Log
Board Meeting
November 22, 2008

ROGER 11/16 10:27 am: Greetings Directors! It has been a while since our last meeting (in July) and though things have not changed much in the non-profit's activities, we should have a meeting on record. So please check your email over the next few days and let's get one in the books! The agenda will be as usual:
· approval of minutes from last meeting
· discussion of the projects
· seed
· booklet/CD
· server
· blog
· any new business
· and then adjournment
So without further ado, I hereby call a meeting of the Troubled Times, Inc. Board of Directors! Please review the minutes of our last meeting and reply with your comments/corrections or acceptance at your earliest convenience.

NANCY 11/16 11:34 am: I have no objections to the last minutes posted.

Regarding the Seed project. The only news item I have to relay is that I planted curley parsley a year ago and was delighted to see it lives through the winter, was green and alive under the snow. This past summer it went to seed, being a biennial, and I collected a ton of seed. Some of the seed fell to ground and now I have young plants out there growing in the fall weather, so here we go again next year! A permanent parsley patch! This is a plant we had not considered, but it is very high in Vitamin A and the like, a good addition.

Regarding the Blog project, which is outreach via the ZetaTalk information. I can draw people to the ZetaTalk website, and thus the advertised Booklet and CD offerings from the nonprofit, by several means lately. For the past couple years, I have a live chat on Saturday nights. For the past year or so I have a live radio broadcast on TheMicroEffect, 58 or more micro am/fm stations and webcasting. I also have a weekly newsletter that has over 2,000 subscribers, and this gets passed around. Then there are monthly videos which now number 24, posted on youtube or similar sites. All refer to the zetatalk.com website where the nonprofit products are advertised, including in the crawler.

ROGER 11/17 7:00 am: Regarding the Seed project: I planted radish seeds this fall that I had collected back in 1999. I had greater than 75% germination and they are growing well, though they may not make it to maturity (winter seems to be coming right on schedule). These originated from plantings of both commercial and The Ark Institute varieties.

Regarding the CD/Booklet project: orders have slumped to an average of 3 per month. Our supply is holding.

Regarding the Server project: the server is still off-line. It could be put back on-line with a minor amount of updating in short order. To be really effective, it should be connected to a faster line than my current DSL service. More on that if a discussion is called for.

GERARD 11/17 8:20 am: About the CD/booklet for what i remember during the time that Nancy was on BBSradio the CD/book let combination was mentioned a couple of times. At the current time people only know about the CD/booklet from a link on the zetatalk.com main page. It might be an idea to promote this CD/booklet by other means or by giving it more attention on the main page of zetatalk.com?

Roger regarding the server aren't there a way in which we can spread the information through your current DSL server? Since in my opinion time is running out and we can be certain the people will start to look and ask for more information pretty soon. I know that even a large file as open office is also available as a torrent file. We can provide the files as a torrent package and people with the right client can choose what to download. If there is no illegal content the use of torrent files is legal as far as I know. I think we have to look at other options so that can use the DSL connection instead of waiting for a faster connection as we don't know how long that could take.

ROGER 11/17 9:14 am: I don't recall off the top of my head what the upload speed is (the bottle neck for the server on my DSL service), but it is the fastest available to a residential subscriber without upgrade to a static IP level of service. I took the server off-line last year since there was no traffic and I had to go in and change the IP address every week when my connection updated (dynamic IP service blues). I can do some research and draft a proposal to get the server back on-line efficiently for the Board's consideration. One consideration is that the Windows 2000 Server OS I installed may soon be on the "non-supported" list. I'll check that out as well. I may not have anything by the close of this meeting but will report it as a supplement.

GERARD 11/17 11:33 am: And isn't a Linux Distro something that we can consider for the server. Last week I installed Ubuntu on a PC and it is easy to install and there is also a server edition and it is for free. We have to think about these things in my opinion. http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition

STEVE 11/17 1:03 pm: Hi everyone! I have no objection from the minutes of our last meeting.

I think the idea Gerard presented regarding providing information as a torrent file is interesting. Bit torrents provide an easy way for individuals to download large amounts of information in whatever format they want without putting too much of a bandwidth burden on the original distributor. Most often torrent sites are used for peer to peer downloading of music, video files etc. but as Gerard mentioned is not illegal depending on existing copyrights of the material. That way people would just have to download a small torrent program such as "BitTorrent" or any one of the others freely available to access any files we want to be made public such as the video or information booklet.

I still have a package of seeds from Nancy from 2002 or so which have been kept in a dry temp. controlled environment so based on Rogers report of good success from seeds from 1999 I'm hopeful those would also be mostly good. Not throwing them away anyways but always good to have a fresher supply in anycase.

NANCY 11/17 3:39 pm: Re the 2002 seeds, yes, I am still holding a few packets but have grown out yearly those seeds that did well in my garden and are special in some way for fresh seed - indian corn (not hybrid and much more sturdy than the yellow meal corn we got from the Arc), buckwheat and amaranth (have lysine, that protein that animal protein has), spinach, tomatoes and peppers. I take fresh seed from squash and melons bought at the store. Plus have established a number of perennials or biennials that reseed themselves - gypsy onion, leeks, curley parsley, strawberry, raspberry, and all those medicinal herbs. I think primarily what we did for folks back in 1999-2002 was get them aware of the need to have seed, and how to gather and save it. I am also a very educated (former novice) to speak to the issue on the air now.

GERARD 11/20 11:26 am: Before I forget it, i have no objection to the minutes of the previous board meeting.

I still think that considering the time we have, as I still have the feeling that we will get busy real soon. That we have to think about other ways for the files to be spread. The use of torrents could be one of them. And it is something that we should take into consideration in my humble opinion. If we had more time to think about these things or if we would have the time to wait for a faster server I would say "go for it" . But this time I think it is different.

NANCY 11/20 1:08 pm: Gerard raised a question about more visibility for the nonprofit, beyond being advertised on the ZetaTalk home page. Let me mention that there is the possibility of a TV documentary on myself and the origines of the ZetaTalk message. Someone in the industry is planning to come to the house here and film for that. This is not a promise, but if the Earth changes pick up as many of us sense they will, then this could take off and give a lot of exposure to my home page. I advertise the nonprofit $4.10 CD in the crawler atop the page, so it can't get missed. There is a link from the home page to a page that expands on that, Paypal and a Paypal and description for the Combo package. So if ZetaTalk gets a mention on TV like that, for accurate predictions and an increased Earth wobble, for instance, then we would be swamped for data. We might have to provide the PDF for the booklet to others to print and distribute for free, likewise with the CD content. An employer wanting to give his employees this info for free, for instance. Then the server would be busy, indeed!

Are we at a point where we can adjourn? I think Roger said he would look into some of the things Gerard proposed. Is this the only point pending action?

ROGER 11/21 7:00 am: I have a PC that is much faster than the TT server, but it doesn't have the software for hosting. Another consideration will be that the ftp server software we purchased previously is out-of-date and though updating it may not be expensive, it may not be the way to go. The information I need to gather seems to be:
· Server software - torrents or other file-sharing protocol vs. ftp or http hosting software
· DSL costs for static IP and faster upstream speed
· Feasibility of switching Operating Systems or using a faster PC
If there is anything I missed, please let me know!

GERARD 11/21 2:43 pm: This page has information about the torrent protocol http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/ it might come in handy.

ROGER 11/22 9:18 pm: Thanks for the link Gerard! If there is no further business, I adjourn this meeting of the Troubled Times, Inc. Board of Directors. Best wishes all!