meelash

Really? This got voted up to number 1 on the front page, and so many awesome real projects are buried without ever getting anywhere?

HN is really a joke now, I see. Haven't been around for a while. Sad.

Only if looking in the mirror does the same, I suppose :)

This article is claiming they've been trying to get rid of a worm for months? Why wouldn't they just format the computers and return to a previously backed up state?

Secondly, if the government needed information on how to solve the problem and didn't want to be detected, wouldn't they just send one or two of their top people to research it and then tell everyone else? How does large traffic from a certain country imply that the government is trying to find out how to defeat the worm?

Very strange article. Almost surreal.

The leaked letter is at the end of the article. The article is nothing exciting, but I found the letter an excellent and relevant read.

I've been thinking about this consequence of government ineptness for a while now. The problem is that politicians think (rightly) that they have gamed the feedback loop that is public opinion successfully. What they haven't recognized is that there is a much more serious and devastating long-term feedback loop, that will not just remove the politicians but thrash the whole country. The global brain drain that benefitted the US following WWII was not accidental or inherently one-way.

The only thing we're not seeing (or at least I'm not) is any country advertising themselves and sticking their neck out as a refuge. If there was, you could see the drain start swirling pretty quickly.

Respectfully, I don't think you've given the issue enough consideration. You're saying that if they didn't search the pilots, someone would fake as a pilot to get through security? Then what would he do? Stand awkwardly with the rest of the crew thinking up a story to explain why there are two pilots (or three, or whatever) on this particular flight? I would hope that a fake pilot would be fairly easily and quickly detected by the other pilots (who do know each other personally, after all).

Exactly. At least in Pakistan, a huge part of this problem is the insane emphasis of teaching everything in English, even though the people do not really understand English.

Imagine going through 10-12 years of schooling in Spanish, where instead of making an effort to teach you to conversate in Spanish, you just memorize the words in the book with little emphasis on what they mean?

Crazy!! It's like no-child-left-behind times 100.

I've never had this happen to me if I recall. Do the people who have a problem with this not keep their hand in "typing position"? It seems really difficult to me, with my left hand in position (which can be assured with the F dot) to hit W with my pinky or Q with my ring finger.

I have an honest question to ask, since the number of comments hasn't exploded here, I hope some thoughtful people can see it and answer. Please don't attack me for anything I may be implicitly saying; this is honestly something I'm confused about regarding the culture in which this event took place, and from which I am an outsider.

A number of people have taken great pains to emphasize that the behavior of the lady involved was not justification for an unwanted advance and that men should all understand this. Now I understand 100% that if she clearly and explicitly rejected his kiss advance, it was obviously wrong to go further (all of this is theoretical/alleged but ignore that for a moment).

Let's consider just the kissing portion and nothing beyond that.

Now, isn't sitting on people's laps and flirting exactly inviting this kind of advance? I mean isn't that exactly the point of those behaviors? To excite the passion of people it's being done to and who are watching?

It's very strange for people to vehemently deny this. It's like if I was a biologist of another race observing human kind, what would I identify through observation as the beginning steps in the mating ritual? So why is an impression being given that that kind of behavior is "having fun" and has nothing to do with sex, and trying to attract the opposite sex?

Again, let me state- I don't drink, I don't go to parties like this, I've never been to a bar or a club or a girl's hotel room. So please don't assume I know the answer and I'm trying to imply the answer through these questions. I really just don't understand how you can hold this idealistic view of mankind that a member of one sex should enflame the passion of the opposite sex, through activities and clothing with deliberate, intentional sexual overtones and then expect people to overcome their natural, biological response to that kind of show.

Comments, please?

Man, I wish those punks would do something like that in my neighborhood. 5 or 6 guys should get together with some nice, big sticks and go patrol the streets. Let some kid throw an egg at them and then go beat the crap out of him (meaning hit him once or twice in a non-vulnerable part of the body until he cries but not cause any actual physical harm). It will only take one kid, one year. Problem solved forever.

Self defense.