There's a fair amount of research on the performance of memory and how our recall of events and things is affected by the very act of being questioned about and actively recalling those memories. Before I relied on this for much of anything, I'd want to see some pretty well controlled studies on just how accurate it is. For example, they should put the test subjects under some kind of stress, have them look at the person they will have to describe and have sketched, then put them in front of the software (do a control group using traditional sketch-artist techniques, while you're at it. You should be able to do an objective evaluation of the accuracy of the sketch by mathematically comparing it (using existing algorithms developed for facial recognition) to determine just how close the resemblance is.

The e-mailer says: "if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC..." (emphasis added). "Say" sure sounds like he's free-handing it to make it fit better. Where does he ask "what do you think might have caused this blip"? Where does he in anyway try to determine what's caused it? Perhaps there's more e-mails in there where they struggle with this issue, trying to figure out what's really causing the blip. But they sure don't do it here.

He says he chose the .15 degC figure "deliberately" and then explains the consequences of that choice... but all of the consequences are focused just on how it still leaves a blip, because he thinks "one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip." The next sentence, about other blips showing a land blip of 1.5 to 2 times the ocean blip, fits a bit with your theory, but he doesn't appear to be calculating backwards from the 1.5 to 2 times figure, he doesn't seem to have applied any particular adjustment formula that can be consistently applied to all blips. He just thinks that this one particular blip should be adjusted by .15 degC, to make it fit better.

Sure sounds like he's free-handing it to me.

While we're demanding completeness, let's look at this quote from the e-mails (that's not a pinpoint cite to the comment; you'll have to search for the text):

Phil, Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this. It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.

When you read a large number of the e-mails, it becomes clearer and clearer just how much their data must be massaged and adjusted in order to reach the results they have. I don't say that their adjustments are good or bad, simply that the mere making of so many free-hand adjustments reduces the possibility that their conclusions are in fact correct. It's very hard to tell, without digging into the raw data which they won't release, how much of the claimed warming is really real, and how much shows up only because of the assumptions and conclusions and adjustments they have chosen to use.

Got nothing to do with experiments in progress. Dr. Phil Jones, the head of the organization whose e-mail was hacked, once said:

Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.

They are hiding behind alleged confidentiality agreements they supposedly have with scientists who, according to them, provided some of the data. But they won't even so much as identify, as best I can tell today, those scientists, so that the data could be requested from them directly. Scientists who refuse to release raw data when serious questions are raised about their conclusions are not real scientists, and their work is entitled to no credibility whatsoever. As for due time, the House has passed an enormous "cap and trade" bill based on the conclusions of the global warming scare crowd... these scientists who refuse to release their data. I've got no problem waiting for more research... so long as we don't enact massive tax increases and other major interference in the economy while we wait. They are the ones demanding immediate action, however, so they have no right to say "let's wait for more data and more research" before releasing the data which they claim supports their fatalistic conclusions.

Part of the problem is that the global warming proponents whose e-mails were hacked have REFUSED to release the data upon which they rely. In fact, the e-mails discovered are chock-full of references to their efforts to fight against any disclosure of much of their data. Other e-mails routinely discuss efforts to manipulate and massage the data to account for various political difficulties the data are causing them. For example, one e-mail discusses using a particular modifier to minimize a warming "blip" in the 1940s, without making the "blip" go away entirely, because it appears in both the sea temp and the land temp data. So you're right, e-mail isn't data. But that cuts both ways, and in this case particularly hard against the global warming fear-mongerers.

YOU should really read the patent. It claims:

A computer-implemented method, comprising: associating a sparkline with a location in a document to provide a visual representation of one or more data values included in the document; associating with the sparkline a data source within the document including the one or more data values;

That's part of Claim 1. Here's Claim 6 in its entirety:

6. A computer-implemented method, comprising: associating a sparkline with a location in a document to provide a visual representation of one or more data values included in the document; associating with the sparkline a data source within the document including the one or more data values; generating the sparkline by generating the visual representation based on the one or more data values with a matrix of points to be presented at the associated location in the document; presenting the sparkline at the associated location in the document; and configuring the sparkline to be regenerated when one or more of the data values in the data source change.

Putting a graph in-line with text. What a really novel concept! In fact, sparklines, as described by Prof. Tufte, are primarily for the purpose of being included in a particular location in the document, in-line with other text. There's no novel "method" of doing this presented. The flowchart for the process given in the illustrations provided with the application is the same as any flowchart for dynamically presenting data in graphical form: generate the chart; look to see if the data has been changed; if yes, change the chart and regenerate. Frankly, I don't see what the patent covers that's any different from what MS' charting functions already provide. The examples given with the patent all show data embedded in a cell (which would be a welcome change, and perhaps is novel), but the text of the claims simply says "a location in the document" and surely current Excel charts are placed in some location in their document, though not actually within a cell. If the novelty is the method for embedding graphs generally in a cell, then that would really need to be spelled out more, and of course the "sparklines" label would be inaccurate.

Yes, since I was providing the link, I didn't list the specific details in my summary. And yes, running over somebody while driving drunk is vehicular homicide, a different crime, which carries a substantially lesser penalty. Accidentally shooting someone while illegally trespassing on their land would probably be classified as manslaughter under La. law, which covers both intentional killings made in the heat of passion (i.e., you catch your wife in bed with another man, snap and kill them both... but do it right away; if your blood has time to "cool" before you shoot them, it'll be murder) and killings made accidentally while in the course of committing any felony not listed in the murder statutes or any misdemeanor "directly affecting the person." If you hit somebody with you fist, say, that's simple battery, a misdemeanor directly affecting the person. If the guy falls down, hits his head on the edge of the coffee table, and dies, then you're guilty of manslaughter. Trespass is generally a misdemeanor, and probably wouldn't be considered to be "directly affecting the person," so your second example would probably be negligent homicide, but only if you were grossly negligent.