Comments on: NASA GISS Withdraws Access Blocking

By: An update on my Climate Reference Network visualization project | Watts Up With That?

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:57:28 +0000

[...] too high. Similar issues plagued Steve McIntyre when he went to fetch a large amount of data once, the Gavinator of GISS blocked him. So unless NOAA/NCDC decides to pull the CRN data from the sat feed that services NWS WSFO’s [...]

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:31:16 +0000

#99,101. Yes, I do have other non-public information on this in connection with how NASA handled the “new guy”. I remain of the view that their disposition of the matter at various stages could be fairly described as “undignified and petty”, though the matter was eventually resolved (even if the behavior was not specifically directed at me). It seems possible (or even probable) that the final disposition was influenced by publicity here as opposed to GISS lifting the block through their own good graces, but reasonable people can differ. I’ve said on many occasions that NASA GISS is making a much better effort on data availability than other agencies.

AS you observe, this thread is not something that takes much time, so let’s leave the matter where it is.

By: ChrisC

ChrisC — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:54:40 +0000

Steve, I’d like to offer what I hope is the feedback of a disinterested observer. I visit your blog every few months because I like to read scientifically credible criticisms of the mainstream science. I have always thought of you as “the loyal opposition”, carrying out careful checks on the science, keeping other scientists on their toes. However, I was greatly disappointed by your behavior in this topic. Your opening email to NASA was unnecessarily confrontational and you continue to assume malicious intent without supporting information. I realize that you have had a long history of conflicts with these people, but that doesn’t justify assuming malicious intent in their behavior, and their quick response belies insinuations to that effect.

I urge you to get ahold of yourself. You are the best opposition to the general attitude of the scientific community. Science needs people like you nipping at its heels, exposing mistakes. However, you now appear to be emotionally prejudiced against these people, and when that prejudice becomes apparent to independent bystanders, you lose credibility with them. Step back from this issue, think long and hard about your long-term goals rather than your immediate irritation, and act accordingly.

I offer this advice with the best of intentions, but I will understand if you choose to reject it. In any event, I wish you well in your enterprise.

By: johnl

johnl — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:14:42 +0000

Hi. R is a programming language, and, while it’s easier learn than C, and even because it’s easier to learn than C, it’s easy to imagine a new user hammering some server with a junk script. And the typical web server administrator is going to respond with pure dumbth. Pretty much everyone blocks Python users. That’s why it’s important for everyone, R, SAS, Python users on Linux or Mac or whatever to study the help for their html interface and figure out how to tell everyone that they are using IE6 for Windows. Challenge them to block that. Especially if you have some loop that runs forever.

By: Rusty Scott

Rusty Scott — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:10:42 +0000

Re: Steve McIntyre (#88), If my understanding is incorrect, then it is because you are operating on information which you haven’t updated to the post. In short the post can be summarized as:

SM: My IP address is being blocked.

NASA: We don’t think we have your IP address blocked, but we did block someone else using R and they contacted us about it. That should be fixed now. Otherwise, tell us what your IP is so we can dig deeper.

SM: The script now works.

Everything else, that I can see, goes to discussion about whether you believe their explanation or not, or imputing motive to their actions. You seem to have further information that hasn’t been updated to this post. I am glad to know that these threads are not where you spend a majority of your time. Keep up the good work.

By: Jeff Alberts

Jeff Alberts — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:43:51 +0000

Re: Steve McIntyre (#38), In other words, it takes much more computing power for someone to simply pull up the main NASA web page than to grab that file.

By: Kenneth Fritsch

Kenneth Fritsch — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Re: Steve McIntyre (#92),

Steve M, I attempted a download into R per your and the prescribed R instructions. I keep getting an error message that the url has an unexpected “/” in it. I pasted the url as:

http://data.climateaudit.org/data/giss/giss.dset2.tab

I think the Notepad problem is one of not recognizing the format and not of too much data – but that is water over the dam.

Steve: Kenneth, I promise you that R can do whatever it is that you want to do 100 times easier than however you’re trying to do it. Plus you end up with replicable scripts that someone can use and see what you’ve done. If readers posted such scripts with their analyses, it makes it easier for others to see what they’ve done,

By: Dan Hughes

Dan Hughes — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:15:41 +0000

Re: jeez (#95),

Most excellent

By: jeez

jeez — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:51:11 +0000

Re: Anthony Watts (#93), Very good suggestion, but if I may modify slightly. user agent="Usufruct" goes to the heart of the matter ever so delicately.

By: Jim Pacheco

Jim Pacheco — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:12:07 +0000

Steve, you have probably already did this so I am interested in their reply. With a FOI request they should have given you the 10 mb file. Why didn’t they do that?