After spewing my guts out all night in an episode tragically unrelated to alcohol consumption, I spent a sick day in bed or behind the computer trolling through the forgotten corners of the internet. And look what I found! A ternary diagram plotter, which meets most of the specifications I asked for earlier this year. So if anyone else is interested in free 4 component 3-D plotting, check out CSpace. So far it looks pretty nifty to me.
In the process of looking up information on edGCM, the educational version of NASA's General Circulation Model 2, I found out that they now charge $250 bucks.
What the fuck?
The whole purpose of this project was to provide a transparent, accessible climate simulator, so that people who are wary of trusting their future to voodoo climate models can actually download one, pick apart the code, and see how they work.
Only now, it costs hundreds of bucks to do so.
What kind of moron expects that skeptics who think global warming is all a hoax are going to shell out this kind of money? Or indeed any money at all? Convincing people that it was even worth a mouse click was hard enough, but this is fucking absurd!
In fact, putting it behind a paywall plays right into the hands of the conspiracy theorists, who will point to this as a coverup attempt.
So did Columbia sell the entire project to Marc Morano to cover their budget shortfalls? Or did they simply donate their brains to science (presumably nanotechnology)? With friends like these, who needs denialist shills?
Edit: Also, GCM stands for "General Circulation Model", as the Goddard site attests. Revising the acronym to "Global Climate Model" makes them look like they have no idea what their own product is.
