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Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
Save Your Automobile in a Hurricane Using Sophisticated Gadgetry
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MichelleDatsun
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
And as usual, Bill doesn't think about the future consequences of his actions.

Hurricanes are the Earth's way of dispersing energy. Wipe out another Katrina and that energy is going to go somewhere else. No one knows where, but it will hopefully be over his house.
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deanbmmv
07/10/09

@MichelleDatsun: Well yeah the energy will go somewhere, spread nice n safely over several hundred miles of air n ocean, rather than a nice concentrated swirling torrent.
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Con Seannery
07/11/09

@deanbmmv: Or, you know, a much bigger hurricane...
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wileecoyote
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
i wonder how mr. g plans to replace all the lost moisture the central states rely on as part of their yearly rainfall? the age old cloud seeding conundrum applies here as well. one man's hurricane is another man's 3 day steady rain.
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Con Seannery
07/11/09

@wileecoyote: NC gets a good bit of summer rain from hurricanes, too.
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sir_pantsalot
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
This is a great idea until it works for a few years and then Gates requires all the virgins from the coastal region be sent to his house or he will refuse to stop the coming hurricane.
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philibuster
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
This should be good for knocking down a category 5 hurricane to a category 4 or 3, but the short of it is that the heat has to go somewhere.
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Curves
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
Steve Jobs will come out with IHurricane to counter.
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Nick
07/10/09

@Curves: if it strictly "counters" a hurricane it will be iTyphoon
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Hello Mister Walrus
07/10/09

@Nick: iPhoon. Not to be mistaken for the other product that they're working on, the iPoon.
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nate4096
07/10/09

@Nick: actually typhoons, hurricanes and cyclones all spin in the same direction (except when in another hemisphere). The different names are just for where said storm is, like in the Atlantic or Pacific.
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Nick
07/11/09

@nate4096: *facepalm
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Curves
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
Its not nice to fool Mother Nature.
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GarciaConcern
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
I must have Peggle on the brain because when I saw the patent image "Ode to Joy" started playing in my head. EXTREME GULF COAST FEVER!
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danger the pirate
07/10/09

@GarciaConcern: just bought it today on xbla. burned about 6 hours. awesome.
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The Nacon
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
There was a pumping device on Project Earth show where it brings up water from below by simply using ocean's wave. The point of that project was to bring alges from below to the surface, which consume Co2 and returns Oxygen.

No need to patent something new though... He could just invest Project Earth Group.
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apollo89
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
While hurricanes are a horrible thing, they are kinda necessary in to end droughts, and bring rain in the long term.

Maybe we should try working on better ways to battle flooding and Katrina type events?
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Rob
07/10/09

@apollo89: That's another thing. We don't need to focus so much on something that is most likely impossible.

We need to focus on proven things like state-of-the-art flood control systems.

New Orleans' ancient levee and pump systems (literally all we have here are some mud walls, a few short hydraulic gates, and large vacuum pumps in strategic locations) lags DECADES behind systems found in some other countries.

There's no reason one of the most historic cities in the "Greatest Country" shouldn't have a top-notch flood protection system. It isn't like we need to construct the Great Wall of China, and it'd be cheaper than rebuilding the city and it's surrounding neighborhoods after catastrophic flooding brought on by levee failure.
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Cordfucious of Tech Clan
07/10/09

@Rob: the pumps work... but you cant expect them to pump out an ENTIRE city instantaneously. To see how well the pumps work (assuming you live in NewOrleans), ride through Gentilly after a downright hard ass rain and tell me how much standing water you see. Metarie as well. They work.... but the aren't anti-tsunami devices either. I have seen rains here in Houston flood neigboorhoods... simple thunderstorms..if they had the pumping system like we have in the N.O. that wouldnt be an issue
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m4ximusprim3
07/11/09

@Rob: or we could, you know, just stop building our cities below sea level. Just a thought.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
Yes, because fucking with an already damaged biosphere in an attempt to lessen hurricane affects is an amazingly great idea.

I'm sorry, but the gulf already has huge problems in it, and they (Gates and friends) have absofuckinglutely no idea how changing the water temperature would affect aquatic wildlife in the area and resulting harm to the biosphere in general.

Here's a tip for preventing the next Katrina... DON'T BUILD CITIES BELOW FUCKING SEA LEVEL!
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jbrandonf likes pie. And Dreamcast
07/10/09

@Lite: is on a boat.: Are you mad?
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Rob
07/10/09

@Lite: is on a boat.: Something makes me think you have no idea just how many cities are built below sea level and their importance to the rest of the country.
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taniquetil
07/10/09

@Lite: is on a boat.:

Wow you're right! I bet NO ONE ELSE HAS EVER thought of building cities above sea level.

Too bad the nation's economy is driven in large part by cities under or near sea level.

You know if we all build our cities in Montana, then there will be NO deaths from tidal waves and hurricanes. GOOD IDEA!!!!
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
07/10/09

@Rob: Actually I'm painfully aware of how many cities are built in flood plains. Below sea level on the coast? Not so much.

Hell, I've lived in an area devastated by floods, including flood waters taking out the water plant of a fairly large (250k) municipality years before Katrina.

Here's the problem with New Orleans. They built the city in an area that was built up by flooding. When they built the levees to stop the flooding, it dried the soil out some, and the fine silt that makes the fill area they live upon settle. Hell portions of Seattle are experiencing this very phenomenon...

This is what happens when you destroy natural wetlands, and build levees. It was done to prevent destruction to properties that shouldn't have been built there in the first place.

But you're perfectly OK with destroying the entire gulf coast's ecology in order to prevent people from losing their houses. That creates far bigger problems for us here in the US, not to mention islands in the Caribbean as the damage spreads.

We already know that coastal waters are a very important piece of the food chain for the planet. As are wetlands. Yet we continue to destroy them so that people can live below sea level.

Oh, and here's a map of the existing Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone" that has been growing for a very long time due to runoff from fertilizer...

Oh look, it centers around New Orleans and the Mississippi river. Oops.
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d_r_e
07/10/09

@Lite: is on a boat.:

Agreed. It's extremely selfish and stupid to go fucking around with the entire gulf coast's ecology in order to prevent people from losing their houses there. I also have a similar gripe with the idiots who constantly rebuild their houses & businesses on the coasts of Florida. They keep building shit were it doesn't belong, and then they want my tax dollars to pay for their stupid decisions. BAH!
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Cordfucious of Tech Clan
07/10/09

@Lite: is on a boat.: Sorry sir. As a native New Orleanian... it was the dredging that causes the wet lands to wash away. All the ship channels and stuff that are dredged for commerce and travel are what doomed New Orleans.. not our geographic location. The levees had NOTHING to do with it. The dredging stopped all the mud from the Mississippi from depositing in the delta and naturally rebuilding the wetlands, which in turn served as a buffer to lessen the hurricanes impact. If we didnt dig new routes for the river to flow then the wet lands would be alright. So you can blame it on corporate greed and the need to get goods and textiles to you ungrateful high altitude fuckers. The port of New Orleans is a MAJOR seaport, just check the facts. There is a large percentage of the textiles you use and goods you consume flow up the Mississippi to all the folk who think our position on the map is assanine. With out the slave ports in New Orleans much of the south would not have been viable.

So before you claim our existence is futile and should have never been.... check your U.S. history. The LOUISIANA PURCHASE was one of the greatest events in our history and New Orleans plays a major role in U.S. commerce.

Don't hate on us... you need us. Remember that the next time you put on a cotton t shirt made in China but it got to your walmart THROUGH New Orleans

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Edited by Cordfucious of Tech Clan at 07/10/09 8:31 PM

Cordfucious of Tech Clan
07/10/09

@Lite: is on a boat.: also that dead zone is from too much fresh water run off from Lake Ponchatrain and the overly dredged river... not fertalizer run-off. Look at your map. The lake is fresh water. And New Orleans is nowhere near the Gulf Coast. we are right up under the lake and happened to be sandwiched by the river.
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Hello Mister Walrus
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
You fools! Don't you realize that Bill Gates is turning into a super villain? First it was the mosquito thing, which undoubtedly was actually to infect the world's geniuses with nanobots. Now he will control the weather too. And I'm pretty sure Windows 7 has a secret program to turn our computers into killer robots, a la Michael Bay's Transformers. Wake up, people, before it's too late!

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Xeno
07/10/09

@Hello Mister Walrus: Have you ever seen a man say goodbye to a shoe?
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qbrad
07/10/09

@Xeno: Yes, once.
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Pope John Peeps II
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
This is actually a really popular, plausible and well-known theoretical way to halt the formation of hurricanes.

So just in case anyone had the idea that Gates thought this up on his own - he didn't.
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Kaiser-Machead
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
Headlines from the future!
Scientists Discover Superintelligent Phosphorescent Algae in Gulf. Negotiations of Mankind's Surrender Underway

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Xeno
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
Or.... if used in reverse he could create the most powerful storm ever! Holding entire coastlines hostage! Who will save us?
/tinfoil hat
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Edited by Xeno at 07/10/09 5:57 PM Xeno was starred Xeno was unstarred

Nick
07/10/09

In reply to Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina
Bill Gates doesn't care about Mac people.
/kanye'd
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Edited by Nick at 07/10/09 5:46 PM Nick was starred Nick was unstarred

ph15h
07/10/09

@Nick: Well played, sir... Well played. *Mike Meyers changes the subject*
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