Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

Angie and I decided to escape to the desert again this weekend. The thought/understanding of having a back yard of the immensity of the California deserts grows on me. The areas are vast. So vast, it humbles the largest of thoughts and comforts the smallest. My theory of why that is --is because there are no echoes. At the same time I am repulsed by urban New Yorker's thinking my upstate farm is their back yard. The significant difference (in fact) is that part of the California desert is the largest national park in the lower 48 states and other California deserts are largely government land. In Shoshone, CA (Population 31) Gas was $5.35 a gallon for the cheap stuff. The average national price in the US was $2.85.

This past week my Sister drove from Maine to Orange county CA in her van camper. It was 3174.9 miles in 7 days, one way.

Angie and I have been adventuring in Southern California. Traffic is almost funny here. You are on highways (not me very often) up to 8 (or more) lanes doing a stop-and-go to 20 miles an hour. When will we finally solve the problem not as a more lanes are needed, but as how do we make a single lane go faster? There are lots of different types of parallel ports (multi-lanes) on computer interfaces. I don't think we've applied these same protocols to highways. Think about how fast USB is these days, or the previously considered impossible 10GB over Cat-5 copper (both single lane). With the increased speed in a single lane you will need to give up some freedom. Fine, if you want freedom stay in the slow lanes with your 8085 8 bit processor. The fast lanes will enjoy car-to-car awareness and safer speeds consistently well over 100MPH, not stop and go to 20 MPH. Aircraft pilots know all about the freedom -safety-speed tradeoff. An article about the anthropology. Here are some pics f...