Hugh's Worthless Blog

Today I was trying to apt-get a package onto my linux desktop when I realized it was taking forever to connect to the Ubuntu APT repository. But that made me think, "Is today the day?" And sure enough with a quick Google search, I realized today was indeed the day of the final release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS , the Lucid Lynx! Since it was such an exciting event I thought I should join in the fun and download a copy to play with tonight. I grabbed the torrent and started up  bittorrent to get my own copy of the desktop i386 ISO image. It is nice to be using bittorrent to download open source software -- which is what it is legally supposed to be used for (not for movies, pirated software, music, etc.) I booted my old iMac on the freshly burned CD and it fired right up to a very purple desktop. There are a bunch of new features to play with that should keep me quite busy tonight. I used to maintain the repository of Ubuntu ISO images here at Wash U, but the infamous WUARCHIVE se...

Two recent crimes have made big news here on campus and also apparently for the St. Louis metro area as a whole. First early Monday morning a female undergraduate student was sexually assaulted and robbed in the DeMun neighborhood just south of campus, and then just yesterday morning two undergraduates were mugged on the north end of the overpass to the Greenway walkway. I wonder if the publicity about these crimes is helping matters or hurting matters. Associate Vice Chancellor Steve Givens can be seen in numerous TV clips telling how the two mugged students did "everything right" in not fighting and in giving their assailant what he wanted. I am grateful our students were not hurt, but he is giving the message to criminals "come on over, we are ready to give you whatever you want and we will not fight back". That is the correct attitude for our students to have upon being accosted, but it sickens me that it may actually motivate criminals to target the univers...

Yesterday, Metro announced their preliminary restoration plan for Metrolink and bus services that will be occurring for 2010. Starting on June 28, several bus routes will be increased in frequency (#70 Grand, and #95 Kingshighway, for example) and the rush hour Metrolink schedule will be increased from every 15 minutes to every 12 minutes (i.e. 5 trains per hour instead of 4 trains.) More details can be found on the Citizens for Modern Transit website . The September and November bus restorations will be more extensive but will require more people and equipment. They will actually be hiring more people which is a good thing! That sure beats them firing over 600 employees. I will be curious to see how they tweak the current four Metrolink times during rush hour to become five. Before April 2009 they were running every 10 minutes (6 trains per hour) but because of single tracking across the Eads Bridge during its renovation they cannot increase the frequency quite that much. So movin...

I was reading an article on StlToday.com when I noticed someone in the comments links to some cool maps that show the results from both the votes on Proposition A and Proposition M back in 2008, and the change of the voting patterns between the two elections. I was surprised to see in how few areas the proposition actually lost this time, only in very far out West and South County. The victory in the percentage of votes was actually quite remarkable. It is quite a shift from November 2008 when only a few areas voted a majority to pass Proposition M (primarily the inner county areas where Metrolink runs, up through North County.) One big difference is the total number of votes cast, since November 2008 was a presidential election where 78.6% of registered voters cast votes, but this time only 22.1% cast their votes (which is still higher than they had expected.) I have always lived in either Clayton Township or Creve Coeur Township over the past 24 years, and those two townships ...

I was expecting a close vote for Proposition A last night, more in line with the slight defeat in 2008, so I was pretty excited to hear about the huge 63% to 37% victory for mass transit for the region. This is a big win for the metropolitan area, but it made me start thinking about the opposition group, " Citizens for Better Transit ", and wondered how they actually could have defeated this thing. In reality their arguments were pretty lame, and their spokespeople were not the most impressive of speakers. I was starting to wonder if they were actually set up by the pro Prop A group as being staged "opponents" they could easily argue and debate. This John Burns fellow does not come across as someone who knows much about what he is talking about, and who would really pick an unproven activist in his 20's as the lead spokesperson for their campaign? He does have that "common man" feel to him, but if I were setting up the campaign against Proposition A, ...

Today is it! The big election day in St. Louis County for Proposition A has finally arrived for the public transportation sales tax. That means the Chancellor can stop sending letters and e-mail to every student, their family, university employees and alumni reminding us to vote. I am not sure how many Wash U messages I have received reminding us to vote, but it may have matched the mailings reminding my daughter to apply to the university in the first place. What would the St. Louis county postal service would do without Washington University to keep them busy all the time? And in keeping with the transit mindedness of this election, I will just take off a little early and take public transportation to my polling place to cast my vote, and then walk home afterwards. It looks like a beautiful day to do so today. I should just feel lucky that I am someone in the county who is able to take advantage of public transit to commute and get around the area. Hopefully once the proposition is...

It is hard to believe but it is only four days until April 6 which is a very important election day here in St. Louis County. Yesterday I was driving from my periodontist (which is unusual since I rarely have to drive during the work week), and I took the scenic route through Olivette and Ladue on my way home. I was happy to see quite a few " Yes on Prop A " signs along the major streets (Old Bonhomme, Price, Clayton) as I travelled through Olivette, Ladue and into Richmond Heights. I noticed there were even some homes that had "Yes" for Prop A and "No" for Prop O (for the Ladue School Bond issue ) in the same yard. Even those people who did not want to support the Ladue schools were willing to support public transportation. I saw a few anti-Prop O signs here and there, but no signs against Proposition A at all that I could remember. That was a very good omen, but I had to remember that it was Olivette, Ladue and Richmond Heights I was driving through, and...