Flame Re: Keeping costs down at Usenix in Dallas

[Henry Spencer]

> One thing that should be kept in mind is that the Usenix hotels are
> all in the center of downtown, while the /usr/group hotels are all
> near the InfoMart, which I believe is quite a ways out of town.  I
> don't know Dallas at all, but my guess is that it is not easy to get
> around in the outskirts, so the money you might save by staying out
> there would be eaten by the car you'd need to rent.  Also, it is
> possible that any cheap downtown hotels may not be the sort of place
> that you would want to stay at.  I agree that the organizers for Usenix
> should have made an effort to find inexpensive accomodations, but
> perhaps they did and didn't find anything they could recommend.

I understand the problems, but would like to point out that some people
(not me, fortunately) *cannot* afford the rates at the official hotels,
and *must* find alternate accommodation, even if it does mean long walks
or public transit or other inconveniences.  The least Usenix could have
done was to have somebody spend an hour with a guidebook and a map to
identify a few likely-looking hotels.

I realize that cheap hotels are probably uncommon in downtown Dallas,
and that /usr/group got to the hotels first.  But the folks who simply
cannot afford $95/night are going to have to sleep somewhere else anyway;
I am dismayed that Usenix ignored this completely.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry