Dear Blick and WeatherCat frustrated WU users,
I know it doesn't make any sense, but WU has loads of problems and for the past several months the best approach when those problems impact your station is to wait. Almost every time, eventually the issue is resolved and your station reports go back to normal on their site. In my opinion, they are in a long, slow, death spiral and have alienated a lot of their PWS uploaders. It's a shame as they are the oldest and largest gatherer of backyard weather station data in the world.
Your points are all well-taken but there is one very curious twist in the plot. The Weather Channel bought Weather Underground. Then IBM bought the Weather Channel. The plum they were after was -
believe it or not - Weather Underground! The scuttlebutt at the time was that IBM was very interested in using Weather Underground data to see what their Watson artificial intelligence system could do with it as far as improving forecasts.
It has been a long time since the acquisition and clearly IBM has lost their enthusiasm for the acquisition. However, perhaps the reason has nothing to do with Weather Underground, but instead has everything to do with overoptimism about what Watson could do with the data.
As part of my Ph.D. I relied on
Hubert Dreyfus's interpretations of the world of Heidegger. Based on Heidegger's philosophy,
Dreyfus wrote three critiques of artificial intelligence:1972. What Computers Can't Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence. ISBN 0-06-011082-1
1986 (with Stuart Dreyfus). Mind Over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer. New York: Free Press.
1992. What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-54067-3
I haven't read the 3rd book, but the first two are quite compelling. The Wikipedia article on Dreyfus's critiques indicate that after years of ignoring it, artificial intelligence has been force to reconsider their assumptions in light of these Heideggerian-based criticisms. It is well worth pondering how realistic machine intelligence really is as we are seeing another revival sadly driven mostly by advances in computing power. Dreyfus pointed out over 40 years ago, no matter how much computer power is applied, machine will not be intelligent in the way that humans are.
Cheers, Edouard