[SGVLUG] What kind of talks do you want to hear?

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message----- Of Dustin Laurence
> [...]  Some of us might know that ESR (Eric Scott Raymond)
> has been flogging a couple of controversial ideas lately
[...]
> I thought of this because ESR turned out to be at WorldCon 
> and I heard him speak--er, opine for an hour anyway. :-)  I 
> asked about a talk but we'd have to fly him down, which 
> doesn't seem likely on our (non-)budget.

Did he state this specifically, or was this more of a "feeling" you had?
If so, what is the approx. cost for such?  With advance word, we could
charge at the door [figured in such a way that a "full" audience would
exactly cover it, and basically shut the door on latecomers (who would
have to stand in the hall/aisles anyway)] or "pass the hat" each month
until we've reached the magic figure... [this has been done before, but
not specifically for a speaker, but rather for "rental" of the projector
at a previous venue]

A more "technical" solution would be an advanced version of what we did
for Kerry's presentation -- have Eric on a webcam from the comfort of
his own home, which in a way ties into:

> we could stage a "proprietary binary smackdown" event with a few 
> people willing to argue on each side.

Eric would, of course, defend his position remotely, while we get "our
best man" [I've got someone in mind...] to take up the argument locally;
then all we'd need is to get Dustin into a "larry king" costume to
manage the debate... ;)

[this might get into being a two-camera deal, with one specifically on
our speaker and another one "in general" / "on the host", then as is
often done for teleconferenced "debates", place each debater into a
picture-in-picture frame -- Mike, can your streaming software do this?]