
Texas Jeff
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The transfers and wait for the bus and walking from the stop to the destination kill the thing. Yesterday, I had to drop a car off in West Campus and get home some other way, a distance of about 2 miles. I had three options: * Take CapMetro, about 40 minutes for a cost of $1.25 for me and about $6-$12 for the taxpayer. * Walk, also 40 minutes and free but a bit sweaty. * Uber, about 10 minutes for $6, which was a discount from their normal price of about $10. So I picked Uber and got matched with a Waymo. A robot drove me home in an electric Jaguar with nice leather seats and cold A/C. Cap Metro's revenue is $600 million a year and for that they provide 26 million rides per year. That is an average of $23 per ride. They do provide paratransit which is expensive and needed, but even if you back that out they spend a lot of money per rider. They employ 22 vice-presidents and have their own police department. As rideshare scales, particularly driverless rideshare, we should reconsider Cap Metro's operating model versus just supplementing rideshare for lower income folks. I think they should keep their paratransit services and their main corridor routes like the 801 and 803, but everything else should go rideshare.
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Brilyn Hollyhand? Who is naming this people?
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Last week someone almost got canceled for saying: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” This week ... totally different response from the MAGA gang.
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Fidelity Freedom funds are a "life path" or "target date" fund based a target retirement date. In this case the chosen date is 2045. Target date funds tend to invest in both US and international funds in about a 60/40 or 70/30 mix, with some bonds. As the retirement date approaches, they sell stocks and buy bonds to reduce risk. The S&P 500 funds are US stocks, however these big US companies do get revenues from both US and international sources. Think about US companies with a worldwide impact like Exxon and Microsoft. In years where the S&P 500 performance dominates, the S&P 500 fund is going to do better than the target date funds. In years where international performance is better than US, the target date fund is going to be better. International funds have done well in 2025, but for the years leading up to 2025 the S&P funds outdid the international funds, as your data shows.
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How did Ted get there so fast?
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
This summer they were talking about how many seats they would have to remove to get to 80/85/90 percent full. And how they wanted to do this once. I suspect, given AISD's history, that the admin will target 85% full and the community will talk them down to 80%. IMHO, they should be going for 90% full and wait and see what happens with demographics. They are projected to lose another 10% over the next ten years. If they end up at 80% full and lose 10%, they'll be back at 72% full in 10 years. Going for 90% now would leave them around 81% full in 10 years, when they will likely have to do this over again. Getting to 90% would save a lot of money over 10 years vs 80% or lower. If the district surprises and adds population, they could rebuild some campuses to add capacity. They're never getting the land back once they sell. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Bryker Woods is an interesting choice. It is a small school in poor condition but the surrounding schools are mostly full or overcrowded according to the rubric they released. Perhaps they are serious about limiting transfers to the West Austin elementaries, which might free up enough space to absorb the local population. Maplewood will probably be merged into Campbell. One of the trustees has mentioned this idea several times in board meetings. Fun fact: Bedichek was a filming location for "Dazed and Confused". IMHO, it looked old and out of date 30 years ago. -
Kimmel's comments that got his show off the air -- pretty normal monologue stuff:
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Current Austin ISD attendance area boundaries, in case anyone is interested: https://www.austinisd.org/modules/custom/schools/maps/schools.html -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Thanks for spreading the word, those that are affected need to know about this. However, one small correction. The plan is being uploaded in early October, meaning that it will be available online, probably via BoardDocs or on the school consolidation page. The folks working on the plan will present it to the board at the board info session on Oct 9th. The board is scheduled to vote on the final plan during their November 20th voting meeting. So there is some time for tweaks, but I suspect the board has known the basic plan for a while. You may have more recent info from the Zoom call than Austin ISD has published on their consolidation page. They have to consolidate schools to remain financially viable. They have burned through their savings and they are only able to reduce their deficit to where it is for this year by selling school properties for one-time cash. The district said they have the same enrollment now as they did in the mid-1990s, but they are operating twenty more schools now than they did then. The latest demographic report shows them losing 10% more of their students over the next ten years, then perhaps flatting out. There are benefits to consolidation, although it's painful for folks to experience it and it's always unpopular. -
It was covered upthread, but I'll add a video here. He ran across the roof to a different spot where there was no staircase. Perhaps he felt it was out of view. It was so soon after the shooting that he probably could have gone back to the staircase and walked away. He dropped down to the ground while apparently carrying a bag, appeared to hurt his leg a bit on the fall, and limped away.
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If you look at the building where he took the shot, it is connected via a roof-top bridge to the UVU Computer Science building. Using Google Maps, you can see a stairway that gets you up on the roof-top bridge. The bridge appears to be at the same height as the roof where he took the shot. It's possible that he assembled the gun somewhere near the bridge, walked up the stairs and jumped on the roof, then moved to where he took the shot. It looks easy to get from the roof-top bridge area to the roof of the building where he took the shot. The NY Times has some pics and maps up that show a likely path: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/12/us/tyler-robinson-manhunt-timeline-kirk-suspect-caught.html
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Charlie Kirk assassinated at an event in Utah (by a 22 YO groyper)
Texas Jeff replied to msbesq's topic in Cloak Room
He also said that the deaths in the hill country flash floods this summer would have been lower if Austin did not have a black fire department chief. For anyone not in the know, the floods occurred about 120 miles from Austin. -
This is a big cause of the disconnect. Here's a 2016 Statesman editorial stating that 73% of the officers at the time lived outside Austin, and how that was a problem: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2016/09/04/public-would-be-better-served-if-austin-police-officers-lived-in-city/10061173007/ We all have our biases. Folks in hiring positions tend to hire people like them. If everyone recruiting and hiring is living in far off suburbs, then new hires are likely to live in far off suburbs. If police can drive into Austin four days a week, do their shift, and go home having never lived here, what incentive do they have to serve the local population well? They are not bad people, they are just doing what they have to do to get a paycheck. They are focused on their kids and their family and their community, and none of that is in Austin. The police department should try to build homegrown officers. They should be recruiting at LBJ, Akins, Navarro, Crockett, and all of the other schools within the city of Austin. They should be providing a pathway for interested graduates to get relevant experience and return when they are ready to enter the academy. And the city should provide financial incentives for officers to live within the city limits. Even if the homegrown folks eventually moved to the burbs, we would have police officers with local relatives or a memory of growing up in Austin, and perhaps they may feel more connection to Austin and be more incented to try to improve the city rather than just police.
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I have a kid living in west campus and I'm happy the UTPD folks are around. They are on bikes and they are visible and able to get around and interact with folks. There is another crew that is going around cleaning and repairing stuff, on the drag and throughout west campus. Generally it looks better than it did a few years ago. West campus does not seem that dangerous. The students are a bit naive and inexperienced. Most spent years chasing a top 6% rating, then a year in the dorm, and now they are living in a quasi-urban place where everyone is 19-22 years old. The UTPD folks provide a bit of a handrail. The drag (aka Guad, somehow the name changed) is empty by mid-80's standards. I'm not sure what happened. It needs to be re-weirded.
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A 66 year old Baton Rouge retired accountant always wanted to be in the LSU marching band. So he re-learned the tuba, worked out, enrolled in LSU so that he could try out for the band, and now he's a freshman tuba:
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Interview with the guy that created the logo: https://www.fastcompany.com/91398484/how-pentagram-designed-austins-first-ever-logo He claims it was the ultimate design by committee. I believe him.
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Some stuff I looked up: How much does an Austin Police Officer make? Base Pay: While in academy, $60,000 per year. After graduation, base pay rises to $70,644 After 1 year, base pay rises to $79,277 After 2 years, base pay rises to $87,498 After 10 years, base pay hits $100,176 .. and tops out at $118,132 Officers can earn overtime pay and other pay stipends based on language skills, certifications, education, etc. These might add $10,000 or so to base pay, for those that qualify. This job requires a high school diploma or GED, US citizenship, a drivers license, the ability to read, write and speak English, and either 12 semester hours of college credit or 2 years in the military or two years of work experience. You have to be 20.5 years of age to enter the academy. You can graduate high school, work two years somewhere, and you are good to apply. The job comes with health benefits and a pension. Officers get 150 hours of vacation, 150 hours of sick leave, 88 hours of holiday leave, three personal holidays and 16 hours of wellness leave. Officers work four 10 hour days in a row, then have three days off. At 10 hrs per day, they have about 43 days of leave per year, if you add up all of their vacation/sick/personal/etc. They can take an additional 120 hours for military leave. Most of my data is from here: https://www.austintexas.gov/apdrecruiting/pay-benefits How dangerous is it to be an Austin Police Officer? I could not find data on officer injuries, but the city lists 29 officers killed in the line of duty from 1875-2025: https://www.austintexas.gov/page/officers-killed-line-duty I count eleven that were killed by gun violence and fourteen killed in a vehicular collision. One had a heart attack. Three were killed by COVID in Fall 2021, which was after vaccines were rolled out. Either they didn't get the shot or were unlucky. The police department has about 1500 officers. It's possible to die on the job as a police officer, but it's not common. You are as likely to be killed in a crash as you are by a gun.
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I asked ChatGPT to come up with a new logo for Austin, Texas and it coughed up this for free in 5 mins:
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Meanwhile, in America:
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Alabama must get their US reps out of an old white guy Pez dispenser.
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Elect me president and I will rename it Starfleet and move it to San Francisco. Might as well get started on the future right now.
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