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A Fond Farewell

farmersalmanac.com

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Re: A Fond Farewell

#71

Post by jimnotgym »

unwind wrote: post #69
Shorn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 01852, 173 years ago That's some serious forward thinking you've got going on with your date format there. I like it, I will be formatting all my years to 5 digits from now on. OTOH, if it was just a typo - keep it to yourself, I don't wanna know. I'm all in - 5 digit years is a thing now.

Nobody posted [1] yet, it feels like it's needed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation

Wow, an organisation worried about dealing with the date flipover in 010000. Very forward thinking

Re: A Fond Farewell

#73

Post by NaomiLehman »

squirtle24 wrote: post #68

To be honest I've never even heard of the "Farmers Almanac", but its #2 on HN now. Am I the only one here?

I think people like the name because of nostalgia they can't connect to and the word Almanac reminding them of Back to the Future

Re: A Fond Farewell

#74

Post by Shorn »

jimnotgym wrote: post #71
unwind wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody posted [1] yet, it feels like it's needed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation

Wow, an organisation worried about dealing with the date flipover in 010000. Very forward thinking

I see what you did there

Re: A Fond Farewell

#76

Post by gabagool »

NaomiLehman wrote: post #73
squirtle24 wrote: post #68

To be honest I've never even heard of the "Farmers Almanac", but its #2 on HN now. Am I the only one here?

I think people like the name because of nostalgia they can't connect to and the word Almanac reminding them of Back to the Future

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_Almanac

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Farmer%27s_Almanac

People do know things other people do not. They are fairly notable, though obviously not as much in today's society, hence this one's retirement

Re: A Fond Farewell

#77

Post by conductr »

dannyphantom wrote: post #59
Waterluvian wrote: post #38

What exactly is the Farmer’s Almanac? I always thought it was basically a big set of historical data that helped provide a sort of statistical foundation for choices, even if the why isn’t explained. Which seems like I can completely understand it as a practical tool in the past but fairly obsolete in modern times. Or did it evolve, too, and was essentially modern science and maths, dressed in the trappings of a belo…

Kinda all of the above. It did evolve into a scientific(-adjacent) thing, if that makes sense. My boyfriend’s parents have all of them sitting on a dedicated shelf. Interesting to read through. They definitely leaned into being a cultural artifact. Jokes, anecdotes, stories, how-tos, homeopathic recipes for things like cough syrups, etc. They all look kinda the same so either brand consistency or to keep the nostalgi…

They have to predict the weather for the year in a book that has to go through the publishing and distribution process ahead of time.

My local weather news has all the benefits of real time data and weather models yet I think their accuracy rate is just as poor when it comes to producing the 7 day outlook. It’s common to hear a forecast for rain/cold front/etc in 7 day outlook that just never materializes. Also the timing of the event if it does arrive is almost always off by a day or two. Often they have the whole town worried about something that’s definitely happening Friday, they talk about it all week, everyone is preparing, little league games getting rescheduled, etc. then only hours beforehand it’s well looks like maybe Sunday. Then Sunday comes and instead of inches of rain, it’s a sprinkle.

I’m not even trying to be critical of weather reporting, I get that it’s a crapshoot but doing it a year+ ahead of time and getting similar results/accuracy is actually quite impressive.

Re: A Fond Farewell

#78

Post by FinnKuhn »

carabiner wrote: post #66
ajdude wrote: post #62

I'm not a farmer, but I have relied on the farmers almanac before when planning vacations months in advance. It's been surprisingly accurate at determining whether a given week would have rain, snow, or sun. I have no idea how they did it but I would love to see their weather prediction system open sourced if they're going to be shutting down.

Better yet, use the NWS climate outlook, based on actual science: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/ They do detailed scoring of their predictions and it's based on rigorous physical modeling (navier stokes) so they know that it's better than chance. FA hasn't held up well to such scrutiny.

Does something like this exist for weather prediction worldwide?

Re: A Fond Farewell

#79

Post by conductr »

9rx wrote: post #56
Waterluvian wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don’t realize there were two! I’m guessing there’s a history here involving a fork.

> I’m guessing there’s a history here involving a fork. This is no direct relationship. Just a case of a competitor deciding to compete in the marketplace.

Seems like the original already named it wisely. If it’s 1820 and I’m a farmer, I’m definitely getting my almanac from an “old farmer”.

Re: A Fond Farewell

#80

Post by aubanel »

carabiner wrote: post #66
ajdude wrote: post #62

I'm not a farmer, but I have relied on the farmers almanac before when planning vacations months in advance. It's been surprisingly accurate at determining whether a given week would have rain, snow, or sun. I have no idea how they did it but I would love to see their weather prediction system open sourced if they're going to be shutting down.

Better yet, use the NWS climate outlook, based on actual science: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/ They do detailed scoring of their predictions and it's based on rigorous physical modeling (navier stokes) so they know that it's better than chance. FA hasn't held up well to such scrutiny.

For Europe, use ECMWF, they provide great data: https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts
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