Don’t the guys who claim to be great IT mavens know the simple golden rules about “Other Peoples Code”?
1). This code is teh suck!
2). What clown ordered the spaghetti?
3). IDIOT MONKEY!

…or the rules about “Other Peoples Data”
1). This like so blows!
2). What monkey ordered the baloney?
3). RAGE FEVER!!

Seriously skepticalistas, all I can see in it (and, yes I have read it) is a stream of consciousness from a man who has been given one of the worst jobs in the world: updating somebody else’s code and data sets. Other people’s
code is always a foreign language. Heck, your own code from a year ago is a foreign language.

I can see him grappling with it, getting to grips with it, validating the output against the previous version, the expected ballpark values and the raw files, and also responding at one point to a guy outside their team who found some errors. In short, he is doing what he should be doing and the “colourful stuff” is just a guy being a bit of a drama queen in a personal aide memoir file.

You do have a point about the data quality: but whose fault is that? My understanding of it is that they have datasets from weather stations all around the world which of course have all kinds of quirks and errors and inconsistent formats. It is a problem, and they are trying to deal with it.

But how bad is the data really? Does it make any *significant* difference to any results? There is no way of knowing for sure from this file. I take it that other teams (eg. NASA) have been doing the same thing independently
and are getting results so similar that you can’t put a dime between them.

So how bad is the code really? Does it make any *significant* difference to any results? Again, there is no way of knowing for sure from this file. And, again, other teams have been doing the same thing independently and are getting results so similar that you can’t put a dime between them.

Maybe those of you with a backround in mission-critical software have a misapprehension: in your field, a software error can kill you. It is the big show stopper. That is not the case here and you should see this for what it is: a guy working on a beta version of a back-of-the-envelope calculation. If the result isn’t in the ballpark at all, this will get picked up by rival skunkworks and scrapped. If it looks roughly OK, then on to a gamma version, then the epsilon version…etc in a continuous process of refinement, hoping
to make the error bars smaller until we have confidence.

In short, take stock: do you really think you have proved anything? Have you proved idiocy, incompetence or larceny beyond reasonable doubt?
Not to me, so I will stick with the civility of “innocent until proven guilty”.

And yet, you’re willing to post my real name … without regard to possible consequences for my own ability to get work.

I think you need a refresher course in ethics.

Why?”
I often comment at work, which depending on how you read the policies, could get me fired, regardless of how well I do my actual job.  I work in a small town too, I’d prefer not to have to find a new job that doesn’t exist. And yet, I have to admit to a loss if I were unable to read the blogs about one of the most important scientific and policy issues of the day.
So in that sense, I am nowhere near the position of Josh Halpern, who apparently is tenured, and often funded by NASA and who still finds it necessary to blog anonymously.  Or of a Gavin Schmidt who is directly funded by NASA or many of the tenured professors who finds it easy to smear people or modify comments that could easily lose their jobs.

Actually Don, I have the same respect for you as amateur climate scientist as I do for McIntyre.  And I am glad to see you acknowledge that he is at least as capable as you if not more so. Perhaps you can remind people at RC of that and that all of these amateur scientists should be respected, not disrespected and dehumanized.
And frankly, I think I’m helping you.  I verified that you are considered an expert database guy and well known in photog and birding circles, and that anything you say regarding IT should be well respected.  That includes climategate issues and issues regarding data retention and possibly climate models.
But you are annoying and in the wrong when it comes to describing scientists in fields you are not expert in as having crossed to the darkside, or speculating about their intellectual honesty.
And as you point out, it’s trivial to know you’re Don Baccus, and that Eli is Josh Halpern (and on that account, I gather Halpern outed, in a way you never were.)  But at any rate, I have no idea why you think I have somehow outed you, or complain that I do not use your nom-de-net when I am using widely known information.
I’m not the one attacking other people and saying they are dishonest or not qualified to speak.  I am simply here saying who you are, what you are qualified as an expert in, and telling you your behavior is lousy.

If I were trying to remain anonymous I wouldn’t use a handle that is also my e-mail address, and that appears in each and every photo caption on my website.

I’ve been using the “dhogaza” handle since the mid-1990s because I happen to like it.  I’ve never made a secret of my real name.  Back in the days when Alta Vista ruled the search engine world, typing in “nature photography” listed me as the second hit.   Name, e-mail handle, if you looked hard enough, home address and phone number (these are no longer online, the net is not as friendly and cozy as it used to be).

And I’ve never claimed to be a climate scientist.  Oh, and if you believe that being a layman makes me a “a complete know nothing layman on climate science”, then I imagine you feel the same about, oh, McIntyre, another layman with an undergraduate degree in mathematics?

So, anon, you claim a personal connection with me, and have “outed” Josh Halpern in your note, too (another “secret” kept in the open, but apparently it makes you feel good to give his name).

What’s your name?  Why are you hiding, if you object to someone like me using a handle when posting?

My guess it that “google anon”, unlike “dhogaza”, isn’t going to point to your real name … I’m quite sure that unlike me, you really *are* trying to hide your identity.

Why?