Blog note

Update:
Gavin deleted my reply to his reply to my “confidentially” comment. When your own logic backs you into a corner, just delete the evidence. But it’s okay. I think Gavin made a fool oh himself with that lame reply to my first comment. Everyone who has read that email from Briffa KNOWS, whatever else he was trying to accomplish with that email, he wanted to make damn sure no one knew he was doing it.
Trevor

Damn if Micr$oft didn’t get this one right… bout time ; )~ but, wipe it all out and start fresh ~regards

Another update:
After my second comment, dismantling Gavin’s defense of Briffa, was rejected, I posted another comment which (if Gavin posts it, which he won’t) should settle this once and for all, save another lame excuse from Gavin.
Briffa via Guardian via Gavin: “Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting [an unnamed paper] to ­support Dave Stahle’s and really as soon as you can.”
Trevor: “One question, Gavin. If this request by Briffa is perfectly legitimate, and it’s something that editors do all the time, and it was contingent on an unstated but (somehow) understood “if you are going to recommend rejection”, then why did Briffa precede the request with the word “confidentially”? “Confidentially” usually implies that whatever appears after that word should be kept secret. So why does Briffa want this request kept secret, if it’s really completely on the up-and-up?”
Gavin: “Discussions between editors, reviewers and authors are always confidential – you are not supposed to show people drafts you have received as a reviewer, and your reviews are supposed to be for the author’s eyes only – whether you sign your reviews or not. But I have no further information into the context of this remark than anyone else. – gavin”
Reply from Trevor: Your own statement (directly above) proves that Briffa doesn’t give a rat’s tail about the “rules” of peer review. If “your reviews are supposed to be for the author’s eyes only”, then Briffa, as neither the author nor the reviewer, would have no idea what was in Stahle’s review of the same paper, and thus would not know that a “hard and … extensive case for rejecting [the paper]” from Cook would be in support of Stahle’s review or not. Moreover, he should not have even told Cook the name of another reviewer (at least that’s my understanding of peer review), let alone reveal the main gist of what the other reviewer had to say (that’s YOUR statement about peer review). This email from Briffa violates the very “confidentiality” that you claim he is trying to remind Cook of. Briffa doesn’t care a whit about the confidentiality between author, reviewer, and editor – the only confidentiality he cares about is Cook confiding the fact that Briffa is trying to subvert the peer review process.
Regards,
Trevor

mikelorrey (21:50:41) :
Ummm, I think I’ve been developing software a bit longer then you so forgive me if I am not overly impressed. My first real program numerically solved systems of a class of differential equations related to the three body problem. It was written in HP Basic on an HP 200f in 1976. I was 16. The last time I touched a Mac (other then Motorola’s failed mac clones, who’s manufacturing software infrastructure I supported professionally) was in 91. I washed my hands afterwords.
Most of the kids coming out of school with their freshly minted CS degrees only know the MS architectural paradigm, which is absolutely antithetical to the direction software needs to go. They are incapable of understanding that there are better ways to do things. The rot is spreading, just look at the steaming pile of garbage that is Gnome.
A computer geek knows how to properly work with any computer that might come along because they understand the fundamentals intimately. That condition is not satisfied by most of thous who have learned how to develop for windows.
BTW, my main fields of expertise are Instrument Control and Test and Measurement. Which kinda explains my interest in WUWT. MS molestation of both fields is a disaster. “Hold on a minute, my Spectrum Analyzer just Blue Screened.”

Well all of my recent inquiries have come back with the response that going from Vista to 7 is a definite gotta do ASAP, and that XP-7 is also a safe and preferred step to take as well.
Suffice to say that my employer admits to having a server now running Win-7, and that new computers will be thus endowed; but they ahve not let out a general upgrade call yet.
Im running XP-Pro-64, at work, and XP-Pro-32 at home; but will asap be going win-7pro-64 at home, so I can finally use all my 8 gigs of RAM.
My very expensive Optical Design software, runs super well on 8 processors (or even 16) under XP-64, and as of yesterday, the purveyor says they are running two machines on Win-7-64 with 8 processors, and mucho gusto.
But then Windows is inherently the worlds largest computer virus; so you get what you deserve. My guess is the software has completely erased whatever hardware speed gains have been made, since MS DOS-3.2
I used to know what every single file on my computer did; and files that did nothing I needed, soon saw the bottom of the circular file.
Now I have whole gigabyte folders (whatever they are) that don’t seem to do anything I need, but I can’t get rid of them; or the date comes up wrong on the screen.
What I really need is a calculator that crunches numbers; and a punched paper tape would do as output if I can get that output calculated faster.
Keep us posted on the -7 adventure Anthony.

“Stefan (05:07:16) :
Macs are for people who don’t understand computers?
When a room full of some of the country’s best lawyers are all using Macs, I think that’s actually a compliment to the Mac platform.
But so long as you’re not confusing intelligence with how people choose to spend their time, then I guess that’s OK.”
I’m really sure there’s a lawyer joke in there but I’ll let it go for now. 😉

Getting rid of Vista = GOOD THING.
Adopting Openoffice.org = GOO THING.
Using Windows 7 = well, it all can’t be good 🙂

I know no one much cares about my little adventure over at RealClimate, but I’m going to keep documenting it here, because I can’t trust Gavin to post my comments. He posted and replied to my last comment. His reply was lame:
“In any resubmission there is usually a response to the reviewers and the reviewers then get to see the original reviews (which may have been signed) and the response. The parties to this conversation obviously already knew that Stahle was a reviewer from which I conclude that it is likely that Stahle signed his original review. If you want to imagine some sneaky conspiracy, do it elsewhere, but I’m not particularly interested in playing games based on fact-free speculations. – gavin”
I’m prepared to accept the notion that Gavin just misstated his original “authors eyes only” reply (or didn’t state it precisely enough), and his revised statement on the subject, above, is actually closer to the truth. But I would very much like to pin Gavin down on this, once and for all, which is the point of the first paragraph of my reply, below. However, I don’t think it really matters, as explained in the remainder of my reply to Gavin. A review of an original submission would be irrelevant the moment the paper was re-submitted, and thus no amount of support for the original review would do any good. Briffa’s reference to Stahle’s bad review makes sense only if it is Stahle’s review of the REsubmitted paper. Even by Gavin’s revised “author’s eyes only” rule, it is a strict no-no to tell one reviewer of a re-submitted paper what another reviewer said about the same re-submitted paper. Gavin’s grasping at straws here, and I’m almost certain my most recent comment will never be posted on RealClimate. But you can read it here:
“But the reviews “are supposed to be for the author’s eyes only”. Your words, Gavin, not mine. Stahle’s review was supposed to be FOR THE AUTHOR’S EYES ONLY. Not Briffa’s and not Cook’s. Now that I’ve caught you in a contradiction, you seem to be trying to modify your “author’s eyes only” statement to apply to only the period before the re-submission. So let’s be clear, Gavin, for once, so I can pin you down. Is there or is there not an “author’s eyes only” rule for reviews, does it exclude the editor, and when does it cease to apply? Please state this as clearly as possible so you can’t weasel your way out of it next time.
“Actually, it really doesn’t matter. Any review by Stahle of the ORIGINAL submission would have been irrelevant after re-submission. Even if the resubmission did not involve changes to the paper itself, but only a separate written response to Stahle’s review, Stahle’s original review would be invalid until such time as Stahle responded to the author’s response. Therefore, Briffa’s reference to Stahle’s review makes sense only if it is Stahle’s review of the REsubmitted paper (or at least Stahle’s reaffirmation, after the author’s response, of his original review). Either way, Briffa’s email reveals to Cook that Stahle STILL hates the paper, even after resubmission, whatever that entailed. Even if Briffa’s request could not be interpreted as directly requesting another unkind review from Cook, it clearly biases Cook’s review by informing him that a fellow scientist gave it an unkind review, EVEN AFTER the paper was resubmitted.
“It is clearly Stahle’s review of the REsubmitted paper that Briffa is trying to get support for, not the original review, which became instantly irrelevant upon resubmission. And he is clearly telling Cook not only that Stahle was a fellow reviewer (and if I understand the process correctly, a reviewer of an original submission is not automatically a reviewer of the resubmission of the same paper, so Cook wouldn’t know Stahle had reviewed the resubmitted paper, until Briffa TOLD him), but also that Stahle recommended rejecting the REsubmitted paper. This in itself is a violation of the very “confidentiality” that Briffa is (according to Gavin) reminding Cook of. But, even more damaging, it reveals that Briffa does not care one iota about the confidentiality of “normal” exchanges between author, editor, and reviewer (as he showed time and time again in the hacked CRU emails), but only the confidentiality of his specific request to Cook. And the reason for his concern about the confidentiality of the request is that he knows it’s not kosher. And it’s not kosher because, as Pierce said all along, it’s clearly asking for a bad review of the paper.
“I’m not “imagining” anything, Gavin. It’s right there in black and white. It might take a little logic to understand, but it’s all right there in Briffa’s original statement. The request for a bad review is there (while the caveat that you seem to think is understood clearly is NOT there). The revelation of the content of another reviewer’s review is there (invalidating your explanation for the “confidentially” in the request). Briffa is guilty as sin, and you know it. Not only of attempting to bias Cook’s review, but of violating the same “confidentiality” that YOU claim he is trying to remind Cook of.
“Regards,
“Trevor”

Open Office is java which is a butt ugly, it’s the reason why it is free. Since Oracle now will own Sun,java will soon become the Pascal of the future.