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…
or why, despite shootings in Tuscon, terrorism by the Taliban, the expanding concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest 1% of Americans, the implosion of Detroit and every movie Michael Moore ever made, I still remain hopeful. I was depressed this week, until I remembered The Black Swan and Volcano. The otherwise forgettable…
All my programs are working today and I am sad. Fortunately for everyone else, but unfortunately for me today, SAS has increasingly automated or semi-automated fixing those errors. It’s unfortunate for me because I wanted to talk about errors and how to fix these. I could create a simulation dataset but I hate doing that….
I really did not have time to write this today, but two articles I read made me drop what I was doing. First was the Wall Street Journal article by a Yale law professor who says Chinese mothers are superior because they produce more mathematical and musical prodigies. The reason, she says, is because none…