💾 Archived View for jsreed5.org › log › 2021 › 202103 › 20210301-weather-services.gmi captured on 2021-12-05 at 23:47:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-04)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
---
I find it interesting how many people in the United States get information about the weather from private companies that serve advertising, or sometimes even charge a monthly subscription. The US National Weather Service provides almost exactly the same information, from precipitation to temperature forecasts to long-term climate data, with no advertising or subscriptions needed. That's because the NWS is funded by taxes, so the American public have paid for the service already.
Most people don't think about where weather data comes from. They purchase a smartphone, the smartphone comes with a weather app pre-installed, the source of the data isn't disclosed upfront or can't be changed, and people forget about it. All that matters is whether the forecast is accurate enough that they don't get caught in the rain without an umbrella. People only think about the National Weather Service in the context of issuing severe storm warnings, nothing more. I find that disappointing.
The number of existing government services, and their unexpected quality, is often quite surprising to me. With a little knowledge and cleverness, one could use nothing more than taxpayer-funded services to do many daily tasks and get a lot of work done. The common narrative is that government-funded services are always of inferior quality, and certainly woefully inadequate for business purposes. While the latter may be true, my experience has been the opposite for the former.
I guess the lesson is that I shouldn't ignore public institutions or take them for granted. If I already paid for them, I might as well use them.
---
[Last updated: 2021-10-28]