But alas, it’s already gone. Just the cold gray skies of winter have returned. While I am sure my wallet appreciates the warmer weather and lower heating bills, those blue skies that didn’t last sure were nice.
Study after study has shown that if people normally act a “danger level of 2”, they’ll notch up their danger level to “danger level of 3” or “danger level of 3 1/2” if a safety device is designed to keep the device safe up to a “danger level of 4”.
This obviously undercuts many of the benefits of the safety device, when increased safety margins are just used to promote more dangerous behavior. Often redundancy encourages bad practices, even if it’s designed to increase safety.
… Do take a look at the Normal Accidents article I just posted.
"Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so-called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the characteristic of the system involved, multiple failures that interact with each other will occur, despite efforts to avoid them. Perrow said that, while operator error is a very common problem, many failures relate to organizations rather than technology, and big accidents almost always have very small beginnings. Such events appear trivial to begin with before unpredictably cascading through the system to create a large event with severe consequences.
Normal Accidents contributed key concepts to a set of intellectual developments in the 1980s that revolutionized the conception of safety and risk. It made the case for examining technological failures as the product of highly interacting systems, and highlighted organizational and management factors as the main causes of failures. Technological disasters could no longer be ascribed to isolated equipment malfunction, operator error, or acts of God.
Perrow identifies three conditions that make a system likely to be susceptible to Normal Accidents. These are:
- The system is complex
- The system is tightly coupled
-The system has catastrophic potential
Western New York is home to a number of radical-right organizations that are active on social media. Of late they’ve been posting on the inauguration of Joseph Biden as president. Before that they shared conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol — antifa did it! — and to express their support for Donald Trump.
An Investigative Post review of the right’s social media activity also found that a wide range of right-wing organizations have started to consolidate and coordinate their activities since the summer under the banner of “FREE New York.”?
Nearly 50 years later, this offensive has seeped into our policing culture. From broken windows model of policing and the advent of stop and frisk to no-knock warrants and the militarization of local police departments, the so called War on Drugs has led to the targeting of communities of color.
With over 2 million people behind bars, the United States is the world’s most carceral country. A large number of those serving time are for crimes related to drugs possession and activity.
Advocates for reform have long argued that punitive policies have not reduced the flow of drugs across the country. In fact, they have strengthened illicit drug markets, creating risky and unhealthy conditions for drug users by focusing on the criminal element of substance use instead of seeing it through a lens of healthcare access and social justice.
I noticed that Census Bureau has posted for New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (but not Connecticut, Massachusetts or Vermont) …
2020 Census Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Shapefiles
Released in groups of states January 2021 through February 2021. Once complete, the 2020 Census Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Shapefiles will be available for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Why should you care if your not interested in the politicians and their self-serving redistricting efforts? Well, TIGER/Line data is very useful for making all kinds of maps where you need county and municipal lines, such as mapping cases of COVID-19 or any data you get from data.census.gov. Or even hiking or road maps when you want town lines on them.
The nice thing about the redistricting files is they are packaged up in nice big ol’ ZIP file for the whole state coverage, for easy downloading and use. Mid-redistricting cycle you will want to occasionally get the yearly updates to reflect changes in county, municipal and census tract lines, but those have to be individually downloaded. It’s better to download one big file, and have all the data you need at one shot.
Good morning! January is almost done. Yes, tomorrow is February. On Friday, the average high is 33 degrees, so it will on average get above freezing. And probably push closer to 40 this year. But wait there is more. Six weeks to Daylight Savings Time Returns, 
featuring the 7 PM Sunset 🌇 . Partly sunny and 5 degrees in Delmar, NY. 
Calm wind. With a still breeze and the sun feels warmer then that. There are 2 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Even as close as Five Rivers, there is a fair amount more snow. Things will start to thaw out at Thursday around 1 pm. 🌡But first a snow storm. 
️
Another cold morning, and I delayed getting milk for my coffee. 
Heat is working well in my apartment, but I just didn’t feel like rushing out of bed during the weekend – as I knew it would be cold outside. 
Maybe I should have gotten an earlier start as the sunny skies aren’t expected to last. 
I am thinking of doing a little hiking or skiing this afternoon but I’m undecided on the location. 
I know mornings will be darker again when the time changes, in six weeks but at least they will be warmer at that point.
Yesterday, it was a nice hike out to Five Rivers and Van Dyke Preserve, although I kept moving 
as it was cold and I didn’t want to freeze off my you know what. The sun helped a lot and there was a lot of nature to see. It also just got my out of my apartment and meant I didn’t burn up much gas while I was away from home. Trying to save wherever I can, especially with the higher heating and electricity bills, being that I work from home. 
At least with the work VPN and the hotspot plan, I don’t have to drive or take a bus anywhere, so I’m saving there.
Today will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 19 degrees at 3pm. 13 degrees below normal. Light north wind. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 36 degrees. The record high of 58 was set in 1913. 6.9 inches of snow fell back in 2000.❄ I think we will get more snow on Monday – Tuesday of this year. I am planning on covering up my truck, so the snow stays off the solar panel this evening for easy cleaning come Wednesday. That way the solar panel can start soaking up the sun and keeping the batteries 
topped off.
I haven’t really decided what I am going to do today, I might check out a local preserve or I guess I could do some skiing, but I don’t really want to travel too far from home. I am going out to the folks house for Sunday dinner.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:10 pm with sun having an altitude of 30.1° from the due south horizon (-40.7° vs. 6/21). That’s kind of a big deal as it means days won’t be cold when the sun is out. A six foot person will cast a 10.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:27 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (240°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (247°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:08 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 9 seconds with dusk around 5:37 pm, which is one minute and 19 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:12 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 18 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 57 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 20 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will have a slight chance of snow after 3am. Mostly cloudy 🌨, with a low of 13 degrees at 1am. Two degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 10 at 6pm; North wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2020, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 32 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1920.
Monday is when the snow comes. On Monday snow is likely, mainly after 3pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 27. North wind 7 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Come Monday night, even more snow with a low around 26. North wind around 13 mph. Night time accumulation of 6 to 10 inches possible.
It seems like Monday morning I can definitely do my walk. 
Maybe not on Monday evening, but that’s fine. I will probably just stay home and watch the snow come down. Tuesday morning probably won’t have sidewalks cleared up enough, but assuming snow removal isn’t a complete cluster 
they’ll have the sidewalks cleared for the evening walk.
Tuesday is Ground Hog Day. 
They say the skies will be 85% overcast in Punxsutawney, but history isn’t encouraging – the ground hog sees his shadow most years, although he hasn’t been seeing it as much in recent years probably because more winter days are cloudy and mild due to Climate Change.
🌹🌻🌼Only 48 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼
I am thinking maybe if it’s mild after the time changes, 
I can get up to the Adirondacks for a long weekend or two. If remote work continues, I can work up in Speculator and camp off the East Branch, although a lot depends on how much snow there is in March. Often the snow lasts a long time around in the Adirondacks. I am looking forward to nicer weather for sure.
As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Valentines Day ❤️ when the sun will be setting at 5:26 pm with dusk at 5:55 pm. Or as I like to spell it, Valente’s Day, mainly because there was an era before spell check. On that day in 2020, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 36 and 7 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 34 degrees. We hit a record high of 63 back in 1946.
