Bill Gates fighting a new virus

[chads2k2]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17096926%255E23289,00.html

So my friend and I were talking about this and we wonder a few things:
Will there be an "update" for the vaccine?
Will you have to show a valid purchase of Windows to get the vaccine?
Will the vaccine be patched for a few months and then dropped for no reason?
Will there be a Microsoft validation scheme written into the compound?

Just a few questions that Bill Gates should answer before it is released. I commend that he is taking a interest in science but it makes me incredibly uneasy thinking a guy like him having the abilty to inject us with anything.

Hope your days are going well,
Chad R. Smith

[chads2k2]

I sent this out to DevShed as well and I got major flamed for it. So apparently this wasn't as funny as I think? I think it's a riot given Bill Gates business practices.

If your offended by this post, I am sorry. I don't ever mean to offend anyone by posting things that I feel are funny.

Chad

[Elizabeth]

Will there be an "update" for the vaccine?
Will you have to show a valid purchase of Windows to get the vaccine?
Will the vaccine be patched for a few months and then dropped for no reason?
Will there be a Microsoft validation scheme written into the compound?

I do applaud his efforts; I'm sure that money could have been used on something trivial... but I also think your comments were quite humorous :)

[piersk]

I sent this out to DevShed as well and I got major flamed for it.

Those geeks. No sense of humour ;)

[Roger Ramjet]

DevShed must be full of MickeySoft fans then - no wonder I don't go there very often.

Personally, I've had to revise my opinions of BG lately. Not of his company or it's products, just of the man himself. Pity a few more billionaires don't follow his example.

[Elizabeth]

Wow, chad you weren't kidding (I just checked it out)! I think next time you should bring marshmallows.

[Weedpacket]

Well, I suppose it's not like governments have the power, resources, or inclination to do such things these days.

[BuzzLY]

Big business controls the government anyway, so Gates is just eliminating the middleman :)

[piersk]

Hey Chad, where can you please post a link to the thread that you posted this to. I want to laugh at geeks with no sense of humour...

[Weedpacket]

http://forums.devshed.com/t301302/s449dd36c82c7b76c9d2b0a3f61e5dfe5.html

Warning: it's like walking into a Puritan church service.

(Incidentally, how would the EULA read?)

I wonder what this is going to do for poverty relief, though?
...a disease that kills up to 2.7 million people a year. About 75 per cent of victims are African children.So that means that each year there would be at least 2.7 million more people than there would have been otherwise; including more than two million children. How many African economies are coping with the populations they have now? Is malaria such a drain that eliminating it will free up sufficient resources to cope with this surge in population? (Don't forget that within a generation the "number of people saved" would be more than 2.7 million, as people who otherwise would have died young have children.) Have any actuaries run the numbers on this? Is this a Good Thing? Or is it just a high-profile shuffling of the problem onto someone else, and setting millions of people up for an even bigger crisis later?

[Roger Ramjet]

Really Weedpacket?? I hope you are joking!! :confused:

The straight answer to your question is YES, malaria is a serious drain on resources. Those that it does not kill are debilitated by it periodically, unable to work and in need of care, and a serious drain on their families' and communities' resources.

I might also add that it is not population size that causes all the poverty and famine in Africa. It is BAD POLITICS: corruption at all levels, ethnic frictions, lack of infrastructure and organisation, interferance by the World Bank et al, exploitation by global corporations, and unfair trade practices by the developed nations that are at the root of the problem.

[Weedpacket]

I agree fully; seeing as how none of the causes of the poverty and famine you list will be eased by throwing a lot of money at eradicating malaria (and many of them would hinder such an effort - certainly there would be factions in power who would prefer it didn't happen) it leaves me to wonder what Africa would be like should such a programme be successful. (I am restricting the observation to Africa - malaria of course isn't so localised.) There will be all these additional people, and all these additional healthy people. I just hope they'll be enough.

But it's not like I have a cure for countries whose governments are imploding through corruption or simply haven't the foggiest idea about how to run a country (naming no names) - it's not like invading them is an option.