Donna — thank you for that cascade of primary sources. To my shame I'd forgotten about NASA – at least for earth-directed matters.
Here in England we have the Met (Meteorological) Office as a more digestible source of climate statistics – at least for the 14-18 age group: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/climate-and-climate-change/climate-change/index which has further links. The advantage of the Met Office is that it's not the website of a campaigning organisation, which could in principle be trimming its figures to fit its outlook. The Met Office has an overriding mission to forecast the weather accurately. Period. > Students should be made aware that actual climate models are more complex than could run in TABULA because they would otherwise be skeptical of any results reported. I would have thought this goes without saying. But maybe it doesn't…? It's not so long ago that people were apt to believe anything they saw in print. I suspect that this attitude didn't go away, but simple went a bit hazy in a world of cheap abundant print. Maybe the modern version is this? – "you gotta believe anything programmed into a computer." If so, then any teacher of science has a hard fight on her hands. Because what she'll be invited to teach is not science, but a sort of new-age religion: let's call it scientism. Cross-your-fingers the teacher herself knows the difference. I collect examples of scientism. Like "do you *believe* this model?" – Sorry, a model is just that: a model. Not a god: to be believed in. Or again: "Once upon a time people believed UVW. But now we *know* it's XYZ" – Sorry, the next generation will be saying "Once upon a time people believed XYZ. But now we know it's something else". I like the way Stephen Hawking treated this issue in A Brief History of Time. Science doesn't stay still. But scientism cries "Stop! We've arrived!" A model-building tool like TABULA is value-neutral. But as you talk to the class about improving the model, it should become clear to all but the thickest, most bigoted student it's not written on tablets of gold. But… yes, I know… some kid is going to put up his hand and ask "Why don't you give us the RIGHT model?" You could build entire systems of education around the possible answers to that question. There's also a line of argument which runs: leave it to the experts. Don't dabble in ideas which are too big for your silly cotton head. If the leading model runs on a Cray, then don't be so presumptive as to run one on anything less. This, to me, turns a mere laboratory into a temple, with exclusive rights to commune with the godhead. It is to foist scientism on the next generation, in lieu of encouraging independence of thought. There are gender differences in people's attitudes here. Purely cultural ones, I hope, which may vanish in a generation. Meanwhile, back at the TABULA coalface… 1. As it stands, the addon: math/tabula is written in jqt and relies heavily on its features. But math/tabula is only a shell on top of math/cal, and the hollowest of shells at that. Given time, better javascript skills plus an army of helpers, I'd implement a JHS-based version. This would make it feasible to replace a major credibility black hole (the table of constants, UUC, which has no mechanism to reveal its sources) with the direct import of values from reputable webpages. I've already prototyped this approach by importing up-to-date exchange rates for a handful of currencies from the European Central Bank. So I know it works as a proof-of-concept. I've not included it in this version of math/uu for a host of itty-bitty practicalities which only complicate the release of the app, if you don't actually need the feature. 2. Like Excel, TABULA doesn't allow circular updating. Adding this facility would give it seven-league boots when it comes to building models and simulations. I don't need to be told how to do it: there's almost too many possibilities. But all the ones I've prototyped rely on clicking a tool in the toolbar to take the model to the next "epoch", as simulation modellers call it. It's basically the same principle as SAMPLE - the built-in un-numbered sample that you can (re)load by simply typing '$'. In place of "plot" in line {5} there's a function called "transfer" which, on receipt of some message or other, pumps a value back up the arrow. That message could be issued by a timer, of course. Or a slider, or simply the movement of the mouse on the mousemat. Does anyone have an idea how they'd like the facility to look? 3. Another idea, based on the same SAMPLE, is to link the t-table to an animated picture. In a way, the Plot package already does this, plotting {2} {3} {4} against {1} as a line chart. I have in mind a more general picture, which would follow the values in the T-table (and vice-versa) – wheels turning, sprites moving through space, vessels filling up. What I'm looking for is a sufficiently flexible scheme for the non-expert user to customize herself. A browser like Safari will show a svg graphic: these things are basically xml which is fairly easy to compose and to animate using just J. Another possibility is to program the plot package itself, which I'm told can draw elaborate free-form pictures in a gl2-sort of way, although I've never seen examples. This has the advantage that it needs no exotic middleware like Flash, in fact no supporting software that's not already a well-integrated part of TABULA (or JAL). Can anyone point me at illustrative examples? (Read my mind…) Ian Clark ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
