You'll have to excuse me, I some how missed that bit and can't find it in the link but I did get this. Sounds awesome, invests money in the company to fight AIDs, they only sell it at an obscene rate and they profit greatly from it while it's out of the hands of normal people. But at least it is helping Africa's elite.
In May, Felix began taking Kaletra, a second-line AIDS drug — needed when the first round of treatments fail.
His health rebounded, but it came at a cost.
Gel capsules of Kaletra melt in Nigeria's sweltering climate, where temperatures often top 100 degrees. Felix kept his Kaletra in a small chest filled with ice.
Each day, he had to go get more ice. And each day, he had to take Kaletra precisely at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. These things made it difficult for him to work, even at odd jobs.
A new version of Kaletra does not require refrigeration. But his physician, Dr. T.M. Balogun, who helps run the AIDS program at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, told him not to get his hopes up.
The hospital is helped by the Nigerian government, which gets money from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The fund has been awarded $651 million by the Gates Foundation. Yet the hospital does not offer the new Kaletra. It is too expensive.
In August, private pharmacists said they could sell it for $246 a month. But that was far out of Felix's reach.
Kaletra is made by Abbott Laboratories. As of this September, the Gates Foundation held $169 million in Abbott stock. In 2005, the foundation held nearly $1.5 billion worth of stock in drug companies whose practices have been widely criticized as restricting the flow of key medicines to poor people in developing nations.
On average, shares in those companies have increased in value about 54% since 2002. Investments in Abbott and other drug makers probably have gained the foundation hundreds of millions of dollars.
...
Under pressure from activists, Abbott and other companies cut prices for key AIDS drugs in poorer nations. In Guatemala and Thailand, the new Kaletra costs $2,200 per patient per year, plus taxes and fees — a fraction of the more than $8,000 it costs in the United States. In poorer Nigeria, the official price was $500 a year.
But this was still too costly for most patients, including Felix.
The industry's approach "has the effect of making medicines available only to a narrow spectrum of a rich elite in a developing country," said Brook Baker, an intellectual property expert at Northeastern University.
I'm not going to state opinion as fact and I don't recall anything that says I can't express my opinion here. Plus I'm not going to jsut copy and paste what the article says. The link is there with all the facts you want.
That doesn't say anything about intelligence. The number of degree holders in the US has been increasing but I certainly wouldn't say intelligence is rising.
I don't think I said anything that implied the foundation itself was a replacement of charities and what you say is generally the case but there is a difference between myself giving money to a foundation and Bill Gates giving money to his foundation. The difference being of course it's less of an intermediary for someone who owns it.
Then why give away the bulk of your money to organisations run by your family? It's not like it's beneath him to be petty. He's disowned his son's daughter for participating in a documentary about America's wealthiest people and effectively telling her she's not part of the family.
Those people are billionaires for a reason. They are smart and I know he says a lot of shit people like. Of course he does that, he's smart enough to know it benefits him. But if I had to guess he's still a prick and looks down on everyone else.
How is curing malaria or AIDS sticking it to oil companies? How is making countries play by their rules if they want the medicine sticking to the pharmaceutical companies? If anything he's helping them have a monopoly in that country.
Thinking that the pollution that happens in places like the Niger Delta will only be there and some how only effect 100 people is worth Dafur getting drugs in return for giving up rights in exchange is some a good deal is stupid. Gates will get caught out again. Like with Microsoft they'll keep push it too far. I only they don't cause as much damage as he has with Microsoft by the time something is done. Unfortunately that probably won't be the case because there are too many people that think questionable tactics are worth it for something good. Which is also why governments get away with things like the Iraq war or concentration camps.
More needs to be said about this and the other concerns with his charity. He's found a way to make himself look good and get people to give his questionable tactics a pass. That's all.
95% of their money goes into investment and the rest is effectively given away to avoid tax. How is that any different from any other corporation other than it obvious makes people think better of them compared to G.E. for example? And on top of it the bulk is going into some pretty awful companies causing all sorts of problems for poor nations.
Also why do Gates and Buffet largely give away their money to family foundations rather than giving to existing foundations and charities? It's all a con, imo, that makes people think they're awesome.
It's not that clear cut. He didn't believe in just throwing money at a problem to look good. He did however have the Steven P. Jobs Foundation briefly in the 80's (before foundations became the popular con amongst billionaires), he and Apple did work with Bono's Red and many people assume it was him that gave $150 million to Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center but it was done anonymously so who knows? Quite frankly whoever that anonymous person is I think that's much more admirable to give away $150 million than start a foundation that largely invests its money in pharmaceutical companies that refuse to lower prices for poor countries or invests in oil companies causing bronchitis, asthma and vision problems for many in Africa due to all the pollution they cause burning off oil and other stuff.
Except that all that money still primarily ends up in the hands of corporations through investment and they more or less only give enough away to avoid taxes. How is that really any different than running a investment firm? But then on top of it he's effectively creating a charity monopoly that has a knock-on effect of hurting a lot of other charities that do good things. And a lot of those companies they invest in are harming poor countries.
Arguably Gates is causing more problems than he's fixing. I don't think we need even more billionaires doing that.
In my opinion a lot of his billionaire charitable actions are a con. They claim they are giving their money away rather than giving it to their children but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a family foundation. Where do you think Gates' kids will end up or if they start their own foundation do you not think they'll get family money for that?
Let's see where Buffet puts his money:
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
the Sherwood Foundation (formerly called the Susan A. Buffett Foundation)
the Howard G. Buffett Foundation
the NoVo Foundation (Co-Chair Peter Buffet and President and Co-Chair Jennifer Buffet)
Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation
So all his money goes to his friend or his family. If they're so concerned about helping us plebes why can't they just give that money to existing charities and foundations rather than to friends and family? It's a scam, imo.
He's realised he needs to take care of his public image if he wants to die a well liked man but that doesn't mean he's some awesome full-time charity hero. Yes, he's the co-chairman of his foundation but likewise he's still the chairman of Microsoft which happens to use the same questionable labour as Apple through Foxconn. Where's his caring for those people? It's probably because his primary job is still making money off of people. He's the CEO of Cascade Investment so my guess his primary concern is still making money not helping people.
But even if you focus on just his charity, it's arguably a very damaging charity. He's using his wealth to basically create another monopoly but this one's in the charitable sector rather than computers. The end result is all the talent and skill gets dumped into things he wants to fix and other areas suffer. There have already been numerous complaints about this.
His charity only gives away minimal amount of money to basically avoid taxes while investing the rest and they invest in companies that won't work with poor countries so they can buy needed drugs and oil companies that are destroying the same countries he claims to want to help. People in the niger delta have loads of vision issues, asthma and bronchitis because of the companies he invests in. How is curing measles for these people helping them? They get to die from something else which is probably worse? What a great guy. Oh and when he gets that malaria disease will poor countries even be able to get it or will it retain a high price and basically only help Gate's rich buddies?
I suggest more people need to take a critical look at his foundation. The information is out there and has been reported on like in the L.A> Times http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story but for the most part he gets a pass because it's charity work and they think they can cure AIDS. But that doesn't excuse that actually most of the foundation's money actually goes to help rich awful companies through investment. With 48 of 100 be labeled as "transgressions against social responsibility".
On education, all they provide a racist scholarship which poor white families can't benefit from. They push privatization of education as a reform. They want standardised tests to rate teachers and schools and pay to be based on test scores. Sure that sounds like a good thing until you realise that standardised tests don't work and if a school's reputation and a teacher's pay is based on test scores then tests just get easier. How the hell does that help?
The UK does the same sort of crap and because of things like the League tables schools aren't giving kids the best education possible. They're giving them something they'll do well on to make themselves look good and get crap like students not getting zero marks for work they don't do at all. Only work they hand in which results in stories like this. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/teacher-who-gave-students-zero-marks-becomes-a-folk-hero/article4230726/
The guy, imo, is still a scumbag. But he's just become smarter at being a scumbag and realises he gets a free pass on whatever he does if starts a big foundation and claims they'll get rid of AIDS and other diseases.
A degree can obviously help. Having a degree not in CS may be beneficial anyway. If he wants to do development he just needs to keep up on how to write good, secure software and show his stuff either through a online repo on bitbucket or github or just have an good person site. If he also has previous experience through voluntary means or paid work that will help and trying to get more will only help his cause.
I didn't bother with university at all and haven't had any real problem finding work. In fact, on my employers had their investors pull out and within a week of being given notice I had another job resulting in only one day of unemployment. My current job and previous two I've been working along side plenty of people with PhDs and it's not a problem. In fact, in my experience, the lack of formal education isn't often a problem with the people you'll work with. It's an issue for HR departments or management primarily in larger companies. My disinterest in university hasn't stopped me from being respected by my peers who have done that and it hasn't stopped me from earning what appears to be an above average wage for the sort of work I'm doing in this area. If you can prove you're good at what you're doing there are people who will be interested.
My current employer is happy to pay for training and schooling so I do have the opportunity to consider university now. I probably will appreciate it more now and get more out of it but if I do pursue that option I don't think I'd waste my time with a CS degree or something similar. Something perhaps focusing on math, astronomy or something more interesting.
Of course it has a hinge. No one said it didn't. It's just not nearly as obvious. The two don't look similar and given that it's a patent on the whole design of the macbook air that means it doesn't count.
The patent doesn't even mention wedge. There's a lot more to it than that. Of course maybe that's why PCs continue to generally look so ugly because most of their users completely lack any sense of style which is why video card box art looks like something you'd find on a monster truck.
It wouldn't be hard since Apple mentioned the Sony laptop in their patent. But given that the patent is for the macbook air design and not just wedge shapes you would need to find something that looks like a macbook air prior to its release in 2008.
That looks nothing like a macbook air which is what the patent is for not strictly the wedge shape if you would read the actual patent which doesn't even mention the word wedge.
Do you have the actual complaint by Apple to back up your assertion that it was only over rounded corners or are you just repeating the same old shit angry android nerds repeat over and over again?
It's not a patent for a wedge shape nor does it even mention the word wedge. You obviously didn't read the patent and instead read the sensationalist headlines meant to wind up freetards, MS fanboys and Googletards. The patent is for the macbook air design which only one part of it is that it's wedge shaped and having only one of the many aspects of the design in your own won't cause a violation.
If Apple are legally allowed to do it and are attacked by other companies holding patents then why wouldn't you patent the one thing you clearly lead the industry in?
PC manufacturers do not spend money on design. At least nothing above ripping off Apple designs, the cardboard box or monster truck designs. Despite it being ages since Apple reinvented itself and has pretty much been praised for all it's designs PCs are still typically butt ugly. So it's not that obvious. Apple is good at it so they should protect it if they're going to be under threat over other people's patents.
The bulk of patents software companies get a complete shit. You can't expect one company to stop. The rules need to change or they need far better employees in the patent office.
Doesn't really matter since if you actually read the patent it doesn't even mention the word wedge. It's a patent for tha macbook air design which happens to have a wedge design but that's only one part of it. It's not the whole patent and Sony's design is also mentioned in the patent and why wouldn't they given it looks nothing like a macbook air even with the wedge-like shape.
Slashdot Mirror
In May, Felix began taking Kaletra, a second-line AIDS drug — needed when the first round of treatments fail.
...
His health rebounded, but it came at a cost.
Gel capsules of Kaletra melt in Nigeria's sweltering climate, where temperatures often top 100 degrees. Felix kept his Kaletra in a small chest filled with ice.
Each day, he had to go get more ice. And each day, he had to take Kaletra precisely at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. These things made it difficult for him to work, even at odd jobs.
A new version of Kaletra does not require refrigeration. But his physician, Dr. T.M. Balogun, who helps run the AIDS program at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, told him not to get his hopes up.
The hospital is helped by the Nigerian government, which gets money from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The fund has been awarded $651 million by the Gates Foundation. Yet the hospital does not offer the new Kaletra. It is too expensive.
In August, private pharmacists said they could sell it for $246 a month. But that was far out of Felix's reach.
Kaletra is made by Abbott Laboratories. As of this September, the Gates Foundation held $169 million in Abbott stock. In 2005, the foundation held nearly $1.5 billion worth of stock in drug companies whose practices have been widely criticized as restricting the flow of key medicines to poor people in developing nations.
On average, shares in those companies have increased in value about 54% since 2002. Investments in Abbott and other drug makers probably have gained the foundation hundreds of millions of dollars.
Under pressure from activists, Abbott and other companies cut prices for key AIDS drugs in poorer nations. In Guatemala and Thailand, the new Kaletra costs $2,200 per patient per year, plus taxes and fees — a fraction of the more than $8,000 it costs in the United States. In poorer Nigeria, the official price was $500 a year.
But this was still too costly for most patients, including Felix.
The industry's approach "has the effect of making medicines available only to a narrow spectrum of a rich elite in a developing country," said Brook Baker, an intellectual property expert at Northeastern University.
He called it "pharmaceutical apartheid."
I'm not going to state opinion as fact and I don't recall anything that says I can't express my opinion here. Plus I'm not going to jsut copy and paste what the article says. The link is there with all the facts you want.
That doesn't say anything about intelligence. The number of degree holders in the US has been increasing but I certainly wouldn't say intelligence is rising.
You can support him directly by buying stuff from his site already, moron.
Opening it voids the warranty though so that would be a dumb idea.
People who look for oil or shale use hpc all that but then you'd probably consider that bad.
I don't think I said anything that implied the foundation itself was a replacement of charities and what you say is generally the case but there is a difference between myself giving money to a foundation and Bill Gates giving money to his foundation. The difference being of course it's less of an intermediary for someone who owns it.
Then why give away the bulk of your money to organisations run by your family? It's not like it's beneath him to be petty. He's disowned his son's daughter for participating in a documentary about America's wealthiest people and effectively telling her she's not part of the family.
Those people are billionaires for a reason. They are smart and I know he says a lot of shit people like. Of course he does that, he's smart enough to know it benefits him. But if I had to guess he's still a prick and looks down on everyone else.
How is curing malaria or AIDS sticking it to oil companies? How is making countries play by their rules if they want the medicine sticking to the pharmaceutical companies? If anything he's helping them have a monopoly in that country.
Thinking that the pollution that happens in places like the Niger Delta will only be there and some how only effect 100 people is worth Dafur getting drugs in return for giving up rights in exchange is some a good deal is stupid. Gates will get caught out again. Like with Microsoft they'll keep push it too far. I only they don't cause as much damage as he has with Microsoft by the time something is done. Unfortunately that probably won't be the case because there are too many people that think questionable tactics are worth it for something good. Which is also why governments get away with things like the Iraq war or concentration camps.
More needs to be said about this and the other concerns with his charity. He's found a way to make himself look good and get people to give his questionable tactics a pass. That's all.
I suggest you read this: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story
95% of their money goes into investment and the rest is effectively given away to avoid tax. How is that any different from any other corporation other than it obvious makes people think better of them compared to G.E. for example? And on top of it the bulk is going into some pretty awful companies causing all sorts of problems for poor nations.
Also why do Gates and Buffet largely give away their money to family foundations rather than giving to existing foundations and charities? It's all a con, imo, that makes people think they're awesome.
It's not that clear cut. He didn't believe in just throwing money at a problem to look good. He did however have the Steven P. Jobs Foundation briefly in the 80's (before foundations became the popular con amongst billionaires), he and Apple did work with Bono's Red and many people assume it was him that gave $150 million to Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center but it was done anonymously so who knows? Quite frankly whoever that anonymous person is I think that's much more admirable to give away $150 million than start a foundation that largely invests its money in pharmaceutical companies that refuse to lower prices for poor countries or invests in oil companies causing bronchitis, asthma and vision problems for many in Africa due to all the pollution they cause burning off oil and other stuff.
Except that all that money still primarily ends up in the hands of corporations through investment and they more or less only give enough away to avoid taxes. How is that really any different than running a investment firm? But then on top of it he's effectively creating a charity monopoly that has a knock-on effect of hurting a lot of other charities that do good things. And a lot of those companies they invest in are harming poor countries.
Here's a good more balanced look at his foundation. http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story
Arguably Gates is causing more problems than he's fixing. I don't think we need even more billionaires doing that.
In my opinion a lot of his billionaire charitable actions are a con. They claim they are giving their money away rather than giving it to their children but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a family foundation. Where do you think Gates' kids will end up or if they start their own foundation do you not think they'll get family money for that?
Let's see where Buffet puts his money:
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
the Sherwood Foundation (formerly called the Susan A. Buffett Foundation)
the Howard G. Buffett Foundation
the NoVo Foundation (Co-Chair Peter Buffet and President and Co-Chair Jennifer Buffet)
Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation
So all his money goes to his friend or his family. If they're so concerned about helping us plebes why can't they just give that money to existing charities and foundations rather than to friends and family? It's a scam, imo.
He's realised he needs to take care of his public image if he wants to die a well liked man but that doesn't mean he's some awesome full-time charity hero. Yes, he's the co-chairman of his foundation but likewise he's still the chairman of Microsoft which happens to use the same questionable labour as Apple through Foxconn. Where's his caring for those people? It's probably because his primary job is still making money off of people. He's the CEO of Cascade Investment so my guess his primary concern is still making money not helping people.
But even if you focus on just his charity, it's arguably a very damaging charity. He's using his wealth to basically create another monopoly but this one's in the charitable sector rather than computers. The end result is all the talent and skill gets dumped into things he wants to fix and other areas suffer. There have already been numerous complaints about this.
His charity only gives away minimal amount of money to basically avoid taxes while investing the rest and they invest in companies that won't work with poor countries so they can buy needed drugs and oil companies that are destroying the same countries he claims to want to help. People in the niger delta have loads of vision issues, asthma and bronchitis because of the companies he invests in. How is curing measles for these people helping them? They get to die from something else which is probably worse? What a great guy. Oh and when he gets that malaria disease will poor countries even be able to get it or will it retain a high price and basically only help Gate's rich buddies?
I suggest more people need to take a critical look at his foundation. The information is out there and has been reported on like in the L.A> Times http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story but for the most part he gets a pass because it's charity work and they think they can cure AIDS. But that doesn't excuse that actually most of the foundation's money actually goes to help rich awful companies through investment. With 48 of 100 be labeled as "transgressions against social responsibility".
On education, all they provide a racist scholarship which poor white families can't benefit from. They push privatization of education as a reform. They want standardised tests to rate teachers and schools and pay to be based on test scores. Sure that sounds like a good thing until you realise that standardised tests don't work and if a school's reputation and a teacher's pay is based on test scores then tests just get easier. How the hell does that help?
The UK does the same sort of crap and because of things like the League tables schools aren't giving kids the best education possible. They're giving them something they'll do well on to make themselves look good and get crap like students not getting zero marks for work they don't do at all. Only work they hand in which results in stories like this. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/teacher-who-gave-students-zero-marks-becomes-a-folk-hero/article4230726/
The guy, imo, is still a scumbag. But he's just become smarter at being a scumbag and realises he gets a free pass on whatever he does if starts a big foundation and claims they'll get rid of AIDS and other diseases.
If they're not supposed to know then a standard 404 would do. But everyone in the UK knows PB is censored.
A degree can obviously help. Having a degree not in CS may be beneficial anyway. If he wants to do development he just needs to keep up on how to write good, secure software and show his stuff either through a online repo on bitbucket or github or just have an good person site. If he also has previous experience through voluntary means or paid work that will help and trying to get more will only help his cause.
I didn't bother with university at all and haven't had any real problem finding work. In fact, on my employers had their investors pull out and within a week of being given notice I had another job resulting in only one day of unemployment. My current job and previous two I've been working along side plenty of people with PhDs and it's not a problem. In fact, in my experience, the lack of formal education isn't often a problem with the people you'll work with. It's an issue for HR departments or management primarily in larger companies. My disinterest in university hasn't stopped me from being respected by my peers who have done that and it hasn't stopped me from earning what appears to be an above average wage for the sort of work I'm doing in this area. If you can prove you're good at what you're doing there are people who will be interested.
My current employer is happy to pay for training and schooling so I do have the opportunity to consider university now. I probably will appreciate it more now and get more out of it but if I do pursue that option I don't think I'd waste my time with a CS degree or something similar. Something perhaps focusing on math, astronomy or something more interesting.
Of course it has a hinge. No one said it didn't. It's just not nearly as obvious. The two don't look similar and given that it's a patent on the whole design of the macbook air that means it doesn't count.
The patent doesn't even mention wedge. There's a lot more to it than that. Of course maybe that's why PCs continue to generally look so ugly because most of their users completely lack any sense of style which is why video card box art looks like something you'd find on a monster truck.
You expect people to read more than the sensationalist headline before forming their frothy angry replies?
It wouldn't be hard since Apple mentioned the Sony laptop in their patent. But given that the patent is for the macbook air design and not just wedge shapes you would need to find something that looks like a macbook air prior to its release in 2008.
That looks nothing like a macbook air which is what the patent is for not strictly the wedge shape if you would read the actual patent which doesn't even mention the word wedge.
Do you have the actual complaint by Apple to back up your assertion that it was only over rounded corners or are you just repeating the same old shit angry android nerds repeat over and over again?
It's not a patent for a wedge shape nor does it even mention the word wedge. You obviously didn't read the patent and instead read the sensationalist headlines meant to wind up freetards, MS fanboys and Googletards. The patent is for the macbook air design which only one part of it is that it's wedge shaped and having only one of the many aspects of the design in your own won't cause a violation.
If Apple are legally allowed to do it and are attacked by other companies holding patents then why wouldn't you patent the one thing you clearly lead the industry in?
PC manufacturers do not spend money on design. At least nothing above ripping off Apple designs, the cardboard box or monster truck designs. Despite it being ages since Apple reinvented itself and has pretty much been praised for all it's designs PCs are still typically butt ugly. So it's not that obvious. Apple is good at it so they should protect it if they're going to be under threat over other people's patents.
The bulk of patents software companies get a complete shit. You can't expect one company to stop. The rules need to change or they need far better employees in the patent office.
Doesn't really matter since if you actually read the patent it doesn't even mention the word wedge. It's a patent for tha macbook air design which happens to have a wedge design but that's only one part of it. It's not the whole patent and Sony's design is also mentioned in the patent and why wouldn't they given it looks nothing like a macbook air even with the wedge-like shape.