exception of two economy exams where the professor had this hobby of kicking students just to show them how hard, complex and mystical economic leadership is, and how unfit we, technie guys are for this job. ( had exactly the opposite effect - we all recognized the bluff. ) The list of unfinished exams was great for creating these groups for exams. And the list of notes was also good because of common situation in which students with best notes finished their exams first and then did not require their notes anymore. And some notes in circulation were also from past years so you really didn't have to write much while attending lectures. You simply reused. We ("the veterans") frequently had notes from best students on the faculty. And these you could trade with newcomers for their quality notes or simply give it to them (because people also gave it to u) I'm still studying, but not computer science anymore. :-) But these things really, really worked for me! So I warmly recommend them! Tomaz

I would say in the 80ties Band Aid concerts organised by Bob Geldof came close. Few years ago they tried to organize a true Woodstock, but it turned into Rapestock as 5 women were gang rapeed in the camp during the concert. :-((( It's not the same generation. Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

Shitty. I am part time in Switzerland and thought I could spend the rest of my time in Munich ( Why am I complicating? Because I love Munich most in the world as I spend some of my nicest students' years there with parties and blondes and everything...;-), but, in general, Germany's extremely bad place to live 8-) ). It's unbeliveable. There are absolutely no freelance and part time jobs in Munich anymore, even for sr. architects & engineers with lots of experience. Everything's full time now. And locals only. It is bad. Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

In a way it is possible, but you have to redefine what democracy is. Is free market a democracy? Companies on the market need leaders to survive and succeed. No committee has ever effectively lead a company. It can only come from extraordinary individual. But yet, we vote for the best company (and implicitly leadership) by buying their products. Hence, each successful company is from the people (employees), by the people (who buy products) and from the people (who use products). Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

I don't understand your argumentation. If these countries weren't western colonies, they would be even more behind time. Simple fact is that we were more advanced civilization in terms of production of goods. And they are not doing so bad considering their productiveness. But nobody will do their work for them. That would be irrational. The only way that they can do as good as we are (the west) is if we wait for them for hundred years. And in the midtime spend some of our money to help them in every possible way from birth control to education, some of it on propaganda to convince them that we are not colonizing them, etc. That's bullshit! We already have a Marshall plan for the entire planet. It is a good plan that is fair for all. It is called GLOBALIZATION. If they can deal with it - that's allright with me. They can find their own way. I will respect it as long as they don't create paradoxical situations in which they then come to us telling us to support them in their own way. Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

> but you have to understand, as your government obviously does, > that 300 million people have to be careful about how they dictate > world politics to more than 6 Billion. They don't dictate anything to anyone. Sincerely. > 30 Billion a year in humanitarian aid (and the US Defense department's > budget is $ 850B/yr) would double the annual income of all of the > 1 Billion people in the middle east. But it would also lower the security of people, who produced this money by their honest work... Last but not least, increased productivity, education and other money generating activities in that part of the world would also double their salaries. So why don't they do it themselves? Sincerely, Tomaz

Kannan, this might be completely irrelevant to your problem (I don't have a insight besides that you need query builder) but I thought it would be helpful to someone. :-) When I need to offer complex database search functionality to the user I usualy create Windows Wizard. With it user can narrow down the search using his business terminology. It's much closer to business logic then SQL queries. For example (real life schedule search): - step 1: would you like due list or schedule - step 2: limit from and to dates - step 3: limit projects - step 4: limit analysts ... Regards, Tomaz Tomaz Stih, B.Sc.SE

Not only would you go broke soon, but you would become alchoholic, too. Tomaz

Wouldn't it be great if one could have an external backup device, connected to USB. It would be OS independent, software could be run from a floppy disk and would do disk image to this external device. Then the dumb user could do backup once per week with the "ORANGE DISK" and when things go wrong use the "VIOLET DISK" to recall last known disk image. This would solve the: 'I didn't do anything, except my son installing this Windows 95 game with DirectX drivers on Windows 2000, but this could NOT be the problem, could it? And now it doesn't work anymore.' problem. [ Will anyone give me a quarter for this excellent business idea? Like, all 60.000 of you? ] Regards, Tomaz

I wonder when did we turn inot charity and how did this transformation happened? Ever had a friend, neighbourhood lady or a person who knows a person who used to know you call you, before calling the professional service, to fix computer? Do these people call their friends, neighbours or complete strangers who are lawyers or dentists, to help them work on a contract or fix teeth, cause "its just a small thing"? When did we become so cheap?! :suss: :confused: X| Tomaz

Used to. With passion. But I made an exception with my last computer for two reasons: 1. Things are changing, new standards are emerging. Today, every little chip needs a ventilator, some need vent and cooler, etc. Also, although the concept of slots is basically remaining the same (- you plug the card IN -), new standards are emerging and that makes me feel uncomfortable. 2. I needed my new computer urgently, hence, I could not affort to buy two incompatible cards and play with them for days only to realize at the end - that they hate each other. On one of my projects I had to train secretaries to use Windows 95, Office 95 and my software. To overcome the fear of computers with these old ladies, I brought a computer to the first lesson, opened it, took out the cards, explained what VGA is, what sound blaster is, etc. Showed them RAM, hard disk, floppy disk, etc. Then put everything back, switched it on - and it worked. Later, I tried not to think, what would happen to my authority as a teacher - if it didnt. :-) I think this in combination with explanation of Von Neumman's concept of computer and showing them price lists to explain why we NEED secondary storage, etc., had a good impact on those ladies and I recommend it. But it has the side effect. Em, they start calling "the meister" (=you) whenever they have a problem with computer at home. And you have to learn to refuse. Tomaz

How about changing the name to "The Code Planet"? :-) Tomaz Stih

Maybe not. I mean - it does look like something with very low self esteem. Resembles Calimero. How'bout: Kira.

Dagny Taggart. [feeling very philosophical today :suss: ]

David, it is pretty annoying thought, that all this man power will suddenly be available on the market. But on the other side web is the simplest of all development, so I guess instead of going into our market the majority of them will either move to .NET projects (the developers, which are the minority, should be less then 15% of typical web company and the rest is marketing and sales) or change jobs (content managers will become local journalists, web masters will move to system administration and integration, web designers will do DTP, industrial design, usability studios, entertainment industry, etc.) Does it in any way affect C++ industry? I don't think so. C++ is the same industry (computer software), but different market and addressing different needs. And not many C++ programmers will emanate from dot coms. I wonder how this fall of web from grace will effect Linux/Java community? Regards, Tomaz Software Architect, Switzerland