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A Midwest Photo tour

Your own question, opinion? E-mail me..
 

General reason for this site
Technical points as to speed and quality
Future work

After 20 some years working in L.A., I found myself extremely tired of the concrete landscapes and the plastic people.

Quality of life became a theme for me, especially when I visited my family in the rural midwest and found they lived more simply, honestly and actually cared for each other - something that was missing in my Hollywood existence, despite working for a Church.

The street corner porno, bums, endless summer with no real weather per se - all these combined to make the area inhospitable. In talking to associates there, most didn't get the contrast: they thought all people on this planet acted like the people they dealt with every day. Those that did have a clue about these differences were in apathy about handling them, feeling that this was simply the way things were and they had no tools to handle it.

I disagreed. And left.

This site is my communiqué to the world. Here you find my research into how such a scene in a megalopolis such as Los Angeles could occur, my observations from a rural Midwestern U.S. farm and commentary about the sheer opinions I have - supported or not by factual research, probably more by common sense - which cannot always immediately be explained by available facts. 

This site is built for speed, which is limited mainly by the fact that the vast majority of web users are surfing at about 28.8 or less. This despite the point that you can get only 56k modems these days and are installed on all the latest computers you buy. Check out useit.com for the scene on this according to Jacob Neilsen. 

For me, rural lines only tolerate about 28k even though they tie into a T1. A problem with infrastructure. So I use a DirecPC satellite connection, which is mostly a lot faster, but has its slow moments, just as any T1 does - dependent on where I am surfing from and what lines I am surfing through. But it takes the edge off.

So you won't see a great deal of graphics here. (I have another site that sells my artwork - which will link when it goes up.) And I don't use frames, scripts or dynamic html which just slow it down. Tables are a compromise, based on navigation and minor to speed.

More important that the data I have gets out and is made available, just as the Internet was intended.

Otherwise, the Internet is used for brochures and catalogues. Someone trying to do entertainment on these slow lines is about 5 years or more ahead of its time - the infrastructure simply isn't here. Broadband is on its way, but needs maturing.

What's upcoming? Check out what's new as listed on the home page. 

Current research is still in working out how to understand how the L.A. scene works compared to rural Missouri.

There is a continuing scene of how to make the Midwest "green" in relation to creating their own energy, eliminating the need for petroleum based or other artificial fertilizing that have negative impact on our land. This encompasses alternative agriculture, sustainable agriculture, biodiesel, et al.

And, as a necessary evil, some work will be in keeping current on computers - wintel, mac and linux versions.

Artwork is my named mainstay, though I find I currently do more work with philosophical and "humanities architect" work while keeping a day job for now. I do walk my dogs regularly through the open fields and woods next to the house, taking pictures on good days (which is any day it isn't raining or snowing or blowing too hard.) Some of these show up on the photo tour, more are available for download on my art site.

So stay tuned. ...And let me know what you think.

Robert C. Worstell 

March 27, 2001