I think it's more likely that more people are becoming obese because of exactly one factor: age. They are living artificially prolonged lifetimes due to access to adequate food and to medicine. It's easier to get fat when you are 50 than when you are 30 because of the natural changes in your metabolism.

:-)

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.

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.

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).

He can't help it, the leads were weak.

Unless you like carrying a smartphone in your hands all the time in crowded places, or like leaving your smartphone on the table where it can get lost or stolen, the smart watch is better. Nothing beats a watch for quickly checking something. Constantly fishing a phone out of your pocket, unlocking it, checking stuff and putting the phone back in your pocket can become extremely tedious quickly.

Can't say I've ever left mine anywhere. And I have no problem getting it out of my pockets. Meanwhile a watch is fucking uncomfortable to wear, and tends to break within a few months as you accidently bang it on things. I cried tears of joy the day I realized my new cell phone meant I'd never have to wear a watch again. I think taking it out of your pockets is a problem only about 1% of the people in the world have, everyone else seems to prefer the phone.

There's a few other things in the hardware that would bring up issues:

*Battery- smaller form factor, smaller battery, less life. People complain about that already
*camera- is there any place to put a camera on there that isn't going to be blocked by write hair or inconvenient to take a picture with? Can you see the screen to see the image? is it easy to hold your arm steady enough?
*Text input- voice recognition isn't there yet, and even when it is you don't always want to be public with your messages. How do you type on one quickly?
*Is there enough physical room for everything?
*Heat- if we do all that in a watch, how hot will it get? Will it become a safety hazard or uncomfortable to wear?
*Power- even if everything works, a phone can have the same stuff and more, due to form factor. So why would you limit yourself to the watch?

Two seconds in a year!?! That means in a mere 30 years you'll have to adjust it by a minute. In your life you'll have to adjust it 3 times! DO you know how much effort and time you'll save by buying a $10,000 high end mechanical watch? You'll only have to adjust it once- that's got to save you 2 minutes over the course of your lifetime. Isn't 10K a small price to pay for that?*

*Math void if anything heavier than a feather ever touches it, as it may break the delicate alignment of gears.

Even more real answer- I'm in the subway. I'm not getting that call/text because the signal isn't reaching me through 10m of solid earth.

* Displace smart phones/dedicated GPSes used for turn-by-turn directions (visual and audio) while driving. It's going to be great for motorcycle users. I'm not sure yet whether it will be legal for this use.

So could smartphones, at no additional difficulty. In fact they'll do so better if you have a bluetooth earpiece, as the audio will be routed right to your ear. There's nothing here a watch will do better than a phone. (There's also good reasons for continuing to use the dedicated GPS, as they tend to lose signal less, have maps predownloaded in case you go to an area with spotty internet, and have better databases of nearby locations. But I can understand wanteing to ditch it).

It will make the policeman's job more difficult by allowing drivers to check their emails/texts while driving without it being obvious to an observer.

Here's an idea- on the extremely rare occasion you actually have to deal with the police, wait 10 fucking minutes to look at your texts. Also, if you need to deal with the police more than once every 5 or 6 years, take a good hard look at what you're doing wrong with your life.

Provide quick updates to stock/commodity traders who are on the go or not near a desktop/laptop.

So does a smartphone, with a better UI, and more screen space for easy access to information

Allow joggers to skip songs without carrying their smartphones in their hands.

Or they could use voice control. But I doubt holding it in their hands or fishing it out of ones pocket is really all that much worse than trying to fuck around with your watch while jogging. In fact I would bet either of those are easier.

Yeah, still no valid use cases for a smartwatch.