Thread for strange questions

[Cincydawg]

https://247sports.com/college/georgia/Article/arkansas-state-head-coach-blake-anderson-wins-fwaa-courage-award-wendy-anderson-140828022/?fbclid=IwAR23hxlYoGarmatdIRTdV1FqK4hzWKCeu7w7gx2D5CSDeQr1ABViBvnoeaU

Not a question of course, but some Good News, which is always nice to see.

[SFBadger96]

We decided we didn't care for the walkability of the area, no parks.

Agreed. I would go running through the Brookhaven (I think) neighborhood a few blocks away, but that whole area seems dedicated to the car. I would use MARTA to get to the airport and back, as that was just within reasonable walking distance with a rollerbag--but not for the average American.

[Cincydawg]

Brookhaven is a bit northeast of Buckhead.  It's just a commercial area on the main road with some residential off it.  I originally was interested in Buckhead circa 2011 when I thought I could snag a 2 bedroom condo "cheap".  They weren't really cheap.  I had no thoughts of midtown back then.

[Cincydawg]

What do y'all/youse thing of diverging diamond interchanges?

http://www.mikeontraffic.com/diverging-diamond-interchange-ddi/




If they all were like that, it'd be a bit different.  We have a mixture around here.

[ELA]

We have one by my office, but not the route I typically drive.  I think it's slightly more complicated than that one.  The only issue I have (aside from typical people having issues with something new), is that with the numbers of lights and signs, it does make it confusing to rely on, because you can't count on the sign/light that is relevant for you being the one that is directly ahead of you.

Found a picture, apparently it was the first in Pennsylvania

[Cincydawg]

It seems most of the interchanges here being rebuilt are going to that style.

http://www.dot.ga.gov/DS/SafetyOperation/DDI

They are rare enough at this point to be somewhat confusing until I realize what I'm into.

Of course, in France they nearly all use traffic circles, which work pretty well if traffic is not overly dense.

[betarhoalphadelta]

We have one by my office, but not the route I typically drive.  I think it's slightly more complicated than that one.  The only issue I have (aside from typical people having issues with something new), is that with the numbers of lights and signs, it does make it confusing to rely on, because you can't count on the sign/light that is relevant for you being the one that is directly ahead of you.

Found a picture, apparently it was the first in Pennsylvania

Ahh, I assumed from the diagram @Cincydawg posted that the interchange between the crossing lanes of traffic was an overpass, not at grade with signals. That way you could do this without the crossing traffic ever having to stop. It would be a lot more expensive though.

I'm not sure that this is ALL that much better than a standard cloverleaf. In fact, I could see it as potentially being worse due to confusion. With a full cloverleaf you don't even need traffic signals.

In city areas I often see partial cloverleafs. They're quite common here, IN that case you still have a signal on each side of the freeway, but the vast bulk of traffic on the cross street don't ever have to cross over each other. So I don't see what the improvement is there.

I'm sure there are traffic engineers who have determined it's a wonderful thing, but I'm not seeing the advantage just looking at the way it would flow.

To me it doesn't look like the pictured one decreases land usage either.

[Cincydawg]

The diamond takes less room than a cloverleaf, and the latter doesn't work well when traffic is heavy.  Most of the "half" clover leafs are being rebuilt.
This may be more illustrative:



The traffic on the secondary road reverses.  The freeway is of course unimpaired.  This makes for fewer total signals for traffic.  

[utee94]

I thought they were weird at first, but I actually like them now that I've grown used to them.  They're rebuilding many overpasses in this way in the Austin area now.

[Cincydawg]

Why do some states have major universities called State State and other don't?  Probably some land grant thing?

PA and OH have their primary U as "State".  One even named the town that.  Georgia State by comparison is a "commuter school" that didn't have a football team until fairly recently.  (One  might argue they still don't, they play now where the Braves used to play).  Louisiana State is, I think, a pretty significant football school also, but SC State, and Alabama State I think are HBCUs.  Mississippi State, Florida State, and NC States are FBS teams.  Texas State?  Arkansas State?  Kentucky State?  Indiana State?  (I think they play basketball, not sure.)

UMass we kinow as a pastry.  Mass State?  

[Cincydawg]

A somewhat related thing is the "Tech" appellation (as we have learned from soft drink commercials).  Granted, they play a soft schedule, but Techs usually are better than States, who stink.  How many "Techs" are there in CFB FBS level play?  Two?  

I know NC State is a kind of "Tech" in effect.  UNC has the "humanities" and medicine etc., and NCSU has the engineering etc.  I think Ohio State has a well regarded engineering school.  Are the States tending to be somewhat like the Techs?  And the U ofs out there are more generally focused on humanities and whatnot?

Maybe there is no real rhyme or reason to any of this, it all just happened.  UGA got started well before any land grant thing happened.  It's a weird story because in 1785, the area around Athens was, well, remote would be the term.  The state was the least populous in the new country (ours).  And yet somehow they felt a need to start a university in the middle of nowhere, mostly for the wealthy white sons of course, who otherwise might get into trouble.  Send them off to school and they will stay straight and fly right, they said.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Indiana State?  (I think they play basketball, not sure.)

Indiana State plays football at the FCS level.

The California system always seemed odd to me. You have an entire collection of schools that are within the University of California system, and then another whole collection of schools in the California State University system. There is little argument that the UC schools are the premier schools, and CSU the second tier, when it comes to admissions, academics, etc. And it's true in football as well, where all 4 FBS P5 programs in the state are either private schools or UC schools (USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal). There are 37 college football teams in CA, but the only two other FBS programs are Fresno State and San Jose State.

And of 9 schools in the UC system, only two of the 9 field FBS football teams. Two more field FCS teams, and the remaining 5 don't have football teams at all. 

[utee94]

Indiana State plays football at the FCS level.

The California system always seemed odd to me. You have an entire collection of schools that are within the University of California system, and then another whole collection of schools in the California State University system. There is little argument that the UC schools are the premier schools, and CSU the second tier, when it comes to admissions, academics, etc. And it's true in football as well, where all 4 FBS P5 programs in the state are either private schools or UC schools (USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal). There are 37 college football teams in CA, but the only two other FBS programs are Fresno State and San Jose State.

And of 9 schools in the UC system, only two of the 9 field FBS football teams. Two more field FCS teams, and the remaining 5 don't have football teams at all.

Texas is similar.  There are many universities within the University of Texas System (The University of Texas at Austin, UT-San Antonio, UT-Dallas, UT-El Paso, etc.).  And then the Texas A&M University system has its own collection of schools (Texas A&M in College Starion, Texas A&M Commerce, Texas A&M Corpus Christie, etc.).  Only one of the  Texas A&M system schools plays D1-A football (the original Texas A&M in College Station), but three in the UT System do-- UT, UTEP, UTSA.

To address Cincy's original question, in a lot of states, the "State" university started as the ag or land grant school, and the "University of" was the mainstream or flagship university.  Oklahoma State was originally Oklahoma A&M.  Kansas State University was originally Kansas State Agricultural College.  There are some other examples.  As those colleges expanded beyond just their ag roles, many of them wanted their names to reflect their broader mission, so they changed to "State" rather than A&M.  This didn't happen EVERYWHERE, as obviously Texas A&M never made that change.

Also, specifically for Texas State, that school was called Southwest Texas State for a very long time, until the early 2000s.  It's an independent school, not from either major university system, and when folks started turning their noses up at "directional" schools, Southwest Texas State decided to rebrand as Texas State.  Other directional schools have rebranded similarly, like Southwestern Louisiana that decided to rebrand as the University of Louisiana Lafayette.

[FearlessF]

speaking of UT-Arlington... not really

I will be in the great state of Texas visiting my brother the 5th thru Saturday the 11th.

I plan to play golf in Flower Mound on Sunday the 5th, stay in the Arlington area until Tuesday afternoon and be in Round Rock Tuesday evening.

I'll be in the Round Rock area until leaving bright and early Sunday morning the 12th.

If anyone wants to get together while I'm in the area, just let me know what might work for your schedule.