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New Bill Would Ban Public NOAA Weather Data
ckokotay writes "Here we go again. Apparently for-pay weather companies (specifically Accuweather) have lobbied Senator Rick Santorum to introduce a bill to ban the National Weather Service from 'competing.' The NOAA just made data available for free on the internet in XML format. Essentially, that means no more free data, and the possible elimination of the NOAA web presence all together. Nothing like being able to buy off a clueless Senator - lets hope the rest do not fall in line, as I for one, do not like to pay for my information twice." This debate picks up where the last one left off. According to the article, the bill's biggest critics are complaining of the bill's vague wording which makes it unclear what exactly is being banned.
I'm sure peoples' opinions are a dime a dozen and most are immediatly filed promptly into /dev/null.
What are you talking about? Senators can't afford to use an operating system other than Windows, they'll be shot!
unfortunately, your examples don't really apply. If the bill is written to do what they plan for it to do, the coast guard in the US will still provide free weather data to sailors and the FAA will still provide free weather data to pilots. I know because I do both and espeically for pilots, these things just can't change because so much of whether or not it is legal for a plane to take off is based on very accurate weather.
I"m not saying this stuff might not be happening in Australia, but if I ever saw a pilot using something like weather.com or weather.gov to plan his flights, I would try to do everything in my power to get his lisence revoked, those sources don't give you nearly all the information you need to fly(remember, weather on the ground isn't the same as weather 10,000 ft. in the air).
I don't agree with this because I pay for this work to be done through taxes and therefore expect to be able to access the data. I don't want the US government wasting resources packaging it with little ribbons but simple data and predictions they are making should be available.
as to the ass clown who thinks everyone in these races are billionaires and that for some reason billionaires don't deserve the same services everyone else recieves(even though they usually foot a larger bill for them), you need to learn who eneters these races. A lot of the people out there aren't billionaires but professional sailors and captains. They may be working for/with some really rich person, but that doesn't make their life somehow forfeit(death by association, I guess?).