[03:36] <blahdeblah> Makulit: The mechanism under 16.04 doesn't use cron, but essentially, yes.  However, by default it randomises over a long period in order to even out the load on the archive servers.
[04:02] <Makulit> Bugger. Because of my plan, I really would prefer to set things like that to happen between 1AM and 7AM.
[04:03] <Makulit> So if Ubuntu Server does not have cron, what does it use to automate tasks?