Bill Gates unleashes a swarm of mosquitoes on crowd

arkitect said:
Bill Gates robbed banks? Wow! I thought he developed a very succesful Operating System and played the capitalist system to make himself (and quite a few others) very rich.
Robbery had nothing to do with it.
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If that was actually what he did, then people wouldn't have a problem with it. Maybe you should go educate yourself instead of just repeating untruths...makes you sound indistinguishable from those "fan boys" that you dislike....

--Eric
 
I wounder how many he let out? I can't stand one, i can't imagine 500 in the same room.

Queso said:
Beats sitting through Death by PowerPoint :D
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I would rather be killed by a power point than killed by a million of blood sucking insects.
 
You know, the further his image drifts from Microsoft, the more I like Bill Gates. Very commendable for his charity work. Keep up the great humanitarian work Bill!
 
I first thought it had something to do with

the release of a revamped Vista. Actually, I prefer the Seinfeld ads...same source, probably.
 
Eric5h5 said:
If that was actually what he did, then people wouldn't have a problem with it. Maybe you should go educate yourself instead of just repeating untruths...makes you sound indistinguishable from those "fan boys" that you dislike....

--Eric
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Ok, yes MS did some bad things at the start, as did apple, but Bill was actually incredibly hands on in development through XP, when he started to phase out towards retirement (look what happened:p). You can't say that he just stole for nearly 20 years. MS has had their own innovations.
 
I am sure these were genetically-engineered non-virulent biteless mosquitoes, developed by the same crack team that released Vista on an unsuspecting world. Besides, I don't know what the big deal is -- I get dozens of mosquito bites every summer -- you can't avoid them where I live.
 
Send a bag of unidentified white powder to the White House and see what happens in your attempt to "make a point."
 
Cool stunt. And he made his point. And a very valuable point it was too.

I hate microsoft too but props to him for this. He raised global awareness of something that kills millions of people a year, that to be honest, a lot of us thought was over and done with in the past.

I noticed with the problems in the OLPC project, tech people seemed less keen on third world projects. Hopefully this will renew some vigour.

Personally, I would be happy to put up with some mozzie bites if it had an effect like this. And as the audience were all awake and alert, probably nobody got bit, even if the mozzies were all bloodsucking females. Most probably all got squashed.

There's nothing like discussing the relief of malaria while listening to bloodsuckers buzzing about your ears.
 
I am going to release Snakes on a Plane to call attention to the declining serpent population. Don't worry, they will all be de-venomed and their bites will only cause minor infections and discomfort.

Oh, and it will be the Media's fault if they report it.
 
Oh, I forget to tell you. I cloned that 45 foot, 1.5 ton snake that is in the news. I can only release that on big airplanes and I will feed it a couple of goats so it isn't hungry. It will probably just sleep in the center aisle. You will be ok if you don't tease it. If is starts getting cranky, just throw a couple of unruly children, combative drunks or terrorists at it.
 
Gatorman said:
That I wouldn't release mosquitos onto a group of people? Or I don't believe in educating people on a matter by using a practice that results in causing panic, fear, and distress at the fact that they could be infected with Malaria? Well, I suppose it does say a lot about me, then.
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Oh for ****'s sake. No one is going to get malaria from this.

1. There are thousands of mosquito species on the planet.

2. A very small number of those (a dozen or so, all in the genus Anopheles) can carry malaria.

3. Roughly 50% of those can actually bite humans.

4. A small percentage of those are actually infected with Plasmodium.

5. Consider the source of his mosquitos. He probably bought them from a lab, in which case, even if they are the female bitey variety, they can't have malaria, as they are the wrong species. Even if he went outside and collected them, do you know what percentage of the mosquitoes in Seattle carry malaria? Zero.

This was a good stunt. That brief moment of panic he induced when some wealthy techie westerner hears an unfamiliar buzzing in his ear illustrates how truly foreign that sound has become to so many first world, temperate city dwellers. The realization that a huge percentage of the world's population lives with that sound every day may actually inspire some action. The realization that most of the world doesn't live with the dubious benefit of insecticides deliberately sprayed into waterways in the name of "vector control" might get some tubby rich white guy to care enough to donate.

Malaria can be cured, and eventually it will be cured. Technology has not been the limiting step; the will to do it is what is lacking. We pour money into research into AIDS and cancer (both of which kill fewer people, especially fewer young people and children) not because these diseases are more deserving, but because these diseases kill us. Malaria doesn't kill us, it kills someone else. It kills children we never meet, and whose names we can't pronounce. It kills numbers, not people. That's why we don't care.

</rant>
 
Bill Gates was threat #4 on the Colbert Report because of this :D

"Bill Gates claims that the mosquitoes were malaria-free, but who knows? He's responsible for Microsoft. They had to have some viruses."

Or something like that.
 
Any respect I had for Gates vanished when I read this. I find it a very immature but dramatic way to get a point across, even if there was no harm involved I wouldn't want a swarm of mosquitoes released upon me at an expo. That wouldn't make me consider giving to a foundation, that'd make me want to take away any support that I had for it. And no, I wouldn't see it differently if it were any other person who unleashed the mosquitoes, I don't have any hate for Bill Gates.
 
I'm surprised so many people think this idea sucks. People are too vein if they worry about mosquito bites.
 
Well... I'm even more confident that I've never known a person more ingenious than Gates..

He wanted to make this exact point of how we react to a few mosquitoes while in the African Continent alone thousands die every year due to the disease..

But rest assured that the mosquitoes he released there probably were all full vegans. Yep.. mosquitoes all prefer nectar and a large and hefty majority dont require blood... those that do are a few species of females and they too require it only for nourishing their eggs!
After that... in an air conditioned environment... they'd be lucky to survive long enough to enjoy the topic of conversation.

If after all this one was a sanguivore and survived the arctic temperatures... it wouldnt get past the layers of clothing and most importantly..... the "conscious" people frantically grappling their hands all around!
And thats what his aim was... to tell us how we act like crazies in presence of a few vegan mosquitos while a lot of folks spend their whole eternity in inferno of mosquitoes!
 
arkitect said:
So you see you have missed his point.

That is what millions of people around the world live with… daily…

A much needed reminder.
He keeps rising in my esteem.

Now Apple's CEO on the other hand… :rolleyes:

PS.
No, those weren't malaria carrying mosquitoes…
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They should have not served any food there to remind the crowd of the daily starving millions all over the world, turned off the water in the bathrooms to remind the crowds of those living daily with stagnant filthy water, they should have cut power to the building to remind the crowd about those living in darkness and shacked everyone to their seats to remind them of the oppressed and forgotten in the world's "work camps".
 
bunty said:
They should have not served any food there to remind the crowd of the daily starving millions all over the world, turned off the water in the bathrooms to remind the crowds of those living daily with stagnant filthy water, they should have cut power to the building to remind the crowd about those living in darkness and shacked everyone to their seats to remind them of the oppressed and forgotten in the world's "work camps".
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I'd go for that. People need some reminding of realities. I spent a year living in a house without electricity. I dunno what that taught me, except that some of what we call 'essentials' aren't really all that essential.

Mind you, some of that TED audience might actually *pay* to be shackled down and abused.
 
bunty said:
They should have not served any food there to remind the crowd of the daily starving millions all over the world, turned off the water in the bathrooms to remind the crowds of those living daily with stagnant filthy water, they should have cut power to the building to remind the crowd about those living in darkness and shacked everyone to their seats to remind them of the oppressed and forgotten in the world's "work camps".
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RedTomato said:
I'd go for that. People need some reminding of realities. I spent a year living in a house without electricity. I dunno what that taught me, except that some of what we call 'essentials' aren't really all that essential.

Mind you, some of that TED audience might actually *pay* to be shackled down and abused.
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I'm very much certain you're not going to acquire life threatening diseases like AIDS and TB by cutting of the lights.....
Why dont you get it that thousands DIE every year because of Malaria and thats what he wanted the audience to realize..... tell me who'll die if you cut of lights to your house or an auditorium full of press.....
 
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