Slashdot Mirror


The EPA Won't Be Shutting Down Its Open Data Website After All (mashable.com)

An anonymous reader shares an article: Scientists and data experts are closely tracking the websites of federal agencies, noting changes to pages dealing with climate change and energy since President Donald Trump took office. On Monday, they noticed an alarming message posted to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) open data website, indicating it would shut down on Friday, April 28. [...] By Monday afternoon, visitors to Open Data received a different pop-up notification, which clarifies that data on the site will still be available come Friday.

19 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. After Friday? by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 4, Funny

    By Monday afternoon, visitors to Open Data received a different pop-up notification, which clarifies that data on the site will still be available come Friday.

    On Saturday, though, you're SOL...

    1. Re:After Friday? by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yep. We'd better scrape and mirror it anyway, just in case.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  2. Total Non-Story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The linked article says that EPA employees, in anticipation of a government shutdown, put that notice up on their own volition. Trump had nothing to do with it. Sorry, but there's ample history to show that not every screw-up in DC is caused by Donald Trump.

  3. The sky didn't fall? by mveloso · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Wait, the sky didn't fall? Well, just wait until next week! I'm positive the sky will fall then! Or the next week! Or the next!

    1. Re:The sky didn't fall? by hey! · · Score: 1

      They don't have enough positions filled to make the sky fall, which is why they're confused about things like which direction their carrier battle groups are going. It's all quite a bit more complicated than I believe they anticipated.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  4. Profound lack of leadership by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Trump administration doesn't lead. It simply blunders forward blindly attempting to fulfill the wishes of every well connected hack and fraud that manages to get the ear of the administration.

    Only when they accidentally step on an issue that garners enough public outcry do they react. This is bad policy for obvious reasons, because some of the worst things this administration will do will not be noticed until it's too late.

    1. Re:Profound lack of leadership by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >and fraud that pays the administration.

        FTFY

  5. Only gullible fools trust it's good on Saturday by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Download, backup in a free country, then verify on Saturday.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  6. Re:Give it to the Iranians to run! O gave 'em nuke by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Informative

    The $150 billion was always Iran's money - money that the US had frozen.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  7. Re:Give it to the Iranians to run! O gave 'em nuke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Demonstrably false garbage. Your orange hero can't do anything right, so all you have is attacks on people who aren't in office anymore. Try criticizing the guy who is in office, for once.

  8. Re:Paging Steve McIntyre by mean+pun · · Score: 1

    You must be misremembering things, because the data has always been public, and the algorithms were right in the papers they published.

  9. Re: Give it to the Iranians to run! O gave 'em nuk by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    The US had no legal grounds to keep holding the money. Continuing to do so would just make it look riskier to do business in the US. A LOT of that money is coming back to the US via orders for Boeing airplanes. That's almost 100,000 well-paying jobs.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  10. Re:Paging Steve McIntyre by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 2

    the data has always been public

    That's laughably wrong. See, e.g., here.

  11. Firemen first by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From TFA:

    Friday is the day the current federal stopgap funding bill expires. The EPA apparently worried that Congress wouldn't pass a new continuing resolution to fund the government, and preemptively planned to end the Open Data service, according to the contractor managing the site, 3 Round Stones in Arlington, Virginia.

    This sort of infantile behavior is the stock play we see over and over again from governmental agencies that are in danger of not getting as much money as they would prefer.

    1. Re:Firemen first by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1, Insightful

      From TFA:

      Friday is the day the current federal stopgap funding bill expires. The EPA apparently worried that Congress wouldn't pass a new continuing resolution to fund the government, and preemptively planned to end the Open Data service, according to the contractor managing the site, 3 Round Stones in Arlington, Virginia.

      This sort of infantile behavior is the stock play we see over and over again from governmental agencies that are in danger of not getting as much money as they would prefer.

      In response to the infantile behaviour of the Republicans who shut down government in 2013 because they didn't et what they wanted, with nobody getting any money. The same Republicans who still can't get what they really, really want: to repeal Obamacare. Preparing for the hissy fits of childish Republicans is not childish.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    2. Re:Firemen first by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      This sort of infantile behavior is the stock play we see over and over again from governmental agencies that are in danger of not getting as much money as they would prefer.

      In response to the infantile behaviour of the Republicans who shut down government in 2013 because they didn't et what they wanted, with nobody getting any money. The same Republicans who still can't get what they really, really want: to repeal Obamacare. Preparing for the hissy fits of childish Republicans is not childish.

      Quit pretending that one party is better than the other

      Stop pretending both parties are equally bad. Republicans are worse in every way. And the "independent" parties all have major flaws too. And the real independents who won't get into any of those parties are even worse - why would the other parties not accept them.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
  12. Re: Give it to the Iranians to run! O gave 'em nuk by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    Keeping the money is called stealing. I doubt that would ever change a country's policies for the better. If having a regime that does not meet our standards is just cause to lock up their money, then there are many many allies of the US to do this to. Stop acting like Iran is the only country doing this. We only do this to Iran because they are not as economically important to use as Saudi Arabia or Russia. Go back in time and the US was very friendly with very atrocious regimes, as long as they cliamed to be anti-communist we would hug them with open arms.

  13. Re:Paging Steve McIntyre by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

    That has nothing to do with this situation

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  14. Re: Give it to the Iranians to run! O gave 'em nuk by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

    Didn't you get the memo? Forcing women to cover their bodies and violence against gays is now liberal. It's a mixed up world.

    Yeah, because Reagan was a Liberal. He certainly wouldn't have a chance in today's GOP. It really is a mixed up world.

    --
    Of course news about a fake are Fake News.