Feb

5

CP&D Open Houses Galore

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | February 5, 2010 | 6 Comments

This is a little last minute, but if you want to be heard about the future of housing on campus, as well as the future of the heart of campus (the University Boulevard area, as well as McInnis Field and the current bus loop), there are two open houses forthcoming. All you need to do is show up:

1. Public Open House • UBC Student Housing Demand Study

Date: Friday, February 5th
Time: 2:30 pm – 3:30pm
Local: SUB 211

A follow-up to this study, which among other things, states that 43% of students living off campus would live on campus if they had the choice. Learn about the study and provide your input regarding the study and next-steps.

sb4b5e0973bebde

2. Public Open House • University Boulevard Neighbourhood

Date: Monday, February 8th
Time: 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Local: SUB Concourse

Long ago, there was a design competition to redo the University Boulevard Neighbourhood (solid line). It’s been about six years since that design competition finished. Since then, the winning architects have disappeared, their replacement also disappeared, an underground bus loop has disappeared, and in the chaos, a 120 million dollar Student Union Building, and an Olympic-sized pit of mud have appeared.

Despite most of the original plan’s premises disappearing, the model of the neighbourhood remains the same. This open house seems to be a welcome acknowledgment of “ok, crap, what now”. Further, the ’study area’ includes much much more than the University Boulevard Neighbourhood–going all the way to the current bus loop (where future plans are still undecided). It’ll be very interesting to see what’s on display.

Feb

3

Voter Funded Media Results

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | February 3, 2010 | 7 Comments

Here are the results from continuous VFM thusfar, and from the one-time VFM in interactive graph form!

The real winner at the end of the day, I would say, is the gossip rag AMS Confidential, who managed to create themselves partway through continuous VFM and eventually surpassed the Radical Beer Tribune in terms of total cash out.

It remains hard to get a firm grasp over the one-time VFM results, due to the limited information we now have. What we do know, is that on average, students allocated $1334 with their vouchers. This means a high degree of non-participation in one-time VFM, as this number should be at least $2000 if participation were 100%. If the history of one-time tells us anything though, it’s that results are hard to predict, and the characteristics you’d expect to be predictors aren’t that strong.

Analysis by Tim remains as true today as it did three years ago: there are different niches for the blogs to fill, but at the end of the day, the real benefit of one-time VFM is now the electorate can generally expect better-researched candidates.

We’ve been in talks with the Elections Committee to get more detailed results from the elections, as we beget further analysis. We’re hoping they get released to all soon, so we can try to get a better feeling on what exactly the results mean.

Feb

1

Yes, The Killers Killed the Liquor at Thunderbird Arena

Posted by: Neal Yonson | February 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Avid readers of this blog may recall a post from last summer entitled: “Did The Killers Kill the Liquor at Thunderbird Arena?”

The original post should be read in its entirety, but if you’re too lazy the synopsis is that in July 2009, UBC Athletics put an application forward to amend the liquor licence at T-Bird Arena. (Apologies to Doug Mitchell; T-Bird Arena is much simpler to write than DMTWSC.) At the time, campus RCMP had serious objections to the proposal based on a series of major infractions at previous licenced (and non-licenced) events at the arena and things were not looking good for Athletics.

In the fall, the Liquor Control and Licencing Board (LCLB) issued their decision on Athletics’s application and it didn’t work out very well. In short: Yes, the Killers killed the liquor at Thunderbird Arena.

Read more

Jan

30

2010 Preliminary Election Results

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | January 30, 2010 | 2 Comments

referendumbars

But wait, democracy isn’t over just yet! Continuous VFM is continuous!

Jan

29

Over 6500!

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | January 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Ignore the false reports, the elections committee just announced we’re over 6500!

Huge kudos to the elections committee. It appears a combination of VFM and a new elections voting website has make for a sustained increase in turnout. See you all at the Gallery for results!

Jan

28

Insiders Predicts Turnout Down 42%

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | January 28, 2010 | 10 Comments

Note: Within an hour of this post, the elections committee broke the model! Good job, EC! (more t-tests, next time, I promise)

I did a really simple logarithmic fit to the data the elections committee has been releasing.

I’m going to go ahead and predict turnout this year will be 3781. Only 58% of last years ~6500.

ballots v. time

Note: I’d do some confidence intervals, but seriously, I just finished a STAT 306 assignment, and I’m tired of t-tests.

What’s different this year from last? This editor notes one big difference is the lack of a student-wide email, highly visible poll-booths, and highly visible campaigns. Post your thoughts in the comments thread.

Jan

28

Council Poll!

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | January 28, 2010 | 6 Comments

Haven’t voted yet? Why not?

It’s taken our monkeys a while, but they’ve finally counted the ballots and ranked the pairs. Who Council chose, as of Wednesday, January 20th.

councilsexec

Note: Proxies were counted as council members. This is simply a sample for entertainment purposes–I haven’t bothered with confidence intervals or any of that fun stuff. More results and details behind the jump!

Read more

Jan

27

The Presidential Debate Video

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | January 27, 2010 | 1 Comment

Voting is now open. Cast your ballot now!

Insiders would like to offer a huge thanks to our partner, the Ubyssey, the moderator, Geoff Costeloe, the hosts, the UBC Centre for Student Involvement, and our supporters, AMS Elections. We saw an attendance of over 70 live in the house in this first-ever event.


Note: the video freezes in the first four seconds. If you wait for about 20 seconds thereafter, it resumes. Alternative, you can skip ahead a tiny fraction of seconds and it will play faster. Also, the video began late, and is missing an introduction by the hosts to the Centre for Student Involvement, as well as half of the presentation of the themes.

Jan

26

A Round-by-Round Breakdown of the UBC Insiders/Ubyssey Presidential Debate

Posted by: Justin Mcelroy | January 26, 2010 | 7 Comments

Before the debate begun, Natalie had managed to rack up a bunch of endorsements from media outlets. Yet Bijan has had the larger facebook group, the smoother campaign, and hadn’t been attacked for his perceived weaknesses on tuition\UBC relations. Would there be clash? Would one candidate stick out? The esteemed Alex Lougheed and I were trading thoughts as the debate went on, and here how I saw it, round-by-round.

Read more

Jan

26

The Presidential Debate Live Feed

Posted by: Alex Lougheed | January 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Watch the Ubyssey’s live video coverage of our co-presented, independent Presidential debate!

Watch now!


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