Sorry, I'm tired of this. Marginal cost of production, that is, the cost incurred to make one copy of the magazine is NOT equivalent to the actual cost of creating that copy. There is a fixed cost involved with making the master copy. Granted, that cost is fixed, and because it is fixed, as the number of issues produced increases, the contribution of the fixed cost goes to zero.

But asymptotic to zero isn't the same thing as zero. There are costs to be recouped, ROI to be realized, and salaries to be paid. I'm not about to argue that Linux magazine is correct in charging the same amount for print issues as digital, but "free to make and distribute" is ridiculous.

Sorry, I'm tired of this. Marginal cost of production, that is, the cost incurred to make one copy of the magazine is NOT equivalent to the actual cost of creating that copy. There is a fixed cost involved with making the master copy. Granted, that cost is fixed, and because it is fixed, as the number of issues produced increases, the contribution of the fixed cost goes to zero.

But asymptotic to zero isn't the same thing as zero. There are costs to be recouped, ROI to be realized, and salaries to be paid. I'm not about to argue that Linux magazine is correct in charging the same amount for print issues as digital, but "free to make and distribute" is ridiculous.

What do you do?

- Adam Ant

Oh, and my (exceedingly well traveled) parents have had good luck with the Rick Steves series of travel books. I find that series to be a little more "comfortable middle class" travel than the "backpacker" motif of Lonely Planet, but it might fit well here.

Seconded. London is a good destination for a beginning traveler, but, assuming you don't have some (pretty big) project, there just isn't enough there to cover two weeks. I'd have to be convinced that ANY city can fill two weeks, barring some "cooking school in Italy" idea.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not a fan of the "Death March" tour. One of my wife's friends did a tour of Europe with 25 cities in 30 days, which strikes me as horrific. There's a middle ground in there somewhere. Heck, with two weeks, you could even look at another city. Travel to the continent gets pretty simple once you get across the pond.

I concur with the Lonely Planet recommendation, but be a little wary. My wife and I used it extensively in Thailand, but since most of the commentary is user-driven, you can get led astray. For instance, there was a well recommended Italian place in Chiang Mai. We went, sat down, and listened to the chef "highly recommend the lobster." Not what we were down for (would've totally nuked our budget), so we left. I'm sure it was OK, but apply your own judgement, and don't feel bad about just walking out.

For the record, and I didn't test power consumption, but my 945GCLF2 worked fine without the fan running. The setup was, well, non-traditional, as I had it running a fanless dual monitor video card and CF IDE adaptor for the primary hard drive (except for swap, tmp, and home, of course).

Gentoo running xfce, and almost totally quiet, and didn't have problems. YMMV, of course, but it worked for me.

At least they're getting some money back by selling the disks on ebay :)

Guess I'm not the only one who misses rootshell

I'm with you on this -- the monopoly is completely anti-consumer. The problem is that with significantly lower operating costs, the city will be able to drive the telcos out, and then THEY will be the monopoly. I hate private monopolies but I hate the state as monopoly equally. Simple solution here. Tell the city they cannot collect fees/taxes on the ISPs we're all good. I definitely want the city to come in and bust up the Telco monopoly -- I just don't want one monopoly to be replaced by another.
"
I agree the way the telcos are going about this is wrong though. I'd rather see legislation like: Where municipalities set up their own ISP, they cannot assess city taxes or fees on competing ISPs."

It's all about operating costs -- make those as equal as you can, and THEN let everyone compete.

>provision of communications service

They used that language because it's internet today, and VOIP tomorrow.

>Is a telco or cable company required to keep separate accounts for their internet service?

Geez. http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2296405/

>...the bill would say that *ALL* internet providers would be subject to these rules

That is an excellent suggestion, and I agree that would be the perfect wording. On the other hand, I doubt that the current Telcos are collecting much in the way trash and water fees.

Read the senate bill: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2009/Bills/Senate/PDF/S1004v1.pdf I hate the telcos as much as anyone, but this bill says that when the city enters into the communications business, it should have to pay all the same taxes and fees as private business would, and be burdened with the same oversight. They also say that other fees the citizens pay (trash, water etc) cannot be used to fund the communications business. I don't see how this bill is unfair at all. The telcos are essentially saying "If we didn't have to pay any fees to the city to provide service, we could be competetive." If government wants to set up a business, they should have go compete with other businesses on a level playing field. If municipalities want to open up their own ISP, I am all for that, but then they should stop collecting fees and taxing the other ISPs they are competing with. Municipal government should not be using taxes and fees to provide a commercial advantage for themselves. I think the "level playing field" is actually a good title for this bill, and not an unreasonable request. We're all hopped up on this because it's something that's near and dear to us, but imagine if the city set up a taxi service, but then did not have to pay gasoline tax or hackney licenses. Obviously it benefits the public who uses taxis, but is it fair to the taxi drivers and cab companies that they now have to charge more than the city taxis.

>but that industry is in danger due to poaching from states like Lousiana and New Mexico. >If you live in Texas, write your state representative and senator and get them to support >Representative Dawnna Duke's economic incentive bill. If you live in Louisiana or New Mexico, find some random rep/sen in Texas and tell them how they better not waste any more money on films that make $$$. :)