“Ebrary? Oh, yeah, I think the university where I teach has that, but I wasn’t interested so I never looked into it.” So said a young professor today when I mentioned ebrary. I actually had looked into it years ago when I worked at a different university. It was all right but I could only…
I forgot how old I was for a while. Someone asked me how old The Rocket Scientist is and I said 57, then I had to think how that could be when he is three years older than me. So, yes, I will be 55 this year. I guess turning 54 happened when I was…
Wednesday, I went to a workshop, Mixed Models for Professors. It was a combination of discussion of the mathematics of mixed models, using SAS Enterprise Guide and examples for teaching. Since I was too lazy to actually take notes, I just tweeted it. Three useful pieces of advice, even if you don’t like my notes:…
“I’m XX years old and I’ve never used (insert any statistical technique here). Why do I need to know this?” I’ve heard some version of the above on every topic from linear regression to structural equation models, and at every age from teenagers to executives in their sixties. I’ve even made comments like that myself….
As anyone who reads this blog often knows, a. I like Chardonnay b. You need to get a life c. The purpose is for me to write down stuff I want to remember later. Serendipitously, this often turns out to be stuff other people would like to know as well. If you teach statistics ……
It never ceases to amaze me that intelligent people will spend huge amounts of time doing a literature review, designing elaborate theories, generating elegant hypotheses, selecting a three-stage stratified random sample, performing multivariate analyses, and their measures on which this brilliant study rests are some questions they made up with their three best friends over…
On twitter, where I probably spend too much of my time, Dave Winer suggested that start-ups write about themselves, thus cutting out Tech Crunch as the middle man. Since Dave wrote the original blogging software and the first blog on the Internet (really!), his advice is worth considering. So, this week is all about our…
I’m working on the latest two proposals for federal funding for our computer games while sitting by the fire in a ski resort in Vermont, which is funny because I have never skied in my life and don’t intend to start now. I’m meeting with two people who we would like to have begin working…
I have colleagues who hate Excel with a passion. Why, they demand to know, would ANYONE use Excel for statistics when there are so many options that are so much better? Actually, I don’t find the Excel add-on for statistics that terrible, but that isn’t even the topic of this post. I use Excel because…
“Arthur: If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it? Ford: We’re safe. Arthur: Oh good. Ford: We’re in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet. Arthur: Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.”…