What's Bill playing at?

[DaGaffer]

I was just reading about the latest bit of do-goodery from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, and, is it just me, or is this not really the best use of his time and money? Him (or his missus) have clearly been harangued by anti-smoking zealot Michael Bloomberg into getting involved, but it all seems a bit lame and preachy to me (what's next, temperance leagues, missionary work?), and not really the best way to do good deeds with all that wonga (does a guy from Mali really care about the health risk from smoking when he's going to be dead from AIDS before he's 40?)

This got me looking at the Gates Foundation website, and well, it all seems a bit...lame, to me. Shouldn't a man of his supposed techie leanings be looking at big, world-changing stuff like nuclear fusion or an effective (and affordable) AIDS vaccine instead of, I dunno, opening libraries in rich countries?

What would you do if you had a few billion to spend on improving the world?

 

[rynnor]

What would you do if you had a few billion to spend on improving the world?

A really potent bio-weapon - thats what the world really needs but it wouldnt be very popular...

 

[phazey]

I'd make a Teleportation device to reduce long distance travel to nanoseconds - I dearly miss the wife when i work away, and detest the 5 or so hours i have to go through twice a month to fly home and see her.












OK I lied - but it'd be cool to walk through a door - be zapped to Bangkok and have a quickie during lunch hour.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Grab the cash and run...

to the nearest phone to call my agent....

to gather the best minds of the world to create me...

And the rest of the world a super vaccine and other related paraphernalia.





Also create me a superhero lair and gadgets and outfits and such

 

[MYstIC G]

What would you do if you had a few billion to spend on improving the world?

Resurrect Barrysworld, obv!

 

[Damini]

Go to Iraq, restock the hospitals and schools that got looted during the war when everyone was far busier guarding the oil fields, and see about tracking down all the items of great historical and cultural importance that went missing from the museums.

Throw money at research aimed at curing malaria.

Fund insulin pumps for every child in England with diabetes (they save hundreds of thousands of pounds over the life time of someone with diabetes because they help prevent other associated health problems, but hey, lets be short sighted because its all about the current spreadsheet, not the future one).

Eradicate polio.

Give lots of money to The Caldecott Foundation and MSF.

Oh, if I was a bajillionaire I would love to actually be able to make a difference like that...

 

[TdC]

I'd pour my bajillions into populating space. From my pleasure palace on the moon, surrounded by my worshipful hareem, I'd smoke my solar powered shisha pipe and watch the slow decline of Earth towards the horizon.

 

[Gumbo]

I would offer money to chavs on council estates on condition they were sterilised. Stopping them breeding is about the only way I can see any future for society in the UK, and would have a far better long term benefit than the odd library here or there.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Fund insulin pumps for every child in England with diabetes (they save hundreds of thousands of pounds over the life time of someone with diabetes because they help prevent other associated health problems, but hey, lets be short sighted because its all about the current spreadsheet, not the future one).

There's kids in england who don't get insulin?

 

[ECA]

If I were bill gates I'd buy half a country, build a stupidly awesome palace and have a hareem of slave girls.

Honestly, its a time tested method of spending wealth/power.

 

[Chilly]

There's kids in england who don't get insulin?

No of course not, but it would cost a lot to get the upgraded kit in to replace the standard tester + needle pen kit for all diabetics, even though in the long run its cheaper the initial burden wont fit into the balance sheet nicely.

 

[phazey]

Quite a few years ago I was in a conversation debating make women's Sanitary items either subsidized or on the NHS (or whatever countries variant)- I actually agreed. But i'd take this further and make them free in developing nations.

I dunno about research into curing incurable (at this time) ailments - but start small and go from there......right?

I agree with research into Malaria, but perhaps also from the urbanized variant: Dengue, which (both luckily and unluckily) my son has just recovered from.

Still dirty water = Mosquitos who can carry malaria flourish, clean pond water - Dengue. I know there will be discussion that the majority of cases will be of the malaria strain - I was shit scared when i learnt little Jez may have to have had a transfusion....but there is massive urban development in the the region i am in so both should be addressed accordingly.


And a portable self sustaining Guinness distillery.

 

[old.Tohtori]

No of course not, but it would cost a lot to get the upgraded kit in to replace the standard tester + needle pen kit for all diabetics, even though in the long run its cheaper the initial burden wont fit into the balance sheet nicely.

Ah ok, i was confused about the "other health problems" bit

 

[Damini]

Only 0.01% of diabetics in England have the insulin pump fitted, whereas in pretty much every other western country the rate is astronomically higher. The rest have to inject themselves with insulin, whereas having a pump means doing away with the injections, and also it is programmed, so you can enter what you have eaten, and it will release insulin accordingly (steady release, or wave) and at a rate designed to help you process the food/drink you have consumed.

Because it is more regulated, it prevents the high peaks/troughs of blood sugar levels that can occur with injected insulin, and therefore reduces the chance of complications that arise from mismanaged diabetes.

My friend's two sons have just had them fitted after years of campaigning, and they both say it has changed their lives.

 

[Furr]

I would offer money to chavs on council estates on condition they were sterilised. Stopping them breeding is about the only way I can see any future for society in the UK, and would have a far better long term benefit than the odd library here or there.

By Golly! that might just work!

 

[old.Tohtori]

Only 0.01% of diabetics in England have the insulin pump fitted, whereas in pretty much every other western country the rate is astronomically higher. The rest have to inject themselves with insulin, whereas having a pump means doing away with the injections, and also it is programmed, so you can enter what you have eaten, and it will release insulin accordingly (steady release, or wave) and at a rate designed to help you process the food/drink you have consumed.

Because it is more regulated, it prevents the high peaks/troughs of blood sugar levels that can occur with injected insulin, and therefore reduces the chance of complications that arise from mismanaged diabetes.

My friend's two sons have just had them fitted after years of campaigning, and they both say it has changed their lives.

Well, for anyone younger then 10, sure, get a regulator but as a diabetic(since i was 5) i'd say it's just lazy a** people who can't control their sugars with regular shots. Those automated things also make you lose the "diabetic sense", kinda like spidersense, that allows you to adjust your insulin in a moments notice.

With regulators, not so much.

 

[Damini]

Well, I don't have diabetes, so I'm sure you've got first hand experience of it, but I have to say I see the medical sense in an insulin pump that recognises the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates, and directly mimics the way the body would release insulin rather than receiving massive doses of it that then taper away.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Well, I don't have diabetes, so I'm sure you've got first hand experience of it, but I have to say I see the medical sense in an insulin pump that recognises the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates, and directly mimics the way the body would release insulin rather than receiving massive doses of it that then taper away.

It doesn't actually do that though.

You enter what you eat and it compensates. By heart i know how much i should pump into me to compensate. So, tic for tac really. It doesn't do anything fancy.

The problem is, the machines(terminator music) don't know the difference between a fat chick and a skinny guy, a hot day or after sauna, alcohol or not...and those factors come into play too:

Say this kid eats a maccy D after a night out. The alcohol has lowered his blood sugar to "low", now he eats maccy d and doesn't know that alcohol lowers bloodsugar or doesn't have his "measure" with him and just enters the "maccy d eaten". Now the machine feeds more insulin to compensate, oblivious to the alcohol, and whoops...you've got a kid crawling on the ground drunk, police pick him up as one, and his blood sugar drops to coma level.

Extreme, but you get the point.

Sure, it's easy for someone who wants to "act normal"(i know it's a problem to some, especially when diabetes hits at elder age), but honestly it's not that hard to keep yourself in shape the old fashioned way, if you're arsed.

Giving those pumps to diabetics would be a waste of money(personal opinion). Now education, personal doctors, nutritionists, camps for young diabetics...those help. Also, a bit sci-fi, but they are studying a hypo in style of star trek(pressure, through skin) and that would be hellahandy.