I’ve just been hired on a project that uses SAS and I know nothing but SPSS, but I know that really well. Can I come over to your office tomorrow? … so began a very interesting afternoon, where the new employee would show me code that she had written, say VALUE LABELS and ask, “Can…
The first programming language I learned, 36 years ago, was BASIC, followed by Fortran the next semester. A couple of years later, my employer had me learn COBOL, FORESIGHT and M (the successor to MUMPS). Haven’t touched either in decades and of the three, COBOL is the only one that I’m sure still exists. In…
We invest in our 401ks, we need to think about investing in our government. A new way of thinking about investment, from Alan Silverman That’s a great idea. Especially from the point of view of parents who are wanting to have a better world for their children. There is the opportunity to invest locally in…
Remember that old saying that 1,000,000 monkeys on a typewriter would eventually produce Shakespeare? After the equivalent of more than a 1,000,000 monkey-years of text published on the web, so far, no Shakespeare. (For a superb, in-depth discussion of this point, read Jason Lanier’s book, “You are not a gadget”) In very, very, brief, Lanier …
My favorite comic is the one where Dilbert is pointing to a number like 7,345,897 on a slide and saying that he did not have any real numbers so he just made some up because statistics show that numbers you make up are just as good as real ones. A member of the audience asks…
SAS macros (well, any macros, really – Excel, whatever), can be a great thing. While at first glance they may look a bit hairy, if you have repetitive tasks it makes it easier to debug your code. That may sound nuts at first glance. How can adding something with the %global %do &var and call…
I started to write a blog on this topic, but it was too negative (even for me, and I can be pretty cranky), so I deleted it. Then, on Twitter, Jesse Luna asked me what specifically it was that I had a problem with about small business development centers, and that set me off all…
When I got married, I owned two houses. I sold both, using the money to pay off my other debts and pay for my daughters’ college. Even though everyone told us we were crazy not to do it, we didn’t buy another house. As my husband said, “Every house, every condo within miles of us…
Anyone who wonders why there are not more women in technology, not more women startups should read the book, A strange stirring, by Stephanie Coontz about the impact the book The Feminine Mystique had on America. Like Coontz, I read The Feminine Mystique and found it kind of boring, although there were parts that resonated….
If I were in charge of the world, which, sadly, I am not, there would be a requirement that every statistical programmer be issued a pearl like Glinda the Good had, (the good witch in the Oz books). Glinda’s pearl was white if you were telling the truth and black if you were lying. I’d…