:-)

You make it sound like starving people are getting fat too.

If they are becoming obese, the particular individual has a surplus of caloric intake, if only for this year or month. This is not to say that they have proper nutrition. So I am not at all clear that the fact that there is obesity in the third world is confounding evidence.

"Heads, I win, tails, you lose" isn't a new scenario.

The militaries of the world take people who are 'just' farmers all the time. Most equipment is made to be operated by and maintained by average guys of average intelligence. (Depending on the level of mechanization of the farm, the proverbial farmer may be overqualified to operate some machinery)

He's one cowboy away from a Brokeback Mountain.

How do you lose the advantage of the skin when it is cut prior to cooking? I'm seriously at a loss here.

(As far as your other observations, I don't know. Seems odd to me that you couldn't find something considerably better than TH for considerably less than $100. I suspect part of the problem is not knowing the area and which non-chain restaurants to hit. Chains are almost invariably aimed at the lowest common denominator)

There's a helluva lot of territory between Tim Horton's and $100 meals.

And what's wrong with fries fried with skin on? Most of the nutritive value of a potato is in the skin.

"Works for me. Close ticket"

That's not how science works.

For most of the existence of mankind and indeed all of mankind's progenitors, having too much food was a rare problem and being hungry all of the time was a fact of life. We are not necessarily well-evolved to handle it. So, no surprise that we eat to repletion and are still hungry. You don't really have any reason to look at it as an illness caused by anything other than too much food.

Star Trek Into Darkness:Star Trek The Wrath of Khan :: Ford Pinto : Ford Mustang (1969 Boss version)

No idea about the laser.

Guess who didn't RTFA?

Martin,

The last time I had a professional video produced, I paid $5000 for a one-minute commercial, and those were rock-bottom prices from hungry people who wanted it for their own portfolio. I doubt I could get that today. $8000 for the entire conference is really volunteer work on Gary's part.

Someone's got to pay for it. One alternative would be to get a corporate sponsor and give them a keynote, which is what so many conferences do, but that would be abandoning our editorial independence. Having Gary fund his own operation through Kickstarter without burdening the conference is what we're doing. We're really lucky we could get that.

We do charge entry to the convention. We get really nice facilities for the people who actually travel there and for the speakers. Last year's location was subperb. But I don't see why they should actually subsidize the folks who do not attend.

I think TAPR's policy is that the presentations be freely redistributable, but I don't know what they and Gary have discussed. I am one of the speakers and have always made sure that my own talk would be freely redistributable. I wouldn't really want it to be modifiable except for translation and quotes, since it's a work of opinion. Nobody should get the right to modify the video in such a way as to make my opinion seem like it's anything other than what it is.

If I remember correctly, it was 4 video channels last year: tracking on presenter, proscenium, audience, projector.

Yes. I put in $100, and I am asking other people to put in money to sponsor these programs so that everyone, including people who did not put in any money at all, can see them for free. If you look at the 150+ videos, you can see that Gary's pretty good at this (and he brought a really professional-seeming cameraman to Hamvention, too) and the programs are interesting. Even if at least four of them feature yours truly :-) He filmed every one of the talks at the TAPR DCC last year (and has filmed for the past 5 years) and it costs him about $8000 to drive there from North Carolina to Austin, Texas; to bring his equipment and to keep it maintained, to stay in a motel, to run a multi-camera shoot for every talk in the conference, and to get some fair compensation for his time in editing (and he does a really good job at that).