Day: December 27, 2021

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Some of the aerial photography and interactive maps on the blog won’t be working tonight

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Some of the aerial photography and interactive maps on the blog won’t be working tonight. Here’s why:

Hello,

Maintenance is scheduled for the server used for GIS data downloads through the GIS Clearinghouse (gis.ny.gov) and the Discover GIS application (orthos.dhses.ny.gov).  Access via ftp is on ftp.gis.ny.gov while https download links from the same server use https://gisdata.ny.gov.  Datasets include orthoimagery, LIDAR, and DEMS, as well as raster maps on gis.ny.gov.

The work will be done Monday, December 27, 2021 after 5 PM EST and will finish later in the evening.

There will be an interruption in service, so we recommend users complete downloads before the maintenance period.  We apologize for any inconvenience. 

Thank you.

Tim

“Do You Hear What I Hear” was actually about the Cuban Missile Crisis – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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“Do You Hear What I Hear” was actually about the Cuban Missile Crisis – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

We often take Christmas carols at face value. But at least one holiday favorite, “Do You Hear What I Hear,” contains more than what first meets the ear.

Written during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the song contains references to the fear of a nuclear attack. Many of the phrases it contains, such as “a star, dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite” can be interpreted in two ways: as the bright star of Bethlehem that leads the Magi to the baby Jesus—or as the sight of a nuclear missile in flight. “The star was meant to be a bomb,” the composers’ daughter, Gabrielle Regney, explained to GBH News, the magazine of the Boston public radio station, in 2019.

NPR

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Sarah Weddington, who successfully argued Roe v. Wade, has died at age 76 : NPR

DALLAS — Sarah Weddington, a Texas lawyer who as a 26-year-old successfully argued the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court, died Sunday. She was 76.

Susan Hays, Weddington's former student and colleague, said she died in her sleep early Sunday morning at her Austin home. Weddington had been in poor health for some time and it was not immediately clear what caused her death, Hays told The Associated Press.

Raised as a minister's daughter in the West Texas city of Abilene, Weddington attended law school at the University of Texas. A couple years after graduating, she and a former classmate, Linda Coffee, brought a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a pregnant woman challenging a state law that largely banned abortions.

NPR

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Racial reckoning turns focus to roadside historical markers : NPR

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania had been installing historical markers for more than a century when the racist violence in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017 brought a fresh round of questions from the public about just whose stories were being told on the state's roadsides — and the language used to tell them.

The increased scrutiny helped prompt a review of all 2,500 markers by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, a process that has focused on factual errors, inadequate historical context, and racist or otherwise inappropriate references.

Upcoming Sunsets – December 27, 2021

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Upcoming Sunsets:

4:45 pm sunset – Thursday, January 13
5:00 pm sunset – Tuesday, January 25
5:15 pm sunset – Saturday, February 5
5:30 pm sunset – Thursday, February 17
5:45 pm sunset – Tuesday, March 1
7:00 pm sunset – Sunday, March 13
Daylight Savings Time Begins – Sunset on Sunday, March 13 is at 6:59 pm
7:15 pm sunset – Saturday, March 26
7:30 pm sunset – Friday, April 8
7:45 pm sunset – Thursday, April 21
8:00 pm sunset – Thursday, May 5