[HN Gopher] Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane f...
___________________________________________________________________
Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back
'decades'
Author : trauco
Score : 181 points
Date : 2025-06-29 17:39 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "Researchers say the satellites themselves are operating normally
| and do not appear to have suffered any errors that would
| physically prevent the data from continuing to be collected and
| distributed, so the abrupt data halt might have been an
| intentional decision."
|
| Wait, the U.S. aren't even going to try selling the satellites?
| We're just scrapping them?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The intent is to disable the capability to ignore the data. If
| you allow access to someone else, you're not preventing the
| data capture and dissemination. If the data shows hurricanes
| are intensifying in strength due to climate change, and you no
| longer capture the data, you can say with a straight face "No
| it isn't and you can't prove it."
|
| How large systems with exposure to these places (insurance,
| capital markets) respond is what you should look to next. What
| do you do when you don't have the data to accurately price
| risk?
|
| Relevant comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43366311
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42450680
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41664750 (top comment of
| this thread aggressively relevant)
| mnky9800n wrote:
| I think it's even more nefarious than that. They can attack
| other countries that claim intensifying climate and weather
| scenarios by saying their data is biased while claiming to
| have the best data in the world but not share for national
| security reasons. While this may seem like something
| unbelievable to you or me it is easily eaten up by their
| supporters who love propaganda. Like, my republican parents
| are convinced robotaxi is amaxing after the unreasonably bad
| debut in Austin. They simply didn't hear or want to hear that
| Tesla would not produce a working product.
| whatshisface wrote:
| They could claim that even with the satellites. The
| "alternate reality" can be anything - if facts aren't
| inserted into it the people inside won't know.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Idiots will buy it. The courts won't. Cutting off the
| data stymies the latter.
| pstuart wrote:
| The courts are compelled to defer to SCOTUS, which has
| demonstrated that it is ideologically aligned with the
| regime.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _SCOTUS, which has demonstrated that it is
| ideologically aligned with the regime_
|
| If you read SCOTUS's opinions this is obviously false.
| Alito and Thomas are bought. But the others have their
| own quirks and agendas.
| tialaramex wrote:
| You could probably imagine that ACB is just very stupid I
| guess? She's made choices which only make sense if
| they're out of blind loyalty to the man who gave her a
| job she shouldn't have _or_ because she 's not smart
| enough to understand the consequences.
|
| For ordinary people it can feel reasonable to keep your
| head down and hope that somehow this blows over. But for
| SCOTUS it's entirely within their power to draw a line,
| and it seems like _at best_ their idea has become "Maybe
| if we give him what he wants he'll go away?" which is
| dumb, Kipling wrote his famous poem "Dane-geld" about
| this, it's well over a century old and it's about a
| mistake England (or rather one of its Kings) made last
| millennium (when he wrote it, ie now over 1000 years
| ago).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _could probably imagine that ACB is just very stupid I
| guess? She 's made choices which only make sense if
| they're out of blind loyalty to the man who gave her a
| job_
|
| Barrett has sided with the liberals on various decisions.
| SCOTUS has a problem. But its problem isn't blind loyalty
| to Trump. It's that there is a deeper conviction about
| the way the world should work that sometimes aligns with
| Trump in ways that are deeply damaging to our society.
|
| If you want to see a judge who's blindly deferential to
| Trump, that's Aileen Cannon.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| SCOTUS is essentially blindly local to Trump -- pay
| attention to the latest Constitution-shredding decisions;
| they sure wouldn't be doing those under a Dem president,
| and they're twisting themselves in knots trying to make
| the illogical logical -- it just manifests differently at
| their level.
| pstuart wrote:
| This is clear to all except partisans who put loyalty to
| their party over their country.
|
| It's not like we're asking for SCOTUS to accept
| constitutional slights from the left side of the aisle,
| its about consistency of reasoning regardless of which
| party is involved.
|
| As you've noted, the conservatives of SCOTUS are working
| backwards from their desired goals rather than pursuing
| justice for all.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| > while claiming to have the best data in the world but not
| share for national security reasons
|
| "The getaway car was green."
|
| "No it wasn't!"
|
| "What color was it then?"
|
| "I don't know what color it was!"
|
| ...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > What do you do when you don't have the data to accurately
| price risk?
|
| Insurance companies will just be sending up their own
| satellites, and _that_ is the true goal. Force people to pay
| money to private entities for a service that used to be
| provided by the government for free.
|
| Functionally, in such a system there is no difference between
| that and regular taxes, just in a private system there's
| opportunities for those in power (because you gotta have a
| lot of money to send up a powerful satellite) to make even
| more money.
|
| With the current US administration, _always_ look at the
| grifting opportunities, that will explain virtually all
| policy decisions.
| wk_end wrote:
| (...and guess who's company they'll be contracting those
| launches to?)
| cma wrote:
| SpaceX earns less money if we don't relaunch what we
| already have, and they have a satellite design division,
| Musk is somewhat on the outs with the admin right now but
| was behind lots of the cuts like this.
|
| On the other hand, in the first Trump admin the AccuWeather
| spam site guy was trying to restrict NWS data to private
| companies:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lee_Myers
|
| I think AccuWeather opposed the Project 2025 plan to remove
| weather tracking frothe government though, they just wanted
| it to be tax payer paid but exclusively provided to
| corporations for sale to make competitive upstart weather
| sites harder to establish (you can bid more if you already
| have lots of users, without them you have to build
| something so great and potentially profitable that you can
| get VC to fund your purchases of the data).
|
| https://www.masslive.com/news/2024/07/accuweather-rejects-
| pr...
| XorNot wrote:
| Except they won't. There's no reason to expensively launch
| your own forecasting system when you can instead just wait
| for someone else to do it and then use their insurance
| rates to do your own forecasting.
|
| Which is why the government running satellites it would
| need to run anyway is much more efficient.
| timewizard wrote:
| That claim does not seem justified.
|
| > 2016 failure of DMSP 19 without replacement[edit] On 11
| February 2016, a power failure left both the command-and-
| control subsystem and its backup without the ability to reach
| the satellite's processor, according to the U.S. Air Force
| Space Command investigation released in July 2016 that also
| announced that DMSP 5D-3/F19 was considered to be 'lost'. The
| satellite's data can still be used, until it ceases pointing
| the sensors towards the Earth. The satellite was the most
| recent on-orbit, having been launched on 3 April 2014.[15]
|
| > The failure only left F16, F17 and F18 - all significantly
| past their expected 3-5 year lifespan - operational. F19's
| planned replacement was not carried out because Congress
| ordered the destruction of the already constructed F20 probe to
| save money by not having to pay its storage costs. It is
| unlikely that a new DMSP satellite would be launched before
| 2023; by then the three remaining satellites should no longer
| be operational.[16]
|
| To anyone acting as if this is a surprise or they're suddenly
| caught out and have to switch to another provider, I have to
| wonder, with the writing on the wall for 8 years now, how have
| you not already updated your plans?
|
| That's the guardian for you. Remove context. Generate
| hyperbole. Beg for money.
| mlyle wrote:
| The article mentions the three remaining operational
| satellites.
|
| Generally, you use space hardware until it dies, which is
| hopefully well beyond the design life.
| counters wrote:
| > To anyone acting as if this is a surprise or they're
| suddenly caught out and have to switch to another provider, I
| have to wonder, with the writing on the wall for 8 years now,
| how have you not already updated your plans?
|
| That doesn't accurately capture the reason why there's
| outrage here. In the weather community, we're constantly
| thinking through contingencies because a great deal of things
| are out of our control - and we rely on aging infrastructure,
| much of which is already flaky to begin with.
|
| Data outages and data loss happens. But there's no reason to
| allow a _preventable_ data loss to occur. The DMSP data is
| still being collected, it's just not being distributed
| downstream. And the decision to make this policy change was
| seemingly done rapidly and with no input or feedback from the
| user community of this data - both inside and outside the
| federal government.
|
| There's no reason to turn off the spigot of this data. And
| there certainly is no reason to do so abruptly and with
| virtually no notice. As a consequence, the community is
| limited in its ability to adapt. For instance, it would take
| time (and money) to spin up more hurricane hunting resources
| to replace the overpass data that the SSMI/S instrument
| captures. Some private companies operate PMW satellite
| constellations and we could accelerate the acquisition of
| these data, but there are limited (read: none) federal
| mechanisms to do this and due to vertical integration in the
| weather industry, the operators of these constellations may
| not actually be inclined to do so - and certainly won't do so
| on the cheap, especially for the federal government.
|
| So this isn't hyperbole. This is a really big deal. It might
| not be visible to you, but there is a panic and scramble
| occurring in the weather community to figure out what to do
| from here.
|
| And for the record - yes, the same panic would happen if the
| DMSP satellites failed suddenly due to natural causes. But
| this current situation could've - and should've - been
| prevented.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Some private companies operate PMW satellite
| constellations and we could accelerate the acquisition of
| these data, but there are limited (read: none) federal
| mechanisms to do this and due to vertical integration in
| the weather industry, the operators of these constellations
| may not actually be inclined to do so - and certainly won't
| do so on the cheap, especially for the federal government.
|
| That's the goal, actually. You can be sure someone in the
| admin owns stock of these companies and pushed for this
| policy for this very reason.
| counters wrote:
| The companies I'm referring to are (generally) not
| publicly traded, so it's not quite that simple. Is it
| possible that some sort of backroom shenanigans are going
| on here? Yeah, absolutely, especially as several
| knowledgable folks speaking publicly about this episode
| are pointing their fingers at opaque procedure within
| Space Force.
|
| But Hanlon's razor ought to apply until shown otherwise.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _companies I 'm referring to are (generally) not
| publicly traded_
|
| Stock doesn't have to be publicly traded to be traded.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Trump uses hanlons razor to improve his grift outcomes.
| counters wrote:
| You're right, but I would stress that this is an over-
| simplification of the entangled financial interests that
| _might_ be at play - and there simply isn't any evidence
| that has been presented pointing in that direction.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > But Hanlon's razor ought to apply until shown otherwise
|
| I'm no longer willing to grant this administration this
| privilege. The last few months were an utter clownshow of
| corruption.
| counters wrote:
| It just isn't helpful to assume malice. Even for the most
| ardent, ideological Heartland Institute or Heritage
| Foundation conservative, there is still a path forward in
| discussing unintended consequences. Just look at the
| post-Liberation Day rollback of blanket tariffs. At some
| point, the consequences of actions are felt. Systems
| respond even when the firmest hand tries to steady them.
|
| At some point you take your hand off the burning stove,
| even if it means amputating your arm. Some folks should
| prepare for that contingency while those of us who can
| still stomach it pursue reason.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Ah, so basically if you have a car that's 5 years out of
| warranty but still runs fine, and the government comes in and
| takes your keys so you can't drive it, that would be your
| fault for not having gotten a new car sooner?
| trauco wrote:
| The satellites that are still up are still collecting
| critical data. That's not disputed.
| ars wrote:
| This story is NOT TRUE.
|
| There is _one_ operating satellite in this constellation, and
| congress voted to shut down the program in 2015.
|
| The DMSP program was discontinued in 2015 by a vote in
| congress[1]. Virtually every working stallelite in this program
| has failed. As best as I can tell there's just a single working
| one specifically NOAA-19[2].
|
| Instead the program has switched to JPSS[3] which is part of
| GEOSS[4].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Meteorological_Satelli...
| (scroll up slightly)
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA-19
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Polar_Satellite_System
|
| [4]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Earth_Observation_Syste...
| trauco wrote:
| The key facts are:
|
| - DMSP satellites are up and measuring data - These data will
| continue to be measured after Monday - the government is
| discontinuing processing and public access to the data - This
| will impact our capacity to predict hurricanes and monitor
| sea ice.
|
| Which of the above are "not true"?
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| While you're correct that Congress voted to phase out the
| program, you're wrong on a number of levels. First, NOAA-19
| is not a DMSP satellite. Second, many of the DMSP satellites
| are still in orbit and functioning - even the very Wikipedia
| article you linked to shows this. There was no legitimate
| reason to cut off their data that we've been given. Third,
| JPSS and GEOS lack some of the capabilities of the DMSP, for
| example the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder that was
| still providing highly valuable real-time microwave data,
| including precipitation rates, sea surface wind speeds, sea
| ice coverage, water vapor levels and cloud properties.
|
| So to be frank, the only thing that's "NOT TRUE" is nearly
| all of your post.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| It feels like the title here isn't accurate - we haven't lost
| the satellite at all. It wasn't destroyed, it wasn't de-orbited
| (on purpose or accidentally), it wasn't hacked or hijacked.
|
| Can we ask dang to change the title to something like "Blocking
| of key US satellite data could...."?
| Animats wrote:
| It's part of the Administration's war on ... Florida?
| deadbabe wrote:
| It could help lower insurance costs.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Insurance companies aren't going to charge less for not
| knowing, they'll charge more.
| jonwachob91 wrote:
| That's not at all how insurance companies price risk. Unknown
| risk is more risk, and more risk is more expensive.
| Therefore, unknown hurricane data is more risky and thus more
| expensive.
|
| If you know your car's engine is going to need replaced after
| exactly 100,000 miles, you know to save up for a new engine
| or a new car - and you know how long you have to save, so you
| can precisely set aside an appropriate figure every month.
|
| If you know your car's engine will die sometime within the
| next 15,000 miles, you know you need to start saving up
| immediately, but b/c you don't know when in the next 15,000
| miles you have to rush your saving.
|
| If you have no idea when your car's engine is going to die,
| you are likely to end up dead engine and little to no
| savings.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Hurricane risk has been grossly exaggerated for years.
| Every year people say it will be the end of Florida as we
| know it. But those promised hurricanes never come. The
| worst is some flooding and damage at coastal areas, but
| it's always anti-climactic.
|
| The real reason insurance is high is because of fraudulent
| claim risk. Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved
| problem in Florida. That data is useless.
| mindslight wrote:
| "I'm not moving the goalposts because my argument doesn't
| have any"
| counters wrote:
| > Hurricane risk has been grossly exaggerated for years
|
| Year-over-year, economic impacts and disruptions due to
| tropical cyclones are dramatically rising. Most of this
| is an exposure issue. But long-tail events - like
| Andrew's utter devastation of Homestead in 1992 or
| Katrina's unique confluence of storm surge in
| urban/suburban parishes in LA - can and do happen.
|
| One day, there will be another Galveston or Homestead.
| deadbabe wrote:
| There won't be another Andrew because the building codes
| were changed so that all new construction must withstand
| category 5 storm force, which when Andrew came around was
| not a requirement. Over time, there is a natural
| selection that occurs where destroyed buildings are
| replaced with stronger buildings with stricter codes.
| buttercraft wrote:
| What about the flooding?
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| ....all of which makes them more expensive to insure (and
| build, obviously)...
| counters wrote:
| > There won't be another Andrew because the building
| codes were changed so that all new construction must
| withstand category 5 storm force
|
| I sincerely hope you're right, but there is plenty of
| evidence suggesting that this will not be the case, owing
| to a multitude of factors:
|
| - not all housing stock is <30 years old and has been
| properly retrofitted to meet state specs
|
| - the climates around the Gulf, which tend to be more
| humid, can lead to premature degradation of things like
| strengthened anchor bolts and roof attachments
|
| - there continue to be immense factors related to cost
| and time-to-build which provide significant negative
| pressure towards cutting corners and minimum-compliance
| which may mitigate some of the attendant benefits of
| strengthened building codes
|
| An event like Andrew _is the selection event_ that you're
| referring to.
| bena wrote:
| That day being essentially yesterday.
|
| Since Katrina, the next 10 costliest hurricanes are all
| _after_.
|
| We don't dwell on the Ikes, Idas, and Helenes because
| they often happen to smaller communities _and_ they 've
| become common enough that we've gotten a little fatigued.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved problem
| in Florida.
|
| I'm going to go with less, though I suppose you could
| call "experience widespread destruction, get bailed out
| by the federal government, rebuild in the same spot" to
| be a permanent solution.
|
| Florida has maybe solved cat 1-2 hurricanes.
| jonwachob91 wrote:
| I'm from Florida - born and raised. I've never once heard
| anyone call any hurricane "the end of Florida as we know
| it". What I have heard, and seen, is extreme damages
| caused to homes and cars even hundreds of miles away from
| the eye of the storm.
|
| In 2022, Hurricane Ian caused extreme flooding in the
| Orlando-region, including in areas that have never
| suffered from hurricane flooding before. For me
| personally, all 3 cars parked at my house were total
| losses b/c of the flood damage.
|
| The extreme and extensive damages in the Appalachian
| region last fall is another great example of hurricane
| risk not being "grossly exaggerated".
| NickC25 wrote:
| >The worst is some flooding and damage at coastal areas,
| but it's always anti-climactic.
|
| The residents of what used to be Ft. Meyers Beach would
| probably disagree with you.
|
| >Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved problem
| in Florida.
|
| I have been in Florida for nearly a decade now. I'd say
| that the above statement is at best, disingenuous. It's
| just not true. MAYBE Cat1 hurricanes are a solved
| problem, but nothing above that. The busiest economic
| center in Florida (Miami's Brickell area) is _6 feet
| above sea level_. Any major storm locks that part of town
| down for days. My own building 's parking lot is 5 feet
| above sea level, and yes, it's flooded every time we have
| a storm.
| oksowhat wrote:
| The rebuilds happen with federal FEMA dollars and there is an
| entire cottage industry of re-builders who take federal
| funds, rebuild homes -- and then do it again two years later.
| https://www.fema.gov/node/what-home-repair-assistance
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| The writing has been on the wall for decades, especially since
| 2015 or so when Congress basically started shuttering DMSP.
| oksowhat wrote:
| I was about to say this -- the impact is to deep red states --
| Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama.
|
| They all voted for this with extreme skew towards the current
| policies. What is the point of trying to save this satellite
| data if the very people most affected dont care for it?
| ars wrote:
| This is such a bad article. They shut down this specific
| program in 2015, and switched to JPSS instead.
|
| There is no war on anyone, and this has nothing to do with
| Trump, DOGS, or Climate change. Rather there were too many
| satellite failures, leaving just a single operating one in
| orbit.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| There was no reason not to continue providing the data from
| the satellite. It's still operational.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I agree with both of you. Unnecessary fear mongering, but
| also a shortsighted pointless (malicious?) move.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _It 's part of the Administration's war on ... Florida?_
|
| The administration of Florida has a war on the idea of climate
| change:
|
| * "Ron DeSantis signs bill scrubbing 'climate change' from
| Florida state laws": https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/article/2024/may/16/desa...
|
| * "Florida Officials Barred from Referencing "Climate Change":
| https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/florida-officials-b...
|
| This allows (certain) Florida politicians to put their head in
| the sand even more than they already have.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| NOAA-20 is better and will still be available.
|
| Also from NOAA: "Noaa said they would not affect the quality of
| forecasting."
|
| Decommissioning old sensors?
| macintux wrote:
| NOAA is not safe from political maneuvering.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-pro...
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| So IIRC for the last 50 years the DMSP satellites broadcast all
| their data in the clear. If the program is only shutting down the
| ground stations and data distribution, it seems like an
| opportunity for some researchers to buy some SDRs and start
| collecting their own data.
|
| I'm actually surprised that the successors to DMSP don't meet the
| same needs. Or is the problem that they do and the government
| just doesn't share that data?
| sampl3username wrote:
| Is the satellite link encrypted? Maybe radio amateurs can
| continue to receive its signals.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| No encryption*. I think they broadcast on S-band which isn't
| necessarily compatible with a $20 hobbyist rtl-sdr, but still
| possible with more advanced amateur setups
|
| * Ok that's an oversimplification. They actually turn
| encryption on while the satellite is over certain areas. But if
| you're in the Continental US I think it's in the clear
| schiffern wrote:
| >The loss of DMSP comes as Noaa's weather and climate monitoring
| services have become critically understaffed this year as Donald
| Trump's so-called "department of government efficiency" (Doge)
| initiative has instilled draconian cuts to federal environmental
| programs.
|
| Translation:
|
| "We can't actually say this was DOGE, so we're going to imply it
| using emotionally charged words, and 90% of folks with bad media
| literacy will come away thinking it was DOGE (just check the
| reddit comments)."
|
| This in-vogue method of "lying without lying" is shockingly
| common nowadays, but apparently it's okay for media to lie
| because Bad Man Bad.
| cinntaile wrote:
| What? They basically say it was the cuts by Doge?
| chomp wrote:
| I don't understand what you're complaining about here. Lying?
| schiffern wrote:
| Yes, when the media lies it's _bad_. People used to
| understand that fact.
|
| Now media gets a free pass on certain lies because Bad Man
| Bad, and (evidently) people aren't even allowed to point out
| the lie.
|
| Hint: when the media can make up whatever they want about
| someone, they can quickly twist perception to make anyone
| into the Bad Man.
| mlyle wrote:
| Did DOGE not ditch hundreds of probationary employees at
| NOAA, cancel numerous contracts, get 1000 people to take
| early retirement offers, get rid of buildings, etc?
|
| And now the current funding request enacts a ~30% funding
| cut.
|
| I'm not sure the factual issue you're seeing. Is it that
| the statement wasn't definitive enough in saying that DOGE
| apparently was a large part of instituting these cuts?
|
| (Yes, I know OPM implemented many of these programs, but
| they're apparently at DOGE's request, named after the "Fork
| in the Road" initiative at Twitter, using data gathered by
| DOGE IT staffers, &c. If we give credit for _any_ cuts, we
| have to give them credit for significant cuts at NOAA.)
| msgodel wrote:
| My understanding is this was set up to happen roughly a
| decade ago and is just now manifesting. It has pretty
| much nothing to do with DOGE.
| counters wrote:
| We don't if, or to what extent, DOGE was involved or
| influential in the decision-making here.
|
| Yes, the DMSP program was aging and slated to wind down
| as replacements - both federal and commercial - came
| online in the second half of the 2020's. But in general,
| if valid and useful data continues to stream from these
| types of satellites, you use it and monitor for
| disruption.
|
| As someone who uses the DMSP data every single day, let
| me be very clear: there was no warning or expectation
| that such an abrupt change was going to happen. Yes, we
| all have contingency plans for if a satellite fails or a
| data link goes down. But to be given basically 5 days
| notice that a significant, mission-critical asset would
| be taken offline? That doesn't - and shouldn't - happen.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Your premise that they're "lying" is unsubstantiated. Your
| comments read only like dress around the "fake news" bit.
| schiffern wrote:
| Before you claim there's nothing happening and The
| Guardian didn't mean it, check social media comments
| elsewhere to see how many people misinterpret this news
| item into "DOGE/Elon did it."
|
| I would bet you, but that money's too easy. :)
|
| Again, this exact conversation is the genius behind
| 'lying __without lying__. ' You can always claim in high-
| literacy communities like HN that no, nobody would ever
| be silly enough misread it like that, all while watching
| your misinformation spread across the low-literacy
| communities like facebook and reddit.
|
| The Guardian et al has done this too often for plausible
| deniability. Even I can pick up on the pattern, and
| that's without access to the big boy's social media
| engagement and sentiment tracking tools.
| mh- wrote:
| _> high-literacy communities like HN [..] low-literacy
| communities like facebook and reddit_
|
| I see this sentiment a lot lately, and I see your HN join
| date is similar to mine. HN is more mainstream than it
| used to be, for better or worse. There is a _lot_ more
| overlap between commenters on HN and Reddit nowadays,
| especially in certain categories of subreddits.
|
| Personally, I lament the _web_ being a high-literacy
| community.
| Larrikin wrote:
| >check social media comments elsewhere to see how many
| people misinterpret this news item into "DOGE/Elon did
| it."
|
| No, post news sources and researched articles. Your vibes
| about the Internet are irrelevant
| pstuart wrote:
| It's an agreeable assessment that "the media" suffers from
| accuracy and bias in its reporting. Being that humans are
| involved, that's unavoidable.
|
| But a couple of things should be considered here:
| * Intention * Degree * Impact
|
| Intention is a core element of assessing "crimes", with
| homicide being the most serious one of all we factor it out
| into: accidental, intentional but clouded by mental
| conditions in the heat of the moment, and pre-meditated.
| This is a reasonable metric to apply to the crime of
| "misreporting" as well.
|
| Degree is likewise to be noted, where it can range from
| lost nuance to outright lies.
|
| Impact is also a concern if it is a concern. A news article
| that compels people to randomly attack their neighbors is
| more of an issue than one that tempts you to buy a new
| snack.
|
| And most importantly of all: "the media" is not a singular
| entity and they vary strongly in their veracity and scope,
| as well as their agendas. Some are at their core intending
| to serve the public, others are a business to sell
| advertising, and others are literally propaganda outfits to
| serve vested interests (e.g., Fox News was created to be
| the PR arm of the GOP -- this is a fact and not
| conjecture).
|
| So yes, the NYT can get things wrong (like the lead up to
| the Iraq invasion), I trust them more than Fox News (which
| destroyed a community by spreading lies about their new
| immigrant neighbors eating people's pets).
|
| Hope this helps!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We can 't actually say this was DOGE_
|
| The article is saying it was DOGE. DOGE directly attacked our
| hurricane-forecasting capacity [1]. OMB, _i.e._ Vought,
| continues that attack [2].
|
| Given the top three states by hurricane risk voted for Trump in
| '24 [3][4] this should make for an entertaining hurricane
| season. (Particularly if both a red and blue state get hit and
| request federal assistance.)
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/national-weather-service-
| layoffs-...
|
| [2]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA_under_the_second_presid...
|
| [3] https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/states-most-at-risk-
| for-...
|
| [4]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_president...
| ars wrote:
| > The article is saying it was DOGE
|
| Yah, but it's the guardian. They aren't exactly reliable.
|
| For it to be DOGE would require a time machine, because this
| project was shut down in 2015.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _but it 's the guardian. They aren't exactly reliable_
|
| This is valid and I'm open to someone calling out the
| reporting as non-factual with evidence.
|
| Pretending _The Guardian_ is trying to imply this was DOGE
| when it straight out says as much, on the other hand, is
| closer to a reading-comprehension issue.
| Larrikin wrote:
| It was DOGE and preparation to sell the data or ignore the
| science so they can continue to profit until they are dead.
|
| DOGE is an organization that exist with the goal to do things
| like this. You have no evidence it wasn't them other than
| empathically saying the emperor has clothes on. All evidence we
| have implicates them.
| ars wrote:
| DOGE did not exist in 2015. This project was shut down in
| 2015.
| HichamCh wrote:
| Welp, guess I'll start investing in carrier pigeons with tiny
| barometers. Back to the old ways!
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Is loss of automobiles and reverting to horses next?
| Frost1x wrote:
| We can all become Amish while Bezos, Trump, etc. fly around in
| their privately owned 747s. Perfect society for our capital and
| power ownership class... that is until the hounds are at the
| door threatening the security of their capital or the economy
| downturn makes it far enough their wealth and power won't buy
| the level of opulence they expect on the daily. Difficult to
| fly around if no one's producing runways and jet fuel, etc.
| charcircuit wrote:
| How can it be set back decades? Even if you had to design new
| satellites and send them up it would not take a decade to do.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Decades is how far they were set back, not the duration of the
| setback.
| jenadine wrote:
| Similar topic was discussed earlier:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44409175 (140 comments)
| softwaredoug wrote:
| The problem of important projects surviving political change is a
| tough one.
|
| A lot of these important projects have a single point of failure
| - who is the president every four years. I wonder how we build
| institutions and resources resilient to that?
|
| I realize privatization is an ugly word, but could some of this
| stuff be provided by the private sector?
|
| Can we make it possible to fund initiatives in a multinational
| manner where countries contribute to these efforts, but if one
| country blinks out, then you still have it go along?
| cwillu wrote:
| If a president can ignore the laws requiring those projects to
| exist, the president can ignore the laws protecting private
| companies from being nationalized and shut down.
| ars wrote:
| This project was actually shut down in 2015.
| Shivatron wrote:
| > A lot of these important projects have a single point of
| failure - who is the president every four years. I wonder how
| we build institutions and resources resilient to that?
|
| We already did. The legislative branch allocates funds for
| stuff that the people deem worthy. That budget becomes law. The
| Constitution says the "President shall take Care that the Laws
| be faithfully executed." There's even a specific law that
| prevents the President from withholding Congressionally-
| approved funds.
|
| What you are seeing here is not a lack of designed resilience,
| it's the wilful removal of that system.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44409175
| johanneskanybal wrote:
| I know what Hari Seldon's conclusion would be..
| irrational wrote:
| But, isn't European data modeling of hurricanes better than that
| of the USA? I assume this is only the USA forecasting that is
| being set back?
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