Bill Gates unleashes swarm of mosquitoes at conference

No, that's not a typo. WTF? This could be considered assault.

Rather bold - or crazy? Not sure but I did see they were NOT malaria carrying mosquitos. Would Bill Gates have the resources to insure these did not carry disease? I'm sure he does. It does seem a bit over the top and I'd have to question his sanity a bit on that one. I'd like to know what happened after this. Did people panic and run out? I guess if the idea was to get people to think about the possibility of losing a life and why it is important to develop a vaccine for it then he may have succeeded but to do this on an unwitting audience hits the extreme end of scare tactic hard core salesmanship in getting a point across. :shakehead

From the link, emphasis added by me......."TED, the annual gathering of the most pretentious people from the fields of technology, entertainment, and design"

Assault? Not in my book.

Excuse me? You aren't perhaps aware that most of the most troublesome bugs in the world come from Mr. Bill Gates's work? (grin)

hank,

hank said:

Excuse me? You aren't perhaps aware that most of the most troublesome bugs in the world come from Mr. Bill Gates's work? (grin)

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That one got me good. Thanks.

It's the release of Windows Mosquitoes 1.0 Beta

Extremely versatile for networking although it has considerable privacy issues. Early reports indicate a lot of bugs that can potentially cause system failure. The concurrent use of an aftermarket program called Screens for Windows has been suggested, although it's primarily a home edition.

Many patches to follow. Anti-virus recommended!

LowBat said:

It's the release of Windows Mosquitoes 1.0 Beta

Extremely versatile for networking although it has considerable privacy issues. Early reports indicate a lot of bugs that can potentially cause system failure. The concurrent use of an aftermarket program called Screens for Windows has been suggested, although it's primarily a home edition.

Many patches to follow. Anti-virus recommended!

Click to expand...

Also recommend the DEET and Citronella patches for that O/S.

Something like that would make me question someone's sanity. He could have made a graphic movie about what its like to die from malaria. Have Trent Reznor and/or Rob Zombie produce and direct. He could have shocked them without releasing vermin on people who were there for the cause.

hank should win a prize for that one. Some of the computers I use at work run Windows ME.

ypsifly said:

Some of the computers I use at work run Windows ME.

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NO WAY!!!! That POS is still loose in the wild!?!?!?!?!

Just be glad ending AIDS isn`t his passion. Could be messy oo:

I did a google on TED and found a write up in WIRED about this. It seems that the swarm that Bill Gates let loose consisted of 7 ea. mosquitoes.

Hopefully someone called Mosquito abatement folks! :green:

EDIT I should add the link to the source I reference so HERE.

If they were male, there wouldn't even be a proboscis.

Badbeams3 said:

Just be glad ending AIDS isn`t his passion. Could be messy oo:

Click to expand...

:green::bow::tsk:


Would that be called a widespread download??




Be lucky...

If they were female and bit... The whole issue is they bite two or more people, you have possible transfer of disease (sharing needles anyone?).

-Bill

Gates is pouring money into Africa in a deluded hope of...what?
This is the sort of absurd stunt required today to get the masses attention - for a few brief minutes anyway.
How do you top this next year? Formaldehyde filled jars with human remains from malaria victims? What wild eyed side show stunt is next? :laughing:

Well I'm mildly relieved to know that it was only 7 mosquitoes. However as BB pointed out, there was still the possibility of disease transfer. While this crazy stunt may have driven home a point, there are far better ways to do this without introducing a direct physical threat to your audience, real or imagined. What if this gimmick wound up triggering a heart attack in someone? It's not outside of the realm of possibility, and that's what stamps this as a childish and poorly thought out stunt.

Unfortunately, you can get away with childish and poorly thought out stunts if you are obnoxiously wealthy. :shakehead

Nice cause, freakish method. :huh:

I don't understand. Are you guys serious? Mosquitoes are all over the place here in the summer, no big deal. Were they special killer mosquitoes imported from some disease infested place on earth or something. Surely I'm missing something here, sounds utterly harmless :thinking: