Anyone who can help me with the answers to any of these things will earn my eternal gratitude, and a link here to their website if desired. Obviously that means I will update the post with new information as it arrives. As with all things, you can reach me if you try, despite comments being off here.
Oh, for all images here, click to see a larger version.
MYSTERY 1 - Strange marks in highway pavement in the USA
SOLVED! SOLVED! SOLVED!
Here's a picture taken on I-5 in Northern CA, on a trip to Vancouver:
Look at the road in front of the car. See those sets of 3 marks on each side, roughly where the wheels of the car go? Those are the mystery. Here's a closeup:
What are those things? Here's what I know so far:
- I have googled quite a bit and been unable to find a search that tells me anything.
- It appears that they happen on expansion joints (or some other linear crack in the road, perpendicular to the direction of travel).
- I have seen them in several states, mostly in I-80, but also (as above) in California on I-5.
- The spacing between groups (in the direction the cars travel on the road) can vary.
- Sometimes there are 2 groups of 4 marks instead of 2 groups of 3. No idea why. But that happens on very different roads. I have never seen groups of 4 & 3 on the same road.
| Mystery 1 has an answer! Readers K and P (possible links still coming) tell me these marks are made as part of a 'dowel bar retrofit', which is a mechanism used to reinforce cracks in highway concrete. Here's a Wikipedia article about the technique. |
MYSTERY 2 - Wood, round, antenna structures west of Richmond, BC
On our regular dog walks along the dyke on the western edge of Richmond, BC, we see odd, round structures, apparently made of wood. There are several of them, well spaced out. Here's one, from afar, and zoomed in. (The zoom'd image is blurry... sorry.)
And here is a shot showing several of these things off to the south:
And finally, here is a captured image from Google Maps, where I have measured the distance between these things. The points on the white line show their locations.
And here's what I know (it's not much):
- They appear to be made of wood, and have no apparent electrical connections.
- They face South West. (Bring up google maps for Richmond, BC, switch to satellite mode, and zoom in to confirm that yourself. You can see them in some detail there.)
- The spacing between them isn't regular. (See map above.)
- They are in a straight line running very close to due North/South, as far as I can tell. (Again, see map above.) It is just possible that they do not run perfectly North/South, but from the level of detail I have, it's hard to know.
- And once more, Google has let me down on finding more details.
That's it. I know nothing more.
| Mystery 2 has been solved. It prompted a lot of discussion on Facebook and in email, and many people participated in the conversation. K suggested these are navigation markers for ships, and looked at some nautical charts but didn't find them specifically. I found them in openseamap.org, but couldn't find the description of the actual things I found. J found the actual information about the chart annotation that resolved it, along with the formal description of the item type - "Daybeacons" - which says: "Generally, daybeacons are unlighted aids used primarily to assist the mariner during daylight hours" and goes on with other information that makes it clear that these things off the coast of Richmond are there to keep ships out of trouble. Thanks to the many people who looked into this and helped find the definitive answer! It was really fun to get it worked out. |
MYSTERY 3 - The scanner that stopped working in Ubuntu Linux 16.04
SOLVED! SOLVED! SOLVED!
No pictures for this one, I'm afraid, but I wrote it all up in great detail in a post on the Ubuntu Forums here:
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2369422
In short, I updated my OS and everything works (as far as I know) except the scanner. And the failure mode of the scanner is really, really odd. It's as if the bus ID and device ID that were in use for the scanner in the previous version of the OS were saved somewhere, but after the OS update everything got renumbered. When software to find the scanner is run as a regular user, the scanner cannot be found. When the same software is run as root, it does find the scanner (apparently).
As with the other mysteries, Google has not revealed a solution so far.
| Mystery 3 has been solved. Without going into too much detail, there was a permissions problem because of changes introduced in Ubuntu Linux between 14.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS. I, personally, got the problem about 95% solved, but thanks to confusing and inaccurate documentation, I missed a bit of syntax that kept it from working. A good friend (John M.) pointed that last issue out, and suddenly everything works again. I think someone at Ubuntu needs a kick in the head for this, but such is life. The scanner works, and that is all that matters for now. Anyone wanting all the details can read this thread: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2369422 wherein I document the entire mess. |
And that's it. Fame* and fortune** await the people who help me understand these things. Consider it a challenge, please!
Footnotes:
* "Fame" defined as a link to your website, if you want it.
** This is a lie. There will be no fortune for anyone who helps. Sorry.
