Writing a presentation for WUSS, I had to fill out the usual check box for the intended audience: Level of programming expertise: ___ Novice __ Intermediate __ Advanced and I started wondering when exactly does someone stop being a novice? One answer is that your programming no longer LOOKS like it was written by a…
When I was in high school I had a very defined career path. I told anyone who asked me (which was very few people since no one cares what a high school kid thinks) that my career goal was to be president of General Motors. I even applied to the General Motors College. (Bet you…
A large part of my day is spent playing with new software and trying to break it. Yes, there are actually grown-ups who get paid to do this for a living. I find it hard to believe myself. The theory, which actually works well, is that whenever someone has a question about something he or…
A miracle has occurred and I have had time to spend evaluating two things that have been on my to-do list forever, JMP and SAS Enterprise Miner. Both of these products are produced by SAS and the first interesting point is that knowing SAS won’t really help at all. That isn’t to say that having…
You know those give-aways you get at conferences? The favorite one I ever saw, which I did not get because they had run out of them, was a magic wand. It was wand-shaped, with sparkles floating inside, they had a vase full of them with a note that this was the magic wand some people…
If I had time, which I don’t, I would start a series of how-to articles for statistical software and copy the Car Talk scale they use as a guide for whether or not you should attempt a job yourself, from a. There are two kinds of screwdrivers ? to e. I have built a working…
In my copious spare time, of which I have none, I occasionally get the urge to actually read technical books from beginning to end. I think my life took the path of most grown-ups in my field. You get a degree, or two or three or four. Perhaps during the course of that, but certainly…
For the first time in two years, an application came in my email for a technical position from a person under 30 who was an American citizen. This isn’t because I don’t look for people. I have talked to lots of young people I know who are pretty good with computers and asked if they…
I try very hard not to laugh at a student in class, no matter what he or she says. One day, I was talking about the Kinsey Report finding that, by their mid-twenties, one out of every four or five males has engaged in a homosexual experience to the point of orgasm. I pointed out…
On my way back from Tunisia via Paris I ended up in a redneck dive bar somewhere in Georgia reading the New York Times on my Kindle while the lady next to me asked the very drunk waitress if she knew who had won at NASCAR this weekend. This sounds like the beginning of a…