Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

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...

Angie and I took a few different metros trains to Santa Monica. It takes awhile from Costa Mesa, but it sure beats taking the car. Besides, the Leaf wouldn't make it there and back on one charge anyhow.

I spent this year's birthday traveling alone again. I can't say I like that, but I had some ice cream cake a few days later. I went to a the CIDM conference in Durham NC. I didn't speak this year, but it was good. There was quite a bit of new stuff. This is a pic of me with George Bina. He has to be one of the most respected people in the XML industry. The koi fish seem to be wrestling in the pond outside my apartment window. The ducks even get into the fray. Good show to watch while I am drinking morning coffee.

Angie and I walked from the apartment to the Newport Beach Pier. I saw at least 2 Lamborghini, 5 Ferrari, 1 Rolls Royce and a bunch of other rare species of urban crawlers. It is the natural habitat for these machines.

We are back from a road trip to Las Vegas. We met my brother for his birthday out there. The last time I was there was in 2006 My blog post from 2006 . I don't feel any strong intrinsic need to go there then or now. But it is a well known destination and certainly the road trip from SoCal to Vegas is the iconic American road trip. We stopped in San Bernadino to visit the original site of McDonalds. While in Vegas, we may have enjoyed "downtown" better than the strip. I didn't even know it existed, but there are neon signs, cheesy clubs, cheesy casinos, cheesy buffets and even cheesier people.

Angie and I went on a long urban hike this weekend. We got to see the homeless people in SoCal living in tents up close. Amazing differences in this county from block-to-block and street-to-street. Here is a nice pic of ducklings we saw trying to make their way in the concrete jungle.

I am amazed that Don Shipley's channel on You Tube was recently terminated. I spent a lot of study time in grad school studying the future of digital censorship. To me, the termination is crazy. The show was entertaining as well as exposing -- Don has been quite respectful and equally quick to prove fraudulent actions. I can only imagine who has the power to terminate his channel. Don Shipley - Wikipedia A recent posting on a new/different channel https://youtu.be/m80VN0Vt69Y