Siren.Kyte said: »
He's not grasping. There is nothing particularly unusual about needing to use specific programs to access the data (which can then export it into another format). If I wanted cancer data from SEER, I'd have to do the same thing.
I also fully expect at least some of the models to (and my brief glimpse over them appears to confirm this) have spatial components, which wouldn't really function in an Excel environment.
I also fully expect at least some of the models to (and my brief glimpse over them appears to confirm this) have spatial components, which wouldn't really function in an Excel environment.
The raw datasets are usually in csv or other exportable text format. This is because you don't know which environment it will be worked on. The "adjusted" datasets tend to be in the specific application format that it is going to be used in. Whenever I run into that problem I just email some friends of mine and they can usually help me out by getting it converted back into csv or whatever.
Then we have the models themselves which is where things get really scary. Whenever you ask for the code, to double check the results, they refuse to hand it over and respond with "just trust us". When you get a FOIA request for that model, suddenly it and the data associated with it, "were lost in an unrecoverable computer crash". This is what happened to AR4 from the IPCC report and also the big thing behind the climate emails. You had a FOIA request in for the AR4 material and emails from Dr Mann about how to avoid having to fulfill it with someone suggesting it would be great if it was "lost".
Of course to the AGW supports on this forum, those emails never existed.
