Not being able to move much, I have spent a lot more time lately in the company of my 11-year-old daughter, and that is not a bad thing. She started Algebra this year and she commented to me, “You know, when I read this stuff, like Y = 3x +5 and what is Y if…
I work three jobs, just to prove that there really is such a thing as a workaholic. I work full-time at a university, part-time teaching a class at another university and own a consulting company called The Julia Group. If you count being a full-time student as a job, then I have worked at least…
Went to the “See it in SPSS” event at the Westin Bonaventure this week and, as always, it was well done. The two most interesting parts, based on a non-random sample of one, i.e., me, were: What’s new in SPSS (besides the fact that it is now called PASW and owned by IBM)? And the…
You know how some days everyone just seems put on this earth for the express purpose of getting on your last nerve? Well, today was the opposite of those days. Even before I got to the WUSS (Western Users of SAS Software) in San Jose, I was surrounded by smart people. My wonderful colleagues at…
I have way more pictures of buffalo than the normal person. I guess that comes from working for 19 years on the reservation. After reading on GigaOm about the $28 billion in rural broadband access, I decided I wanted to write a post on Internet access in rural communities, specifically, the data we have on…
The NIH stimulus grants were supposed to be announced in August. Many people I know have already been turned down, no surprise since there were 10,000 applications for 200 grants. I checked on grants.gov last night and our proposal has been assigned a panel with a review date of 10/2009 which is very weird since…
“I try to take it one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked me at once.” If Erma Bombeck wasn’t really the first to say that, she could have been. I shouldn’t complain. Part of my overly full days are that I have one more child than Erma did and the same…
“Is there anything you can do to help? I’d kill you but there is a law against it. You’d better leave before I figure out a way around that.” This comment was made by a co-worker of mine who had saved all of the data for his thesis for a masters in computer science on…
Statisticians should not listen to talk radio or to anything on the Fox network. Those people who say that you can prove anything with statistics are mistaken. You can prove anything with statistics to people who don’t understand statistics. I think some of those same people you can prove anything to with a box of…
Being a Type-AAA personality, in addition to running the Julia Group, I have a ‘day job’ as a statistical consultant at a university where the communications people shudder as they walk by me. (I love the title of the book Molly Ivins Can’t Say That Can She? Simply because it reminds me of the reactions…