Stop lights on Evergreen Road

It has been my fate to commute between Hillsboro and Beaverton for the last ten years or so. First I lived in Beaverton and worked at Intel in Hillsboro. I eventually moved to Hillsboro, close enough to Intel that I was able to walk to work. That lasted a year or two. Now I have a job in Beaverton, about a mile from where I used to live, but I still live in Hillsboro, about a mile from where I used to work.

So I have driven up and down Evergreen Parkway a few times.

I would like to see the timing of the traffic lights on this stretch of road improved. (Evergreen Parkway between Shute Road and Glencoe.)

The light at the corner of Evergreen Parkway and Dawson Creek Drive is particularly annoying. A horde of cars can be descending on that light on Evergreen from both directions and one car will appear at the cross street. Two dozen cars will have to stop to let this one car out. Anyone who pulls up to that light and wants to turn left onto Evergreen should be forced to wait for at least a minute, just to balance the waiting time they will cause all the people who have to stop for them.

Even worse is when the light changes when there are NO cars at the cross street. This has happened at least twice in the last six months. Almost as bad is when the light changes to stop Westbound traffic when someone wants to turn right from Dawson Creek.

Next is the light at 25th street. I pulled up behind 4 or 5 cars in the left lane (Eastbound on Evergreen) at this light this afternoon. The light turned green. By the time the third car had gotten into the intersection, the light had already turned yellow! This was to let TWO cars from 25th street turn onto Evergreen. Talk about aggravating. This happens to me on regular basis, at least once a week.

Last is the left turn light that allows Westbound traffic on Evergreen Parkway to turn South onto Jackson School Road. I was glad to see a traffic light installed at this intersection, it certainly needed it. But I am not sure we need a separate left turn control light. I have never seen the need for it. Perhaps there are times of the day when it is needed, or maybe it will be needed in the future. But mostly it's just an annoyance.

Enough about traffic lights. I have a couple of suggestions about other problems.

The stop lines at some intersections are too close to the light. The stop line in the left turn lane on Northbound Jackson School Road at Evergreen Parkway is too close to the light. Many drivers turning left from Evergreen Parkway cut across this line if there are no cars there. To avoid crossing the line, a driver would have to drive straight into the intersection for a distance and then turn sharply to make the turn. Moving the stop line back could improve this situation.

The same problem exists at the intersection of Shute Road and Highway 26. Westbound traffic from 26 turning South onto Shute face the same problem.

Another bad spot is the intersection of Northbound exit from Highway 217 to Allen boulevard. Turning East onto Allen is handicapped by the visibility. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I've noticed that when I am trying to turn right on red (after a complete stop), I will creep up until I can see well enough to see that there is no traffic coming before I turn. Problem is that by the time I can see well enough, I almost completely across the first Eastbound lane of Allen. And I drive a pickup truck so I am sitting up high. I suspect the problem is amplified for people in cars.

Speed Limits

Shute Road (between Evergreen Parkway and Highway 26) concerns me a little bit. The speed limit is 55 mph (as high as it is on Highway 26!), and there is no shoulder on either side of the road, in fact there are large obstacles lining the road on both sides. Telephone poles on one side and trees on the other. If the trees are not be large enough to stop a car now, they will be soon. I suspect that one of these days some yo-yo will jump the curb and collide with one of these immovable objects. I don't know what you would do about this one either.

I think the speed limit on Harewood Drive between the apartment complex and Glencoe Road could be raised. I realize this is a very short stretch of road, but I can see no reason for the speed to be limited to 25 there. Speed trap is the word that comes to mind. Or maybe I'm just scared of driving through the woods.

Modern electronic equipment

Modern electronic equipment is like a house of cards held together by faith. Any little thing, a breath of fresh air, a slight lapse of faith, and the whole thing will collapse. In our modern temples (offices) where we worship our electronic deities, such sacrilege is forbidden, and, for the most part, our electronic symbiots work as they should.

However, out in the field, where our customers place our products, faith is not as strong, and fresh air, with all it's attendant phenomena, is rampant. It's a miracle that our products work in the field at all.

I was talking to one of our customer's a while back and they were planning on replacing a server in their office because it was three years old, not because they had had any problems with it, but because they didn't want to have any trouble with it.

Electronic devices can be very reliable, but that reliability depends on a safe environment. No temperature changes, no stray electrical currents, no stray electronic signals. Deviate from this ideal, and flaws will appear.

Most electronic circuits probably use about 10% of their circuitry 90% of the time. If a fault should appear somewhere outside the core 10%, it may not be noticed for quite a while. And it may not even cause a problem every time, it may be intermittent, one of the electronic technician's least favorite words.

Lightening strikes, even if they do not directly strike our equipment, produce large currents and high voltages in their immediate area. These currents can cause damage to electronic components that is not visible to the naked eye, but will none-the-less make them inoperative. If the damaged component is not in the core 10% (and there is a 90% probability that it isn't), the damage may not be immediately noticeable, and may even be impossible to detect except under a specific set of circumstances.

Given the preponderance of lightening in Florida, we might want to offer periodic replacement of electronic equipment. If an electronic device has been in the field for three years, they should send it back to us, even if it appears to be working fine. We would replace all of the electronic circuits with new ones and send it back to the customer. Naturally, there would be a charge for this service, perhaps half of what the original unit sells for.

The failures in Florida seem to be intermittent and sporadic. Very difficult to track down. Planned replacement of aging equipment could alleviate these problems.

An alternative would be to redesign our electronic equipment so that all circuits were equipped with parallel diagnostic circuits that would enable us to detect any time any component or trace or solder joint failed. This would make our equipment at least four times more complicated and probably twice as expensive to produce. But it could make it more reliable and would make service and repair a snap.

Intel

I have a stock broker now at one of your full service brokerage houses. Will this work out? Time will tell.

E*Trade and Schwab are great if you are paying attention, but evidently I wasn't. If I had been I would have sold more Intel stock two or three years ago. I blame it on my health. Right now I try to stay healthy enough to do my job. Anything else I get done is a bonus. Not sleeping well puts a real crimp in my ability to get things done. So I blame my poor health (my trouble sleeping) for my failure to pay attention.

Signing up with Chinook Capital Management a year ago might have worked out if they had been competent, if I hadn't been margined to the hilt, or if the market hadn't been in a landslide. If any one of those factors hadn't been true it might have been okay, but with all three working against me, it was doomed.

The big advantage of the broker is it's someone to remind me of reality. It's much easier to be objective about other people's money. It's more difficult to be objective when it's your own money. It's very easy to get stuck in non-productive modes of thought. Like hanging onto stuff hoping it will go up, a common fault among investors, at least according to some studies.

Foreign Policy

I am in favor of the war we started with Iraq. From all accounts Saddam Hussein is an evil man. I think we will be doing the Iraqi people a great service by removing him from power. Removing him will not be enough. To prevent someone of similar nature from coming to power, it will be necessary to establish a new government, and to see that it is firmly established. Constitutional democracy seems to be the preferred form of government these days so that might be the form to pursue. So we can look at an extended stay in Iraq, probably five years or so.

Back in 1970 I turned nineteen years of age, and my lottery number was 30, which almost guaranteed that I would be drafted. I wasn't having any of it. I didn't have any particular objection to the war in Vietnam, but I didn't like people telling me what to do. Fortunately I lived in Ohio and Ohio State University had a policy of admitting anyone who graduated from a High School in Ohio. So I signed up for school. Didn't really want to go to school, I'd been bored out of my mind in High School, and I couldn't see that college would be any better. But given the choice of going to school or going to Vietnam, I chose school. Call me a draft dodger if you will. I was young and ornery, and probably wouldn't have made a very good soldier anyway.

I stayed in school for a year and a half and then I heard a rumor that if you dropped out of school in December, you would be eligible for the draft till the end of the year. If you made it to the end of the year without getting drafted, your period of eligibility was over and you were no longer subject to the draft. The kicker was that nobody ever got drafted in December. So I dropped out, waited out the month, and I was deferred.

John F. Kennedy was supposed to be one of greatest presidents. I'm not so sure. He got us into Vietnam, and he backed out of supporting the Cuban exiles in their attack at the Bay Of Pigs. Richard Nixon is supposed to one our worst presidents, but I'm not so sure. He got us out of Vietnam. I really didn't like his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. I can't really say why, except perhaps that there was too much news about him.

Until this war on Iraq, I was very much opposed to US foreign policy. Our single minded support of any regime that declared itself to be anti-communist seemed to be causing more trouble and grief in the world than the communists were. El Salvador, Iran, Vietnam, the Philippines and Mexico are my favorite examples.

Some people will wonder why I include Mexico. Mexico is pretty much poverty stricken, a third world disaster like any other. It is right next door to the United States. The most powerful nation on Earth. Although I cannot say exactly how or why, I suspect Mexico's current situation can be directly traced to US policy.

Hello

Every time we go see the folks they always argue. Mom says something, Dad disagrees "jeez", mom comes back. It gets old fast.

Speaking in a forceful voice was the norm in our family. Not the norm for some other families.

Just driving down the road, I get angry with other drivers, sometimes for no other reason than they are on the same road as me. I hate driving, and I think this is why. I am tired of being angry all the time.

I try and I try and I try, but things never go as well or as fast or are as rewarding as I like. So the either I or the world do not meet my expectations, so I am angry.

So I try to stay calm. At least outwardly. And especially around the house. It is difficult, but it becomes easier with practice. Staying away from sugar and getting enough sleep helps.

I try not to answer the phone at home. If someone else answers the phone and tells me I have a call, I do okay. I guess the few seconds of preparation I get are enough that I can prepare my mind.

Big Idea: Universal Car Computer

Nanotech is on the rise, I wouldn't be surprised to see pills with embedded stuff become common the next five or ten years.

We got a chip put in our cat. Perhaps this could be used for your secure cat door? You could probably use the same thing for humans, though it was stinking big needle they used to implant it.

Don't worry about car systems, ever year there is something new, the stuff that's ten years old becomes completely obsolete.

Current law requires automobile manufacturers to provide repair parts for their cars for ten years. After that you are on your own. I suspect this results in very high scrap rates for cars over ten years old. Computers are the problem. They are unique to make and year, no one but the manufacturer carries them. So here's another million dollar idea:

The universal replacement computer for older cars. It would take a substantial engineering effort, but there is probably lots of expertise available in this area. They've been putting computers in cars for how long now? Ten years? The basics are all the same, naturally there would be variations.

Cheery Stuff

These days I'm thinking there are only two forces at work: instinct, and diversion. Diversion is what you think of to keep you occupied when you aren't listening to your instincts. Sometimes diversions are "good": people build things. Sometimes diversions are "bad": people break things, start wars, torment other beings.

Andy was talking about Margie's deism versus his humanism. Going to church is a social thing. It doesn't make you more religious or a better person. It just makes you more social, whether you want to be or not. I believe in God the same way I believe in Santa Claus. ("Yes, Virgina, there is a Santa Claus"). It's a spiritual thing. I don't believe in an afterlife. Jesus Christ? He was a good example who lived a long time ago.

If there weren't any people, there wouldn't be any God. I look at God as kind of the collective subconscious of all the people in the world. Anything that furthers the human race is good, anything that harms people is bad. Each person contains a vast sea of information, emotions and instinct. Only a small fraction can be directly expressed. Much more is expressed indirectly through movement, expression and lack of expression/action.

People reinforce each other, if they have similar views. This is why we sometimes have these spontaneous uprisings.

Social interaction is a two edged sword. I often hear people extolling the virtues of small town communities, but I also hear about the negative aspects of small town communities: every knows everybody else's business. There are some people who thrive on this kind of social detail. Other people have little or no interest in it.

People can accomplish more if they can work with other people. It's called cooperation. It's a social thing. You can accomplish little or nothing by yourself. When I was a kid in school I remember them talking about the mountain men and explorers and how they were so wonderful and great. I never understood what the big deal was. I think that's the difference between the socialites (those doing the extolling) and the anti-social (who would rather just do it themselves). In any case the mountain men weren't true loners. Their lifestyle was made possible by the gun, a product of a socially cooperative civilization.

Wars get started because a large part of the young male population doesn't have anything else to do. No work, no prospects, no entertainment, just plain miserable dirt boredom. Someone comes along and says it's all the neighbors doing, let's go burn down their house, and lacking any other influences, off they go. One of the TV channels has been advertising a show about Hitler that will air Sunday night. It is probably drivel, but it might be interesting. The angle is how he got started and came to power.