After a very brief period of time I had an answer to the first one. It turns out that these lines in the road:
in freeways, as seen here:
Are part of a kind of road repair called a "dowel bar retrofit". It's a way of tying one section of concrete to another so they don't move as cars cross from one to another. I'd seen these for years all over the country and had no clue.
The second mystery to be resolved was a problem with using my USB scanner under Ubuntu Linux. That was fixed with my own continued digging and a reader pointing out a final syntax issue in something I did. The scanner works again, which is the important thing.
And the final mystery is now resolved as well. A series of strange items out off the western coast of Richmond are now identified as "Beacon Piles," and are present to keep ships from running aground. They are unlit, round, orange signs visible from the north and south, looking like this from the back (on land):
(The front sides are painted orange for visibility to ships out in the channel.)
The only question I have remaining about these is why they are where they are. The actual channel is well beyond these beacons, and any ship of significance will run aground long before it gets to them. Still, the contributions of several readers helped definitively identify them, so I can stop pondering them now. (And I am sure they are not radar reflectors, despite many references to them by that name. They are simply visual markers for ships to see in the daylight.)
Much of the conversation about these things took place on Facebook, and while I have all kinds of problems with that platform, it helped in these cases. If you're friends with me there, you can find the back & forth on this in the comments to the post announcing that earlier blog entry.
Also, if you have a burning question needing an answer, consider sharing it with me. Apparently I have more than a few readers who love digging into things, and who know all kinds of stuff. Maybe we can get it answered for you.
