Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes at an elite Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference to make a point about the deadly sting of malaria.
'Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,' Gates said while opening a jar on stage at a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars.
'I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.'" Say what you will about the guy, that is showmanship. Well done.
Releasing bugs into the wild while complaining about viruses.
Although this time around, I'm on his side.
My work here is dung.
Bill does this all the time at the office for target practice for Ballmer.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Jeez, even his philanthropy has bugs!
If he ever gives a speech about rabies, I'm not going...
"...politicians, and Hollywood stars" Those types will suck the juices out of those poor helpless mosquitoes.
Dear god, won't somebody think of the mosquitoes?!
Sheldon
Old Billy boy might just make me a fan with stunts like this.
Some people are allergic to mosquito bites even if the mosquitoes are disease-free. Harm is not necessary in most states to convice for assault (that's battery). Just the threat of harm.
For his next trick, to highlight the need for stricter gun control laws, Bill Gates will fire a gun into a crowd while shouting "there is no reason why only poor people should suffer from gun crimes!"
I think Al Gore plans on having a volcano erupt in downtown Manhattan to emphasize that ecological disasters are not just some fringe pacific "ring of fire" problem, but I hear he's having trouble getting a permit from the city.
You should have been at the function where he released 100 screaming Rhesus monkeys into the audience to highlight the problems of Ebola virus. It was great fun watching the attendees trying to avoid being bitten.
What has Gates done PERSONALLY to make slashdotters so hateful of him? Honestly, the real reason Microsoft is able to get away with what it does is that monopolies are an inherent flaw in our current economic system. Microsoft is no different, or annoying and heartless, than the cell phone companies or how AT&T was.
Bill Gates smoothly made sure his company won the monopoly, but even without the man, a different software company would have won it.
Sure, it might be showmanship... But who's going to get the last laugh when the various "technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars" are infected by mosquito-transmitting borg nanites installed by Bill Gates himself?!
We have neither time nor space, here.
They could be males, at which point they're no threat to anyone, anyway.
Alternately, cue nanotech-related conspiracy theories in 3...2...1...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Flying chairs! ROFL! Still fscking hilarious every single time someone says Microsoft! HAHAHA!
idiot.
wear one of those head covering mosquito nets, or like what Beekeepers wear. that would be pretty funny :)
to suffer some disease?
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
... that there's no reason only poor people should be shot either. His ego is putting Larry Ellison's to shame. One hopes he comes down with malaria some time - it's so often the gift that keeps on giving.
Oh, and I suppose poor people shouldn't be the only ones to die of dehydration either... that's why next month's conference will be held in the Mojave desert.
If you're a tech king or politician, would you want to be known as "the guy that sued the richest-man-turned-philantropist over a bug sting"?
Nobody in that could would ever talk to you again. Let alone invite you to dinner, because they could just happen to offer you something you might be allergic to and sue again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Heck, Saddam Hussein never PERSONALLY did anything bad to an American, yet he's still hated.
Read up on his crybaby routine for Altair Basic. Some of which was "stolen" by dumpster diving. See the Halloween documents. The illegal works he's done, approved or helped commit.
Just because he didn't to it *personally* to *me* doesn't mean that his actions haven't affected me.
And that is where the hate comes from.
Mind you, since when has Linus Torvalds done anything to Bill? Yet Bill HATES linux and accused Linus of IP theft deliberate, of being unamerican, killing the livlihoods etc.
this idea was invented by shampoo
Yes, there is — the richer people can afford both the knowledge of the danger, and the means of defense.
Other things being equal, poor people will always have it worse, than the rich. Bill Gates' trick — and the accompanying rhetoric — certainly made news already and will continue to do so &mdash as he intended. But it is just a buzz-generating trick — not unlike the naked PETA protesters.
His main message — that having vast numbers of people suffer and die from preventable and treatable diseases (like malaria) sucks — is quite correct and on-target. But if he wants my money (or other, non-monetary, assistance) to help with it, he better dispense with the near-Socialist proclamations...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You don't say that Bill has seen someone else's idea, thought "hey, that's neat" and copied it without referencing it, do you?
How dare you suggest something like this?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is he the right person to fix a bug?!
I am sure he is better qualified to create a bug!
Why is every MS story being tagged astroturfing? Do people even know what that word means, or are there really people who harbor such paranoia and belief in grand conspiracies (some kind of tech version of 9/11 Truthers)?
I bet someone's going to accuse me of astroturfing with this post and being a shill for Gates..
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
"Say what you will about the guy..."
OK, he's an idiot. Was he giving a speech to the CDC? No. Know to target the right audience. I'm still searching for the "point" he was trying to make targeting THAT group of people in an act that could be considered terrorism under our "new and improved" laws.
Oh, and Bill, let me know how that Lyme disease works out for you, K? Not every damn thing spread by mosquitos is combated by keeping current on your shots. Moron.
What about this indicates a faux grassroots movement? Words like 'astroturfing' quickly lose their meaning when abused like this...
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
Everybody is slightly allergic to the bite. Just let the mosquito finish and it will pull back the anti-coagulant. As to this being assult, more likely than not, the man has a EULA at the front door that says that by entering these doors, you agree not to sue. It would be that smudge that everybody saw on the bottom of the board going in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Even after he retires, Bill Gates sends hundreds of bugs out to an unsuspecting audience.
vide title.
Gates has always been largely hated here and in the IT community because of course he's the one who lumped us all with the worst of Microsoft's products as well as the best ones. It was his company that was hit by the major anti-trust suit and so on. Whilst the company he was responsible for is indeed guilty of being not particularly nice and whilst it's a fair comment to make that if he was in charge, then he is responsible too I think it's a little more complex than that.
Microsoft as a company aside, I'm not convinced Bill Gates is actually that bad a person.
I think maybe he got blinded sometimes by the position he was in and made bad decisions, other times there's been videos of him snapping at staff and so on but these strike me as particularly human traits, in the case of geeks who aren't the greatest at dealing with people, the latter doesn't strike me as being particularly unusual. After all, even Steve Jobs who is much more of a people person that Gates has ever been is equally guilty of such treatment of his staff. What's more, Jobs has also never been one for philanthropy either- in fact, on the contrary, he actually cut Apple's philanthropy programs when he returned to the company and never brought them back.
Some may argue the only reason he gives to charity is as a tax dodge, but if that's really true why does he do things like this? If it were a mere tax dodge, then there's no reason he'd need to waste his time.
This view I have of him nowadays was somewhat reinforced in a recent documentary on him that I watched the other day - "Bill Gates - How a Geek Changed the World" which was certainly interesting. Of course, we never know whether documentaries like these are made with an air of bias to them or not, similarly we don't know if everything Bill does really is just a show. But honestly, now he's no longer at Microsoft and still is willing to do things like this I think I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now unless he does something to prove otherwise.
I think it's true when some commentators suggest that a few decades down the line, when Gates is old and dying that he indeed wont be remembered as that guy that ran that evil company and is hence evil himself, but will be seen more as a pretty decent bloke. I think as a person, Microsoft as a company has actually done more harm to his image than he perhaps deserves. I'm just not convinced anymore that Gates is one of those people who does necessarily deserve to go down in history as a bad guy. I may be proven wrong as time goes on, but only time will tell I suppose.
In rare situations, some people may experience anaphylaxis after being bitten by mosquitoes. Other people may have experienced whole body urticaria and angioedema (hives and swelling), or worsening of asthma symptoms after being bitten. Typically, these symptoms occur within minutes after a mosquito bite, compared to Skeeter Syndrome, which may take hours to days to occur."
Nice side effects from non-malaria carrying insects. Thanks, Bill, you tosser.
Not another 'anti-Bill' troll - kudos for what he's trying to do for world health, but:
Reminds me of the infamous 'anthrax' incident with Colin Powell. I'm all for livening up presentations, but the risk with this kind of stunt is that it will be the only thing attendees will remember.
Also, scaring/threatening people you are (presumably) hoping will help you is perhaps not the best...
There is no reason for Bill Gates being so rich.
Extremely intelligent people often display signs of being
hard working, over exaggerated, and psychopathic. He is no
exception.
It not be much of a stretch to portray the role of a great
philanthropist; flaunting someone else's money of course.
Maybe he wants to ensure that CABO SAN LUCAS is always
malaria-free so that he won't contract it in his new palace,
next the sea of cortez.
.
what bill gates releasing bugs onto his captive audience??? nothing new here although this could make for a nice trademark for all his future appearances. like gallagher's watermellons.
... it bites!
And it is pretty much just one big bug.
...or maybe some fire ants, hornets or african bees.
My boss was at his talk. He did not release the mosquitos. He did have a vial of them there and threatened to, as a joke (boss-man actually said his whole talk was pretty entertaining). So all of you yammering about suing and crap can calm down.
They may or may not eat mosquitoes, (but since they were imaginary mosquitoes it is largely irrelevant) but you can bet people will like them more than mosquitoes.
They always come up with the funniest stories.
What? Fox News? But they got the story from The Onion, right?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I am allergic to insect bites.
On occasions I have been rushed to hospital to deal with mosquito bites.
Sorry if I am missing something, I could not bring myself to RFA....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The 'jungles' of America are every bit as bad as the jungles of the world. Hot, wet, mosquito traps. Even though mosquitoes are *also* in the arctic circle. Funny though, how the only place they don't cause malaria is outside America.
The reason for this is the controversial chemical DDT. When it was created, it was suggested as a completely safe spray for mosquitoes. It wasn't. It was liberally applied, killing dozens, if not hundreds of people. Yes, it killed mosquitoes, and has kept them in check (with other chemical advances behind it) ever since.
However, Europe loves to use Africa as it's tool.
The EU (visionaries, thinkers, makers of good pastry) has decided to tell Africa that America wants to kill it, 'dumping their chemicals' into Africa. A whole scare-campaign has been set up to convince people there the only way to protect themselves and manage the 300,000 dead each year is to keep the dangerous chemicals away, and buy French-made mosquito nets.
They also have the notion that, though a nation who has known more poverty and pain than any other continent, they should *only* use sun and wind power. This tends to mean running the fridge for the medicine or the light, not both.
The EU is cruel, doesn't understand the pain it's pumping out, and cares only about money.
So go ahead, Mr Gates- not only do you have DDT on your side, but really good malaria drugs, created by capitalism....something Europe has largely left behind. That'll show'em!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Man, I would hate to be the sucker who has to put all those mosquito in the jar.
Bill: Steve, Can you come in here. ......
Steve: Hey bill, hope you are happy with optimization I put in Windows 7 Kernel.
Bill: Yah that is pretty good, I have another project for you.
Steve: Sure Bill, anything for you.
Bill: I want you to
Steve: You want me to what?
That could also be considered assault. Especially if he insinuated that they were carrying malaria.
Bill Gates sometimes strikes me as the nerdy James-Bond-villan type that would invent some type of super-virus and release it on the world via mosquitoes.
PERL:
All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
As someone who researches Malaria for a living I must wholeheartedly support the funding that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is bringing to the field of Malaria research. Malaria might only be a "poor" person disease but it affects tens of millions of people a year. Even on a selfish note, with global warming creeping up on us in the next few decades, perhaps this pre-emptive strike by the West will save us all getting sick in the long run.
It's not just the poor Windows users that should be infected with viruses. Viruses should infect Mac OS and Linux and other operating systems so that their users get to have infected operating systems too.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
Chill out before you lose it and chuck a chair at you mom.
There are much bigger, real, crimes to go after Billg for, anyway.
you had me at #!
Microsoft embodies his brand of heedless, amoral greed. The damage he's done to civilisation is incalculable.
you had me at #!
I have always disliked microsoft.
I never really saw the appeal of microsoft.
But, I definitely see the appeal of this.
If his money pays for a cure, he will have done
an incredible thing.
About 1000000 people die each year from malaria, and over 300,000,000 people catch it. It is a truly nasty disease.
Ignore the link on the bottom. I even backlink the slashdot story :P
www.thecyberdoctor.com
Bwahhhha! The monopoly was built on privilege, luck, raw opportunism, and a total lack of ethics.
Technology isn't even a factor.
you had me at #!
Mr. Gates, haven't you already unleashed enough bugs on the world?
We're surprised about Gates releasing thousands of bugs?!
This signature can save you $400 on your car insurance!
Were the mosquitos infected with the GPL?
Bill Gates is no more philantophist than any other greedy bastard out there. Its just about PR and trying to be known as more than the one that made computers suck.
No amount of PR can take away the fact that every single penny that man gives to charity is ill-gotten and smells of ruined companies, lives and technologichal breakthroughs killed in their infancy.
At best its an attempt to upweigh all the bad things he has done with some good things, just like your local drugdealer helps the poor but still is a drug dealer.
HTTP/1.1 400
What part of that was offtopic? Rarely is a slashdot comment so on-topic, in fact. (THIS comment is offtopic. The above, however, isn't even flamebait (unless your sphincter is so tight that when you fart it can only be heard by dogs and little girls.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
His company has repeatedly been convicted of criminality, and this trait is Gates'. The leopard does not change its spots.
We're globally paying the price for the fact that someone so corrupt was allowed to seize so much power and money (the misuse of that power continues via the Foundation).
you had me at #!
This guy (Gates) must be SICK to do this! I've had my son to the emergency room to treat allergic reaction to mosquito bites. What respect I've had for this guy (considerable) just left. Not funny. Not showmanship. Just stupid and insensitive!
Well, he freed us from spam three years ago, so he's probably our best hope against malaria.
Man, Gates has to do this kind of thing more often, the +5 funnies have skyrocketed!
Anyone else become a bit itchy while reading the article?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
"There is no reason only rich people should be infected."
This is a beautiful illustration if the Liberal mindset. Rather than trying to raise the poor by eliminating mosquitoes he's trying to equalize everyone by lowering the wealthy.
Or, an alternate way to look at it is that he's trying to remind the wealthy that just sitting still and letting poor rot instead of trying to help raise them up isn't a good thing. Encouraging empathy by upsetting their comfortable little world and letting them know a little bit of what the plebians feel of fear. Sometimes you've got be knocked on your ass once to appreciate the view. Dunno why this is a "Liberal" thing in your mind (and thus bad?), but there you go.
Maybe it's just his way of saying, "Memento mori, bitches."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
just wondering if there is a case for suing Bill Gates for terrorizing people and causing psychological trauma.
How is this different from mailing white dust to people?
Isn't that terrorism?
If the mosquitoes were indeed infected, it was a plain terrorist act.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
"he threatened and deliberately generated fear."
Actually wouldn't that be terrorism?
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
calm down silly. It's not that bad yet. Maybe in the future but not yet.
After all the conditions at Glastonbury (music festival) each year are seen as an integral part of the fun rather than a health hazard and even the authorities realise they just have to deal with the incidences of trench foot and food poisioning rather than closing it down. You haven't been to a rock festival til you've been to a truly muddy Glastonbury and grooved to your favourite band while in a foot of toffee consistency proper waterlogged farmland :-)
The Gates Foundation is trying to distribute antimalarial drugs to all the poor people in Africa. Too bad there is already a cure for malaria orders of magnitude cheaper: DDT. In epidemiology, you eradicate a disease by preventing its spread, not treating every infected individual. Malaria was already eliminated in places like Sicily by using DDT.
DDT does not thin eggshells of birds. It is not carcinogenic either. I can't tell whether Bill Gates is trying to accomplish anything or just spend lots of money on others out of penance. If the Gates Foundation wants to improve the world, they would have more money for useful charity if they just applied DDT in Africa.
lol. My Bad...Bill Gates doing what he always does...
there must be something wrong with me i am starting to like bill gates !!!! ever since he stopped making sofware he seems like a good guy
To release live mosquitoes in a crowded room is a surprising thing for a wealthy man to do. Theoretically, Mr. Gates is opening himself to legal liability (1) for assault on the people who don't want mosquitos biting or harassing them, and (2) for damaging the conference and the venue where it is being held. From a purely legal perspective, Mr. Gates would have been wise to obtain consent from all affected people (including the owner of the venue) before he unleashed this menace. [By the way, I fully acknowledge the value of the point Mr. Gates made. He should be congratulated for making such an important point so effectively. Such a display took great courage on his part.] --Ben
Benjamin Wright, Dallas, Texas, benjaminwright.us
If only there was some sort of cheap chemical that could be used to kill mosquitoes.
What he did is akin to yelling fire in a theater. What if there had been a mass panicked mob trying to escape the theater?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
the use of ddt is severely stigmatized by wonky science and enviro-religious beliefs. It helped to eradicate malaria in the west, but now it is not good enough for the developing world? One would almost think that it was some kind of conspiracy. Fortunately it can be explained by stupidity too. spraying ddt in sleeping quarters of people requires minimal amounts, and works much better then bednets, which might not be used even if given away. spray one house and it is protected for half a year or more. You cannot sell it on, so misuse would be minimal. keep it out of the farmers hands though, you don't want it used on crops, so ideally it would contain some additive that makes is impractical for such a use.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
The Borg could easily assimilate people if they would follow a simple method:
1 Open a chain of brothels with hot Borg women like Seven of Nine.
2 Only charge for a visit is you get 1 small implant.
After say 10 implants, you have a nice drone... and it was all voluntary.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
>The point that he demonstrated, rather well it seems, is that we in
>the west find the idea of us being subjected to the risk of malaria extremely offensive.
And we found it so offensive that we did what it took to basically eliminate malaria from our society.
Why don't other societies do that, too? Why is it our job to do it for them?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Jealous people like the harp on the failures. Some of us like to celebrate the successes.
Many of the technological moguls are one-hit wonders and fade into the background with their millions. Its the people who are wildly successful more than once that are intriguing, even if they have several major failures along the way.
It's hard to say for sure, but it looks like an open jar in the picture.
Methinks you are trolling, either indirectly via your boss or by making up the boss story too.
Infuriate left and right
I just dont understand why some people always see the negative stuff in everything. He tried to make a valid point about malaria and some people were pissed that he assaulted the audience and he should be sued or convicted as a terrorist.
Get a grip, people ! The man has good humanitarian initiatives, you have no right to judge him.
It was a good joke that he tried to pull. Although it's the painful truth that some people die from malaria when some of the people who can donate to do something about it dont lift a finger.
and sometimes you've to be ostensive to the point that even investment bankers and billionaires wakes up to reality. Anyway unless none of the audiences carry a parasite causing malaria there's no risk that the mosquitoes will spread the decease.
>If we want people to listen to us when we say "Don't drain swamps and don't use DDT"...
You won't find me telling other civilizations how to deal with their disease problems. If it was good enough for us, it's good enough for them.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
who tagged this astroturfing?!?!
Obviously someone whose dictionary was bricked!
Because you equate abortion with murder. I'm sorry, but I don't. When a fetus is viable, it's a person. Before that, it's a parasite. I don't care that it's going to be a human eventually. More importantly, I may find abortion a deplorable act, a disgusting act, and something I personally would only consider in the most extreme cases (Anencephaly, for example), but that doesn't mean that I believe I know better than all people for all situations. People will take extreme measures in extreme situations, and they need access to safe healthcare. That includes all reasonable procedures.
But that's not the real point here, is it?
The real point is that the media (I don't know of any person that) freaks out about bird flu, a disease that has killed exactly 248 people in the last 11 years, while Malaria has been busy doing its thing, killing around a million people every year while we've been keeping records. And there have been deaths attributed to malaria recorded as far back as 50,000 years.
Frankly, I personally applaud Bill Gates for both of these acts--but especially trying to bring attention to Malaria. This is a disease that gets neither the attention nor the respect it deserves, and it's absolutely because of the reason he says... it only happens to poor people.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Now setting up DEET concessions for the Bill Gates 2009 speaking tour. Act fast, opportunities are limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.
Only one species of mosquitoes actually transmit malaria to humans; the Anopheles. Interesting stunt to scare the uninformed, but most likely more harmless than, say, releasing Windows 7 to the unsuspecting masses.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
-Henry David Thoreau
Well played. Keep up the good work. :)
All about me
If only he had also released one percent of a penny's worth of DDT into the jar...
Such privileged people have their failings, but they're certainly socially aware. They would easily figure out that:
a) Bill Gates is the quintessential computer nerd
b) male computer nerds have 0 contact with members of the opposite sex
c) only female mosquitoes bite
d) if Bill Gates had a whole jarful, the mosquitoes must certainly be males
They would quickly conclude that there's nothing to worry about, and they would have another glass of shipwrecked 1907 Heidsieck champagne, another cracker full of endangered sturgeon roe topped with the last shred of viable Passenger Pigeon DNA, and chuckle at Bill's attempt to be clever.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Now that Gates has released mosquitoes, will Teh Lunis follow in Bill's tail lights and do the same at the next Lunix convention?
Up the ante though, Lunis. Make sure your mosquitoes have malaria.
The posers out there that want tax payer money to go to their cause are the absolute stingiest when it comes to their own money. Their motto is "Someone should give money, but it's not going to be me." That's cowardice, phoniness, and should be shamed. The idea of the government giving out charity money is awful for the personal growth and personal connection that donors get when giving their own money, under their own will, not under the threat of government force.
For Bill and Melinda to commit to giving all of their wealth away to charity before dying is beyond noble.
Bill's mosquito release brings a very real situation to a mostly sheltered culture. Those I know that have gone on mission trips to poverty stricken countries all profess that the were forever changed by the experience. Gates unleashed a small jar of change on that crowd, and I do hope it takes root and holds.
Here's a man giving away his money and trying to fight problems in the third world, and all you can ramble on about is whether or not this constitutes assault in an overly litigious society.
So, here's a suggestion...How about you and everyone else who thinks like you grows up, stops being such a goddamned wuss, and realizes that there was absolutely no harm done here in any form or fashion? Then we can move on to actually getting things accomplished.
Amazing how you can criticise someone for trying to help cure a disease affecting millions, Yet consider yourself morally superior by promoting a blanket judgement against all pregnant women, regardless of their individual situations or circumstances.
For example what about someone who was raped? or someone who is in a medically life-threatening situation made potentially fatal by being pregnant? They're just examples off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many many even better justifications for abortion in real life, something your hopelessly narrow-minded philosophy always fails to deal with.
As much as I hate to be a flaming troll, I have three words for this:
What
A
Douche
What's that, boss? My salary is being paid out of a Gates Foundation malaria research grant? Oops.
Being a computer scientist means you tell people how computers should work, not that you know how they actually work.
For the swarm
God spoke to me.
I'm just saying! (ducks)
I may not be a smart man, but I know what an inode is.
Do a little reading on where the "ddt killed the raptors" came from. Basically it was based off of fictional accounts that spawned assumptions which were later hyped by the media with no real scientific or factual backing... Hmmmm...media hysteria being mistaken as reality....wow, what a novel concept.
releasing Weapons of Mass Infection?
January 7 2007 - Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation OR How to cause massive amounts of cancer in the very same communities you're trying to help with AIDS drugs. OR How to invest in drug companies that refuse to sell drugs to the very communities you're trying to help with AIDS drugs.
January 11, 2007 - Gates Foundation to reassess investments OR The part where they seem to come to their senses.
January 14, 2007 - Gates Foundation to keep its investment approach ... CEO maintains that divesting from firms that harm society would make little difference. OR The part in which they prove, in a sickenly short period of time, that they really don't give a rat's ass about philanthropy at all.
I hope someone gets sick and sues his ass. How did that help anything? The guy is rich from greed and persistence, not brains.
Gee...does he take a jar of moths into a movie theater just in case he might not like the feature? Might be an interesting way to get your money back...
he unleashed bugs on unsuspecting public.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I'll have a Gin and Tonic, extra Tonic Please
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Whatever I think of what he did, the fact stands that if I was in the audience at the time of this demonstration, I would never go to a conference at which he was presenting again.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
just a reminder...
http://www.nothingbutnets.net/
And jail him for biological terrorism.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
DDT is banned for agricultural use.
DDT use, for purpose of disease control is allowed by the treaty.
You don't seem to understand the very foundations of his charity.
So, Gates released bloodsuckers...nothing new, M$ has been suing people for infringing on their "innovated" (stolen) intellectual property for years now.
Lawyers, mosquitoes...same deal. Annoying as hell to most, life threatening to the impoverished. I think old Billy boy should take a long objective view at the *other* things he's released upon the world.
Not in the way it worked for the US.
There are too many mosquitoes who are either resistant or have latent genes which confer resistance. Any widespread eradication program will create a resistant population in no time flat.
The opportunity has past.
Jebus, the pro-MS trolls are out in force again. A concise and detailed answer to GP's question is not a troll. Somebody please fix this.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I hate mosquitoes. They are evil. You won't kill them all with DDT or draining all the swamps. The breed in meadows and tree holes too. Resistance to chemicals will develop long before the residual chemicals have finished taking their toll. They affect the rich and poor and are the cause of great poverty. They seem to find me particularly tasty. I have had mosquitoes released into my bedroom by a brother who was trying to save money feeding the fish in his aquarium. Even he stopped doing that after I trapped one in HIS bed. We heap scorn on the camper who lets one into the tent. It just shows that Bill Gates is unconcerned about what he unleashes upon others. He is just projecting his sentiment onto others, whether they deserve it or not. As long as his system isn't crashing, riddled with malware and clogged with spam why should he fix it?
There is a great debate that is brewing about the exemptions to DDT bans for netting and construction materials for walls that I hope may get some further recognition.
I'm not certain that I'm willing to accept that his motives were what he proclaims them as being. It's still possible that his actions might have the effect he claims to be trying to achieve.
Maybe.
To me it seems equally likely to scare people away. But they'll remember that Bill Gates claims to oppose malaria. Actually they'll remember that he does, whether it's true or not.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
At some point, the glass half full is half empty.
>So, how exactly is a 3rd-world country supposed to do what we did, when
>the costs (both political and monetary) of doing what we did have gone up so much?
We did it, there is nothing stopping others from doing the same. America was not always the rich kid on the block.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Bloodsucking parasite releases blood sucking parasites.
>Uh...poverty?
Wasn't America once a poor country, too? Yet we overcame and solved our mosquito problem. I don't see why other nations can't develop themselves and solve their mosquito problems. It's not like they even have to invent the solution.
>Uh...kindness?
When we have money to spare we can indulge your sense of kindness.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
American hippies are about as close as anyone has come so far. "Communist" countries are dictatorships. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and friends did not care much about isms, more about taking complete power. Lots of executions, lots of control, not much communism.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Pharmaceutical corporations have no interest in cures, e.g. no one wants to make antibiotics for anything other than livestock (though humans are running short of effective ones) because, financially, it is better to make things people take long term than to make cures that they take for a short period (and livestock only take them to kill intestinal bacteria leading to slightly increased growth and to try to get by on ridiculous food choices). Treating HIV symptoms is hugely profitable, I doubt any pharmaceutical company wants a cure.
The $10 billion big pharma spends on HIV research is spent on cocktails of drugs that people are going to take every day for life for many thousands of dollars per year. And the cocktails have to be changed every few years due to HIV developing resistance. No ???, just profit.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
What if
No, I do not think, it is as "black and white" as you describe. Some regimes can be less and others — more socialist without factories being outright owned by the government.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I understand the general point Gates was trying to make. But his execution was badly flawed. Lab-bred mosquitoes or not, why even chance something going wrong? If I understand things right, he didn't explain until moments later that the mosquitoes were "safe" ones.
This whole thing just has the taint of criminal assault to it. To imply that you're possibly infecting a "captive" audience to a disease?
Fruit flies -- would be my guess.
What's the difference between this ans people who fake ricin etc to make a point. He should be arrested.
The most likely person to get bitten was Gates himself in any case. Unless you hold some radical theories about his state of health.
Squirrel!
They did use to use - and in some cases still do use - mercury as a preservative for immunizations. There is no direct evidence that it does anything, but it's not a myth.
But yeah, anyone who doesn't know anything about the ban on DDT shouldn't be using it as an excuse to claim that some liberal conspiracy is destroying the world through inanity. Any claim that disease affects the rich and poor equally is ridiculous.
[Ego]out
Gates unleashes scurvy to demonstrate the negative effects of piracy. Bring a lemon.
The gp was modded flamebait no doubt because he's attacking the idea because it's been strongly associated with the stereotypical 'liberal' mindset, not because it's a bad idea.
Your argument against said modding is a bit incoherent. Gates was not using an appeal to pity, nor was he threatening the audience. Rather, he invoked the audience's imagination, which would better describe what it's like to live under such a threat. Simultaneously, he drew attention to the fact that this a problem poor people have, because they're forced to live in disease-ridden areas. To say the rich and the poor are equally affected by disease is like saying that a man behind a bullet proof piece of glass and one who is not is equally affected by a bullet fired at them. You have to take away the context in which they exist for that to hold.
The ultimate point is that the efforts to reduce Malaria are not misguided - and to score cheap points off their similarity to environmentalism in this country is flamebaiting. It assumes the precondition that the 'liberal' mindset is not only wrong but the cause for any issue we've seen in the past - which is a ridiculous assertion.
And as long as we're racking up ridiculous assertions, let's try this one; that because something provides a short term gain one should use it if nothing better is available, regardless of the side effects. To make an exaggerated point - one could dose the malaria affected regions with radiation; spread around uranium or something else radioactive enough to kill the mosquitos - and everything else - dead. Even if you remove the humans beforehand, that land becomes unusable.
One should be mighty cautious when intoxicating an environment, even if it saves some from a present threat. The lives saved in the meantime aren't going to mean much if they're also cancer-ridden, or have other diseases. There is a real cost there. This is not an issue of 'needing to be ecologically correct'. It's an issue of understanding that humans are impacted by their environment, and that environment is hard to control. Willy-nilly short-term attempts to do so can and regularly do end in disaster.
In any event, the solution is pretty simple; we have a non-toxic medicine that will inoculate people. The issue is simply cost. So, to propose DDT as a cheap solution is basically saying that it's acceptable to kill people slowly rather than saving them. Yes, it may be better than killing them outright - but then you get no points for humanity, ethical behavior or moral righteousness.
[Ego]out
Releasing bugs from a lab into a room full of rich people. He must have been trying to create some kind of Spiderman/Batman hybrid. Genius!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
First thing that came to me when I read the headline was the family of wasps bit on family guy:
Peter: Look Chris, it's a whole family of wasps!
Man: My Margaret what a sub-par ham.
Margaret: Perhaps I can't bake a ham, but what I can cook up is a little grace and civility at the table.
Man: Did you know your mother is a whore?
It was a seriously assholish thing to do. Somebody should have thrown a chair at him.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I used to be a high school teacher; I left the profession in part because my principal made Michael from _The Office_ look intelligent.
He found an injured bat in the entry arcade to the building and got it into a cardboard box. He presented it to some math teachers at an [already scheduled] faculty meeting that day after school, and sure enough, the injured bat started flying around the 60*40*16' ceiling chorus room where the meeting was being held. I took the initiative to open an outside door, and the bat eventually flew outside.
The background behind this? Some math teachers at the school called themselves "old bats", since they had been teaching there for 30+ years. They were horrible teachers who no principal had the cojones to discipline or fire, but that doesn't exactly excuse what the principal did. If that bat had bitten somebody, there would have been hell to pay.
Where is Brock Samson when you need him?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Even if the mosquitoes were all "clean," it was an irresponsible thing to do - what if some of them had (have?) spread blood-borne diseases between attendees? You wouldn't get away with bringing clean syringes and then poking three people at random with each one.
It's a cute story but it's fundamentally untrue. I live near Washington DC and I can assure you that there is absolutely no shortage of mosquitos around here in the summer.
The U.S. does not have a malaria problem because it is an easily treatable or preventable disease, and we are rich enough to afford the drugs. It is a major problem in 3rd world countries because they cannot afford enough drugs to get below the epidemic tipping point. So they use pesticides (including DDT) to try to suppress the carriers instead, because that is a much cheaper approach. Unfortunately it is also less effective.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That Vista was not the least popular thing he has released.
Nullius in verba
That definition of socialism is correct. True socialism is when the state runs every facet of business, if you are permitted any latitudes, or even permitted to chose your own business regardless of restrictions then that is not socialism. Under socialism, one does not own a business, one is appointed to manage a government department.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Deja vu :)
Some people just find new ways to do the old things :P
for that stunt.
And then I'd deliver something DEEP like how he is the metaphor for big corporations and I was the metaphor for the common man striking a blow for freedom and see how much he likes metaphors
As I keep pounding the shit out of him.
Fucking prick.
Come here and try that shit you loser.
Wanna make a difference? Press for elimination of the DDT ban and start manufacturing it by the kilo ton and selling it dirt cheap to these countries that suffer from malaria. Eco idiots have murdered over 20 million people because of this ridiculous ban of a chemical so safe you can eat it by the pound with no ill effect. Rumors of damage to birds and other animals have been shown to be completely wrong.
Don't believe it? Al Gore is coming for you baby! Just wait and see.....
SAVE THE BABY HUMANS!! BAN the DDT BAN!!
Why?
but what a waste of American resources. Please enlighten me....he is a world Jesus? HE thinks Americans aren't worthy of his efforts to make the world a better place? Or does he only know about the world of zillionaire USA? Why don't you start by cleaning up your own backyard before you solve the riddle of the universe Mighty Mouse?
I would think Gates' actions would qualify as criminal assault: intentionally putting people in fear of physical harm. As you describe his action, you think he should "knock people on their asses" to make them "know fear." It's as though he'd been talking about AIDS and then hurled a bunch of (clean) needles into the audience. Do people here think he didn't break the law, or that he's above it?
Revive the Constitution.
Preferably Bill. Or that the victim's family sues his ass for his entire fortune.
Fuck him.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Nuff said
Lol! wonder what bit HIM. :D
and that is much much better thing.
mad so many people choose the wrong thing for money.
Was this a necessary evil? I dont know.
History is replete with such stories.
But the fact is, he taught everyone associated with his empire to steal. The people who suffered were the straight guys. Maybe by design, who knows?
Anyway, how do we handle people so f**king fithy in their ways that each one of them is a Jabba The Hut of his own office. That is not right.
One could argue that Bill's monopoly has eliminated a thousand tiny parasites. But they are still operating just the same on business software, application software, multimedia software, content and so on.
If Bill had not "conquered" the world with his OS, there would be a totally fractured market for OSes - does that mean it was a bad thing?
Not really, since it already consists of a large fractured market of custom designed software. The real WTF is why RMS and the other gnus allowed this to go on for years without making a desktop OS available. Now dont give me funny looks, you all know the history quite well.
This guy destroyed many small businesses around the globe and maintained the revenue for the Empire in US dollars. The plan hatched in 1995 was to try and get the US dollar strong by technology rather than by petroleum. Eventually, the wars did happen.
So what was the use of allowing Microsoft to help sustain the dollar economy?
Such a mistake in judgement by visionaries is neither minor nor accidental.
I'm looking at you, MoTUs.
Wintel guarantees a de facto standard, agreed.
But what about all the f**ked up application software out there - and the 5 billion people not connected?
That would have happened by now, rather than by midway into the 21st century.
Was it worth butchering Africa like this?
Why is Ubuntu the perceived saviour of Africa today? Why not twenty years ago?
Patents? IP? MoTUs have a lot to explain.
If it is splintering that Bill prevented, you are wrong, it is already quite splintered in the market that actually matters - closed source, custom-designed software.
What then was the point of Microsoft or Bill Gates? Putting a PC on every desk? That could not have been done in another way?
Surprise, it is being done, but not the Wintel way. Now? Where's the Bill-was-great theory?
I've met so many dirty customers, who think software must be zero-price even if the programmer works for it on contract. That is ridiculous. Bill has undercut a hundred thousand small businesses and made traders out of engineers. He's made threats and fear a part of life. Had the GPL or BSD license been the predominant one, US would have sold more computers to the developing world, including Africa. The tiny consolation of Ubuntu from South Africa fails to explain the or justify the crippling, numbing, shocking, unending misery of the rest of the Africa.
What about my very own India? What about South East Asia? Latin America?
Kids growing up reading the GPL would make much better adults than those "pirating" and bribing officials everywhere. The GPL kids would have been sensitive to the plight of the poor in their respective countries. All this was delayed because of Wintel. In India, for example, nobody trusts each other in the IT market. Nobody wants to team up to do business, nobody wants to share revenue justly, nobody wants to pay decent salaries. Open source could have prevented a lot of this. The world would ALREADY have been a better place. Why then did that no happen?
Karma my foot! Why did the system not stop or prevent all these bribes, crookery, deceit, divide-and-rule and suspicion?
Your arguments are pearls, no Rubies, maybe Spring Rubies, but the fact is: Microsoft slowed down fair tech adoption and spread corruption far and wide. And that was definitely NOT a good thing. We're all facing the music as a result of these policies resembling those of the East India Company. Microsoft has destroyed ethics in the Indian tech sector. That is bad for the world too because a lot of the crap code written by Indian programme
He must really love the Death Knight hero class. Especially Unholy spec. XD
Someone modded me Informative.
Only on slashdot can you find people who don't know how you get herpes... :p
Are you 12?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsgvhP07BC8
Mosquitoes at 5:06
-- Boycott Shell
I'm beginning to like Bill Gates???
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
"First reported on social networking site Twitter, Facebook's Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin blogged"
In all this story, that's what surprised me most. A Facebook executive using a competing social network. I would have thought he'd facebooked about it..
>Yes, before you were born, America was a poor country. You've inherited a rich one.
The point here is that America was a poor country, and it solved its mosquito problem. There is no reason why other people in other countries can't do the same thing.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Conservatives think that everything bad that happens to someone,
>everything, is their own fault and they should be able to fix it themselves.
This is not about _fault_. It's nobody's fault that they live in a place full of mosquitoes.
The point is that we figured out how to deal with the problem, and we set out to do it and we did it. There is no reason why other people can't do the same thing.
Our nation crawled out of its poverty over the course of some 200 years to the point where it was able to beat Malaria. Other people can, too, if they want to.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I think bill gates is a pretty cool guy. eh releases mosquitos and doesn't afraid of anything.
they're features
I can't believe anybody is even engaging in a serious conversation about whether Bill Gates -- one of the wealthiest and shrewdest business men in the history of capitalism -- is a "socialist." Jesus, get a grip, people.
I thought the lecture was very interesting. I would have liked to see a lot of people running around in terror, or at least a gasp when he announced he would let the mosquito's out
Pretty much. It works as a propaganda cover for nasty dictators but just does not work as a system of government. You have to keep in mind that pretty much all philosophy, especially political philosophy, in the early 20th century was quotable but crappy. Lenin, Hitler, Freud, Marx, Mussolini, Nietzsche, Shayer... All quotable, and pretty good writers of fiction (OK, Hitler's prose was crap as well), but not great thinkers. Good at convincing people of stuff that is wrong, not at producing useful philosophies.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
>(1) The portion of the US which has a mosquito problem is relatively small
>vs the whole of the US due to climate. Meaning, that in the 1800's/early
>1900's when the problem was solved, the states without significant swamps contributed money/labor to fixing the problem.
So the whole country pulled together to solve the problem. OK, why can't other countries do this, too?
>(2) During this point in history (again, industrial revolution era) the US
>was awash in cash from industrialization. Quite simply, it wasn't a poor
>country when we solved the problem.
So after the US established itself well enough to solve its mosquito problem, it did so. Why can't other countries do this, too?
>(3) Science. The US had the scientific background it needed to solve the
>problem. Again, mostly in places in the north (think Yale/Cornell/Harvard
>et al) which weren't affected by the problem.
This just makes is that much easier for others to follow the trail we have already blazed for them.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
im saying was, because she died of cancer when i was 5 years old, very probably of DDT. they were using it like there's no tomorrow in 1970s.
shove that ddt in your ass of yours.
Read radical news here
This just goes to prove that we are all equal, just that some are more equal than others.
If I did this stunt, I would be in jail right now facing multiple counts of assault, communicating a death threat, and extortion.
But if your rich, the law looks the other way.
>How are you supposed to lift yourself up by the bootstraps without boots?
Step 1: Make boots.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
i'm a bigtime fan of TED and i saw his speech about the time it went on. I think it's great, bill gates unplugged, maybe you can take the hood out of the nigga
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
I don't see this action as laudable. This is biological terrorism.