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I can't even imagine what the rationale would be for doing this: >The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency is poised to eliminate most websites tied to i

I can't even imagine what the rationale would be for doing this: >The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency is poised to eliminate most websites tied to its research division under plans for the cancellation of a cloud web services contract, a move that could snarl operations at several labs. If Bloomberg is correct, it seems that the contract was cancelled prior to developing (and testing and announcing to the public etc.) any replacement. >A contract for the services across NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research — known as NOAA Research — has been targeted for “early termination,” according to internal documents seen by Bloomberg News. As a result, almost all external websites reliant on Amazon, Google and WordPress services are poised to vanish early Saturday morning in Washington, wiping the bulk of the unit’s work, which includes climate and environmental science research, from public view. Many Americans rely upon NOAA Research communications, both businesses and individual citizens. This worries me, not because I think that Trump is a fascist or because of my political views, but rather, because it suggests a lack of competent government leadership. NOAA Research is still doing its work, but we won't be able to access it anymore? I'm not a Bloomberg subscriber, so what I quoted was all I could read about it. I hope there's more info, e.g. about what the replacement delivery system to the public, will be...

mooreds 2y ago
> I'm not a Bloomberg subscriber, so what I quoted was all I could read about it. https://archive.is/VRQZO https://archive.is/VRQZO
- feraloink 2y ago
  Thank you! I've had trouble accessing that site *.is recently. Your link worked just fine.
  - windexh8er 2y ago
    I ran into the same thing recently. Did you end up seeing a boiler plate template site filled with Lorem Ipsum? I believe there were certain DNS resolvers that seemed to have been incorrectly resolving. Whether that was intentional or not I didn't have time to look into.
    - feraloink 2y ago
      I was getting the nginx page. It is working for me now though. Yay!!!
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    archive.is blocks most DNS requests coming from Cloudflare. One would either have to hard code one of their IP's in their hosts file or use a different resolver. Here are a few archive.is IP's: 45.95.146.96 178.170.84.251 31.210.170.251
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    Try archive.ph
    - feraloink 2y ago
      Thank you! I will.
fabian2k 2y ago
The most plausible rationale for this kind of broad and immediate cancellation of contracts is to indirectly shut down the function of these agencies.
- feraloink 2y ago
  Yes. I'm worried about that being the underlying intent too.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Republicans have for a long time wanted to end free weather information and hand that job over to for-profit companies like AccuWeather[1]. Trump v1 nominated AccuWeather's CEO to run the organization[2]. Project 2025 calls for breaking up NOAA and commercializing it[3]. This is not some hidden agenda, and you don't have to speculate about their intentions. As is the case for everything these guys do, they are open and brazen about it. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/07/noaa-project-2025-weather/678987/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/07/noaa-pro... 2: https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/14/politics/noaa-nominee-accuweather/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/14/politics/noaa-nominee-accuwea... 3: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-project-2025-says-about-the-national-weather-service-and-noaa https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-pro...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - neuronexmachina 2y ago
    Yup, they're pretty clear that they see the NOAA as an enemy to be defeated: > The document describes NOAA as a primary component “of the climate change alarm industry” and said it “should be broken up and downsized.”
  - leviathant 2y ago
    This is exactly it. Rick Santorum was beating this drum decades ago (given that Accuweather is based in Pennsylvania)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
damnesian 2y ago
you want protection from the weather? you gotta pay for it.
- macinjosh 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dqv 2y ago
    Yeah that's shitty, but how does it justify getting rid of the NOAA?
    - macinjosh 2y ago
      No one is getting rid of it? A couple, non-critical websites are being changed up. They will come back online once they are moved off over priced cloud providers. Its called efficiency.
  - ilikecakeandpie 2y ago
    You are making false equivalencies and being intellectually dishonest
    - macinjosh 2y ago
      She said with no evidence or argument to present.
      - ilikecakeandpie 2y ago
        Who is "she"?
  - knowaveragejoe 2y ago
    This is not even remotely true. Be better than this.
    - 2y ago
kccqzy 2y ago
> NOAA Research is still doing its work, but we won't be able to access it anymore? You are not thinking far ahead enough. This is just the first step. Step 1: these Amazon and Google cloud contracts are extraneous; let's cancel. The public can always find an alternate way of getting the research data. Step 2: the number of times such research data is accessed has drastically decreased, suggesting that the public has not found them useful; let's cancel the research projects. Step 3: these researchers aren't doing any research any more; they don't seem to have any work output; let's fire them for cause.
amalcon 2y ago
We'll likely never know for sure, since they will just claim that the goal is to save money. There's even a grain of truth to it: AWS and GCP are the most expensive offerings in that class. Of course, if the goal was actually to save money -- then first off, Wordpress wouldn't be getting cut. Also, the plan would be to migrate to more cost effective alternatives (of which there are several), not to just turn the thing off.
flyingmonkeyair 2y ago
[flagged]
pogue 2y ago
Firstly, they want to dismantle the government piece by piece and sell it off to the highest bidder, privatizing it. Secondly, anything they view as contrary to their world view, despite of (or regardless of) scientific evidence stating otherwise. Eg: they believe anything to do with climate change is completely bogus and don't believe there's any value in studying it, or hiding it's results for the benefit of their friends in the oil/gas industries.

mooreds 2y ago

> I'm not a Bloomberg subscriber, so what I quoted was all I could read about it. https://archive.is/VRQZO https://archive.is/VRQZO

feraloink 2y ago
Thank you! I've had trouble accessing that site *.is recently. Your link worked just fine.
- windexh8er 2y ago
  I ran into the same thing recently. Did you end up seeing a boiler plate template site filled with Lorem Ipsum? I believe there were certain DNS resolvers that seemed to have been incorrectly resolving. Whether that was intentional or not I didn't have time to look into.
  - feraloink 2y ago
    I was getting the nginx page. It is working for me now though. Yay!!!
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  archive.is blocks most DNS requests coming from Cloudflare. One would either have to hard code one of their IP's in their hosts file or use a different resolver. Here are a few archive.is IP's: 45.95.146.96 178.170.84.251 31.210.170.251
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Try archive.ph
  - feraloink 2y ago
    Thank you! I will.

fabian2k 2y ago

The most plausible rationale for this kind of broad and immediate cancellation of contracts is to indirectly shut down the function of these agencies.

feraloink 2y ago
Yes. I'm worried about that being the underlying intent too.
ryandrake 2y ago
Republicans have for a long time wanted to end free weather information and hand that job over to for-profit companies like AccuWeather[1]. Trump v1 nominated AccuWeather's CEO to run the organization[2]. Project 2025 calls for breaking up NOAA and commercializing it[3]. This is not some hidden agenda, and you don't have to speculate about their intentions. As is the case for everything these guys do, they are open and brazen about it. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/07/noaa-project-2025-weather/678987/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/07/noaa-pro... 2: https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/14/politics/noaa-nominee-accuweather/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/14/politics/noaa-nominee-accuwea... 3: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-project-2025-says-about-the-national-weather-service-and-noaa https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-pro...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- neuronexmachina 2y ago
  Yup, they're pretty clear that they see the NOAA as an enemy to be defeated: > The document describes NOAA as a primary component “of the climate change alarm industry” and said it “should be broken up and downsized.”
- leviathant 2y ago
  This is exactly it. Rick Santorum was beating this drum decades ago (given that Accuweather is based in Pennsylvania)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

damnesian 2y ago

you want protection from the weather? you gotta pay for it.

macinjosh 2y ago
[flagged]
- dqv 2y ago
  Yeah that's shitty, but how does it justify getting rid of the NOAA?
  - macinjosh 2y ago
    No one is getting rid of it? A couple, non-critical websites are being changed up. They will come back online once they are moved off over priced cloud providers. Its called efficiency.
- ilikecakeandpie 2y ago
  You are making false equivalencies and being intellectually dishonest
  - macinjosh 2y ago
    She said with no evidence or argument to present.
    - ilikecakeandpie 2y ago
      Who is "she"?
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  This is not even remotely true. Be better than this.
  - 2y ago

kccqzy 2y ago

> NOAA Research is still doing its work, but we won't be able to access it anymore? You are not thinking far ahead enough. This is just the first step. Step 1: these Amazon and Google cloud contracts are extraneous; let's cancel. The public can always find an alternate way of getting the research data. Step 2: the number of times such research data is accessed has drastically decreased, suggesting that the public has not found them useful; let's cancel the research projects. Step 3: these researchers aren't doing any research any more; they don't seem to have any work output; let's fire them for cause.

amalcon 2y ago

We'll likely never know for sure, since they will just claim that the goal is to save money. There's even a grain of truth to it: AWS and GCP are the most expensive offerings in that class. Of course, if the goal was actually to save money -- then first off, Wordpress wouldn't be getting cut. Also, the plan would be to migrate to more cost effective alternatives (of which there are several), not to just turn the thing off.

flyingmonkeyair 2y ago

[flagged]

pogue 2y ago

Firstly, they want to dismantle the government piece by piece and sell it off to the highest bidder, privatizing it. Secondly, anything they view as contrary to their world view, despite of (or regardless of) scientific evidence stating otherwise. Eg: they believe anything to do with climate change is completely bogus and don't believe there's any value in studying it, or hiding it's results for the benefit of their friends in the oil/gas industries.