Post about EnviroFlash

feed.xml

@@ -2460,6 +2460,35 @@ $ printf hunter2 | md5sum
       <ss:averageResponseTime>0.42</ss:averageResponseTime>
       <ss:statusMessage>If you can read this, then RSRSSS is definitely working.</ss:statusMessage>
     </item>
+
+    <item>
+      <title>EnviroFlash</title>
+      <pubDate></pubDate>
+      <guid isPermaLink="false">enviroflash</guid>
+      <category domain="https://envs.net/~lucidiot/rsrsss/">OPML</category>
+      <category domain="https://envs.net/~lucidiot/rsrsss/">Air quality</category>
+      <category domain="https://envs.net/~lucidiot/rsrsss/">CAP</category>
+      <link>https://envs.net/~lucidiot/rsrsss/opml/enviroflash.opml</link>
+      <description><![CDATA[
+        <p>Because the United States is a combination of all the bad things about the European Union and the bad things about a single country, anything that involves the federal government is a mess. AirNow is a demonstration of that mess, as a partnership between the <abbr title="Environmental Protection Agency">EPA</abbr> and a whole lot of other entites that provide air quality information, which are such a mess they are just better described (and sometimes officially described) as <em>local partners</em>. They provide three different services:</p>
+        <ul>
+          <li><a href="https://mdaqmd.enviroflash.org/" target="_blank"><dfn>AirNow-Tech</dfn></a> is the platform where air quality data is sent, and where it can also be extracted, analyzed, used by partners (not just local partners).</li>
+          <li><a href="https://docs.airnowapi.org/" target="_blank"><dfn>AirNow API</dfn></a> provides APIs, data exports, etc. from AirNow-Tech. It requires a registration like AirNow-Tech, but this time anyone can register and get approved. The data exports are Atom feeds, but I am not including them since they are hidden behind that registration wall. To me, open data is not open if you have to register!</li>
+          <li><a href="https://www.enviroflash.info/" target="_blank"><dfn>EnviroFlash</dfn></a> provides e-mail notifications for current air quality conditions, forecasts, and warnings to the general public. They also serve RSS feeds, as well as Atom feeds including <abbr title="Common Alerting Protocol">CAP</abbr> messages.</li>
+        </ul>
+        <p>Since EnviroFlash is the only truly open website of the list, this will be the one I am featuring here. <a href="https://feeds.enviroflash.info/" target="_blank">The feeds page</a> provides <a href="https://feeds.enviroflash.info/cap/aggregate.xml" target="_blank">an Atom feed</a> that aggregates all of the <abbr title="Common Alerting Protocol">CAP</abbr> messages nationwide, and lets you select a state. Selecting a state and submitting the form triggers a script that uses <abbr title="Asynchronous JavaScript And XML">AJAX</abbr> to display a table of all the feeds available for that state.</p>
+        <p>Some states, like Alaska, have zero cities listed; in total, only 44 states have some feeds available. Each feed is specific to a city, and there are five different feeds for each city:</p>
+        <ul>
+          <li>The <a href="https://feeds.enviroflash.info/rss/forecast/264.xml" target="_blank">forecasted air quality</a> for today and tomorrow, as an RSS feed;</li>
+          <li><a href="https://feeds.enviroflash.info/rss/actionDay/264.xml" target="_blank">Health advisories</a>, also known as "action days", as an RSS feed;</li>
+          <li>The <a href="https://feeds.enviroflash.info/rss/realtime/264.xml" target="_blank">latest air quality information</a> for the area, as an RSS feed;</li>
+          <li>The <a href="https://feeds.enviroflash.info/cap/264.xml" target="_blank">current air quality alert</a>, as a single <abbr title="Common Alerting Protocol">CAP</abbr> alert;</li>
+          <li>An <a href="https://feeds.enviroflash.info/atom/264.xml" target="_blank">Atom feed for the current air quality alert</a>, with either a placeholder entry when there are no alerts, or an entry holding a <abbr title="Common Alerting Protocol">CAP</abbr> alert just like the above one.</li>
+        </ul>
+        <p>I wrote an XQuery script that lists all of the RSS and Atom feeds as well as the CAP alerts for all cities in all states, resulting in more than 3000 links, in <a href="https://envs.net/~lucidiot/rsrsss/opml/enviroflash.opml" target="_blank">one OPML file</a>. If you need to do some load testing on your feedreader, now you know what to use!</p>
+        <p>EnviroFlash has made me discover CAP, the Common Alerting Protocol, a standard that I will look into in more detail in the future and that is designed to make emergency alerts more interoperable. I have already started to look into other sources of CAP alerts to learn by example.</p>
+      ]]></description>
+    </item>
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   <access:restriction relationship="allow" />
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