Microsoft founder, philanthropist, and now crazed mosquito farmer. Bill Gates has done it all.
You heard us: Bill Gates this week released a jarful of mosquitoes into the air at a technology conference. As yet unproven rumours have it that he then began pulling on the elaborately waxed moustache he has taken to wearing while beginning?to chuckle, gradually crescendoing into full belly laughs.
Supervillains, eh? Scary folk, they are. You’ve got your Scaramanga, with his golden gun and secret island lair (who died when he took a bullet in his funhouse). There’s your Joker, with his ruthless control over entire cities and terrifying emo makeup. And of course, your Bill Gates: he’s got the money, he’s got the technology, and now…HE HAS THE INSECTS TOO. May God have mercy on our souls.
Whaddup, Foxnews?
“Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,” Gates said while opening a jar onstage at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference ? a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars. “I brought some. Here I’ll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.” Gates then waited a minute or so before assuring the audience the freed insects were malaria-free.
Fox News does not report whether that minute or so was spent in chaos, as kings, politicians and Hollywood stars ran screaming around the auditorium, attempting to escape the tiny flying deathneedles all around. Presumably, they all laughed, clapped and?cheered when Bill revealed the truth?about his hilarious jape.
The maniacal incident was first?relayed to the outside world?by a Facebook honcho, Dave Morin, who Twittered: “Bill Gates just released mosquitoes into the audience at TED”. Ah, the stoic resolution and calm determination of a man facing his certain death at the hands of a?lunatic (or at the teeth of a tiny fly, anyway). Quite moving.
You know, of all the ways we thought Bill Gates might take out the world (introducing a virus into every PC to make them all go crazymad and kill us; amassing so much money that his bank account formed a cash blackhole, into which all of the world’s banknotes would be sucked; marketing a range of sensible knitted sweaters, each one capable of replicating itself in the wearer’s wardrobe at night until the planet was covered in a mile deep layer of pastel-coloured wool) this one we didn’t see coming.
Apple are rumoured to be working on their own insect-driven plans to take over the world: killer butterflies. They look a lot better, but don’t do the job quite as well.