The USDM map is updated during weekly shifts that run from Monday to Wednesday. Some are at NDMC in Lincoln, NE, by employees of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sometimes the map is updated at other locations by USDA or NOAA employees.
There are five categories of drought ranging from D0 (near drought) to D4 (exceptional drought), and they're clearly defined based on observations. Despite this, the USDM map is more arbitrary than many might think. If you click that link, you'll see a variety of indicators for what constitutes each drought category. One challenge is what category to select when different indicators are in different categories. It's also a challenge about how to update the map when there's a rapid change in conditions. For example, if there's an area in D4, but the area receives several inches of rain in a few days, USDM authors are reluctant to reduce the drought category too much in a single week.
There's also the issue of what to do in areas in between observations, where it's somewhat subjective how to draw the contours for the drought monitor. Some local regulations and forms of aid for those impacted by droughts are directly tied to USDM categories. There can be a lot of money involved, and those who have money at stake will lobby the USDM authors to update the map in a way that's beneficial to them.
While reports are supposed to be made to state climatologists, who then pass the information along to the USDM author for that shift, that's not always how it works. Sometimes the USDM authors will receive lots of calls directly from various people in a particular county of region, lobbying for the map to be updated in a way that benefits them. I've heard of USDM authors getting lots of calls from farmers in particular counties, in a coordinated effort to get the drought category raised. I believe that some federal assistance becomes available at the D2 threshold, so often these calls are lobbying for the drought category to be raised to D2. If there isn't other data from that particular area, it's subjective and up to the USDM author for that shift how to proceed.
I've never updated the USDM and I don't work at NDMC, but I know people who do. I'm glad I'm not responsible for updating the map, because the shifts can be quite long if there are a lot of updates, and people can become pretty angry if the USDM author doesn't update the map the way those people want it updated.
Everything you've said is false. I work at UNL and I know people who actually work shifts to update the US Drought Monitor (USDM). I'm not involved with that work, but I've learned quite a bit about what drought is and how the USDM is created.
Drought is based on conditions relative to climatological normals for that particular location. Climate is generally averaged over 30 year periods, so droughts are abnormally dry conditions relative to the average over the past 30 years. While the current D4 (exceptional drought) conditions are around the four corners area, which is generally arid, that's just where it happens to be abnormally dry now. You can look back over the drought monitor archive and you'll see drought conditions in many other areas.
Drought occurs when conditions are abnormally dry. Deserts exist where it's normally dry. In any location, water shouldn't be allocated in ways that are unsustainable. The High Plains are semi-arid, but they're not a desert. Agriculture in that region is driven by extracting water from the Ogallala Aquifer at rates far faster than the aquifer can be recharged. The best options are to bring water from other areas, which can be expensive, or to limit water use in a way that's more sustainable.
When water is brought in from other locations, it's referred to as an aqueduct rather than a pipeline, and such things do exist. For example, Los Angeles gets a substantial amount of water from the Los Angeles and Colorado River aqueducts. The Los Angeles aqueduct is 419 miles long, so water is being transported over quite a distance. The original poster is simply recommending a much more extensive aqueduct system to help alleviate droughts. It's reasonable, provided water isn't being transported from other areas is an unsustainable manner.
And no, not all deserts have been deserts for thousands of years. Sometimes that change happens over shorter time scales, though certainly beyond the 30 year definition of climate. For example, the Sandhills of western Nebraska are now semi-arid, with grass growing in sandy soil. Several hundred years ago during the Medieval Warm Period, western Nebraska was quite a bit drier, and the Sandhills were a desert with active sand dunes. Conditions are wetter now, just several hundred years later, and the dunes are stabilized by the grasses. Transition in and out of desert conditions doesn't necessarily require thousands of years.
Unlike you, I have mostly quit Facebook. I'm convinced that social media use is generally unhealthy, especially when Facebook is using algorithms to prioritize news feed content and maximize the amount of time a user spends in the app.
There are two ways to look at this. Using a VPN gives you the option of limiting the ability of your ISP to track you, but at the expense of possibly allowing the VPN service to track you, instead. There are plenty of popular VPN services that track users. Anyone using a free service, whether a VPN or otherwise, should be wary that the service is probably monetizing users through other ways. This is not surprising. If you didn't quit Facebook for other abuses, this probably wouldn't make you do it, either. It's not surprising, nor is it inconsistent with other free VPN services.
The other way to look at this is that it's an antitrust issue. Facebook claims a massive amount of users, almost a third of the world's population. While they're undoubtedly inflating those numbers, there's no denying their market share. This sure seems like anticompetitive behavior that runs afoul of the Sherman Antitrust Act. That should actually be the bigger issue here because, if Facebook used anticompetitive tactics that influenced acquiring competitors, it seems like a strong legal basis for splitting Facebook into smaller companies.
It's possible that the term "encrypted" is being used loosely to encompass the process of salting and hashing passwords.
For users, the problem is that it's hard to know whether any particular site is using good security practices to keep data secure. I use is a password manager (mSecure) that runs locally on my phone, and generate unique random passwords for each site. That way, a breach like this wouldn't allow my data to be compromised on other sites, where I might have reused the password. I don't upload the data from mSecure anywhere, though I keep backups on SD cards. The data and backups are stored with 256-bit Blowfish encryption and a unique passphrase. I know, there's a single point of failure, where all my passwords are stored in one place and protected by a single passphrase, and phones aren't particularly secure. But if I moved the password manager to a laptop or desktop computer, I wouldn't as readily have access to my passwords when I need them. It's relatively convenient, simple to use, and it seems better than many of the alternatives.
Unfortunately, there's no way for a user to know which sites are secure. It seems like everything should be treated as highly vulnerable, and users should protect themselves accordingly.
Slashdot Mirror
The USDM map is updated during weekly shifts that run from Monday to Wednesday. Some are at NDMC in Lincoln, NE, by employees of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sometimes the map is updated at other locations by USDA or NOAA employees.
There are five categories of drought ranging from D0 (near drought) to D4 (exceptional drought), and they're clearly defined based on observations. Despite this, the USDM map is more arbitrary than many might think. If you click that link, you'll see a variety of indicators for what constitutes each drought category. One challenge is what category to select when different indicators are in different categories. It's also a challenge about how to update the map when there's a rapid change in conditions. For example, if there's an area in D4, but the area receives several inches of rain in a few days, USDM authors are reluctant to reduce the drought category too much in a single week.
There's also the issue of what to do in areas in between observations, where it's somewhat subjective how to draw the contours for the drought monitor. Some local regulations and forms of aid for those impacted by droughts are directly tied to USDM categories. There can be a lot of money involved, and those who have money at stake will lobby the USDM authors to update the map in a way that's beneficial to them.
While reports are supposed to be made to state climatologists, who then pass the information along to the USDM author for that shift, that's not always how it works. Sometimes the USDM authors will receive lots of calls directly from various people in a particular county of region, lobbying for the map to be updated in a way that benefits them. I've heard of USDM authors getting lots of calls from farmers in particular counties, in a coordinated effort to get the drought category raised. I believe that some federal assistance becomes available at the D2 threshold, so often these calls are lobbying for the drought category to be raised to D2. If there isn't other data from that particular area, it's subjective and up to the USDM author for that shift how to proceed.
I've never updated the USDM and I don't work at NDMC, but I know people who do. I'm glad I'm not responsible for updating the map, because the shifts can be quite long if there are a lot of updates, and people can become pretty angry if the USDM author doesn't update the map the way those people want it updated.
Everything you've said is false. I work at UNL and I know people who actually work shifts to update the US Drought Monitor (USDM). I'm not involved with that work, but I've learned quite a bit about what drought is and how the USDM is created.
Drought is based on conditions relative to climatological normals for that particular location. Climate is generally averaged over 30 year periods, so droughts are abnormally dry conditions relative to the average over the past 30 years. While the current D4 (exceptional drought) conditions are around the four corners area, which is generally arid, that's just where it happens to be abnormally dry now. You can look back over the drought monitor archive and you'll see drought conditions in many other areas.
Drought occurs when conditions are abnormally dry. Deserts exist where it's normally dry. In any location, water shouldn't be allocated in ways that are unsustainable. The High Plains are semi-arid, but they're not a desert. Agriculture in that region is driven by extracting water from the Ogallala Aquifer at rates far faster than the aquifer can be recharged. The best options are to bring water from other areas, which can be expensive, or to limit water use in a way that's more sustainable.
When water is brought in from other locations, it's referred to as an aqueduct rather than a pipeline, and such things do exist. For example, Los Angeles gets a substantial amount of water from the Los Angeles and Colorado River aqueducts. The Los Angeles aqueduct is 419 miles long, so water is being transported over quite a distance. The original poster is simply recommending a much more extensive aqueduct system to help alleviate droughts. It's reasonable, provided water isn't being transported from other areas is an unsustainable manner.
And no, not all deserts have been deserts for thousands of years. Sometimes that change happens over shorter time scales, though certainly beyond the 30 year definition of climate. For example, the Sandhills of western Nebraska are now semi-arid, with grass growing in sandy soil. Several hundred years ago during the Medieval Warm Period, western Nebraska was quite a bit drier, and the Sandhills were a desert with active sand dunes. Conditions are wetter now, just several hundred years later, and the dunes are stabilized by the grasses. Transition in and out of desert conditions doesn't necessarily require thousands of years.
Unlike you, I have mostly quit Facebook. I'm convinced that social media use is generally unhealthy, especially when Facebook is using algorithms to prioritize news feed content and maximize the amount of time a user spends in the app.
There are two ways to look at this. Using a VPN gives you the option of limiting the ability of your ISP to track you, but at the expense of possibly allowing the VPN service to track you, instead. There are plenty of popular VPN services that track users. Anyone using a free service, whether a VPN or otherwise, should be wary that the service is probably monetizing users through other ways. This is not surprising. If you didn't quit Facebook for other abuses, this probably wouldn't make you do it, either. It's not surprising, nor is it inconsistent with other free VPN services.
The other way to look at this is that it's an antitrust issue. Facebook claims a massive amount of users, almost a third of the world's population. While they're undoubtedly inflating those numbers, there's no denying their market share. This sure seems like anticompetitive behavior that runs afoul of the Sherman Antitrust Act. That should actually be the bigger issue here because, if Facebook used anticompetitive tactics that influenced acquiring competitors, it seems like a strong legal basis for splitting Facebook into smaller companies.
It's possible that the term "encrypted" is being used loosely to encompass the process of salting and hashing passwords.
For users, the problem is that it's hard to know whether any particular site is using good security practices to keep data secure. I use is a password manager (mSecure) that runs locally on my phone, and generate unique random passwords for each site. That way, a breach like this wouldn't allow my data to be compromised on other sites, where I might have reused the password. I don't upload the data from mSecure anywhere, though I keep backups on SD cards. The data and backups are stored with 256-bit Blowfish encryption and a unique passphrase. I know, there's a single point of failure, where all my passwords are stored in one place and protected by a single passphrase, and phones aren't particularly secure. But if I moved the password manager to a laptop or desktop computer, I wouldn't as readily have access to my passwords when I need them. It's relatively convenient, simple to use, and it seems better than many of the alternatives.
Unfortunately, there's no way for a user to know which sites are secure. It seems like everything should be treated as highly vulnerable, and users should protect themselves accordingly.