Trying to Make Sense of Data

R-studio…one word, Wow!

Admin — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:30:54 +0000

Finally…an R IDE that truly delivers! Get ready to un-install whatever you’ve been using, and install R-studio. I’ve been using it for a month and it’s simply amazing.

http://www.rstudio.org/

I’m back to using JGR…

Admin — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:55:13 +0000

I decided to give JGR another chance about 2 weeks ago to see if it had sorted out its “crashing” problem. I’ve been using continuously since then and I have no issues or complaints to report! As such, I fully endorse it once again. Best simple text editor for R…IMHO.

Emacs (and a bit of JMP 9.0)

Admin — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:06:48 +0000

I recently had a comment on Emacs being a pretty good text editor. I’ve been using it on and off for about three months (sorry I haven’t posted any reviewed…my daughter hit the terrible two’s at three and she’s been a handful!).

Emacs is a very good text editor but the learning curve is incredibly steep!!!!!! I had to have a colleague who used it extensively in grad school install his install on my laptop, and teach me a few execution commands. Overall, it may be great for hard core R programmers (of which I consider myself one) who want to let everyone else know that they’re hard core programmers, but I’d rather spend my time learning/developing new R procedures than learning another language that will allow me to execute R commands. The plain ol’ text editor in R works just fine for me.

BUT, with that being said, I’m a beta tester for JMP 9.0 (of which I’ll write a post about in the near future) and beginning with JMP 9.0 they will be fully integrated with R.

NOTE: Those who aren’t familiar with JMP, visit they’re web-site and check out some of their software videos. My guess is that you’ll be impressed.

JMP’s aready-in-place and very good text editor for JMP scripts (of which I am a HUGE fan) allows you to execute R commands right from JMP. So chances are that I’ll switch over to JMP as my all-one-stop programming place. PLUS, you can now write extremely elegant front end GUIs to R directly from JMP (and make them menu options in JMP).

JMP is relatively inexepensive by software standards, and very popular in applied statistics circles, so this new integration and ability to build classy looking GUIs has the potential to make R even bigger in certain industries…but more on this in a later post.

JMP 9.0 Press Release

Dangerous Ideas…#11 Allow Infant Euthanasia

Admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:06:42 +0000

Big Think has posted some EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL big ideas, the big whopper of which is to allow infant euthanasia. Not a subject on statistics, but what the heck…it’s my blog and I’ll post whatever interests me. Enjoy, but be ready to be weirded out by some of the ideas presented.

From NYT: Android Beats iPhone With New Subscribers

Admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:25:57 +0000

I found this interesting article (and more importantly graph) which shows the shares of operating system acquirers for the last six months. I’m an iPhone owner and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but the recent hype behind the Android (and the flak behind iPhone4) seems to be putting Apple on the offensive.

A Free Book! Introduction to Probability and Statistics Using R

Admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:20:47 +0000

G. Jay Kerns is offering a free download of his book Introduction to Probability and Statistics Using R. As it states in the link, “This is a textbook for an undergraduate course in probability and statistics. The approximate prerequisites are two or three semesters of calculus and some linear algebra. Students attending the class include mathematics, engineering, and computer science majors.”

I’ve already downloaded and after a quick glance looks to be very good…and did I mention, IT’S FREE!

Enjoy.

What Does 184 Million Gallons of Oil Look Like?

Admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:30:12 +0000

CNBC had this great image bringing into focus what the total amount of oil spilled into the Gulf due to BP’s rig. It does a great job of giving some tangible idea of what exactly is 184 million gallons relative to the Gulf Coast.

“If The Gulf Was A Football Stadium…

If the Gulf of Mexico – the 7th largest body of water in the world, containing approximately 660 quadrillion gallons of water (that’s 660 with 15 zeros) – was represented by Cowboys Stadium in Dallas – the largest domed stadium in the world – how would the spill stack up?

In this example, the amount of oil spilled - if the Gulf of Mexico was the size of Cowboys Stadium – would be about the size of a 24 ounce can of beer.”

My only complain is why they had to pick the friggin’ Cowboys (yes, I am an Eagles fan)!

David H. Blackwell dies at 91; pioneering statistician at Howard and Berkeley

Admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:57:42 +0000

I just recently heard the news that this giant in statistics had recently passed.

Article

JGR and Tinn-R…don’t really like either

Admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:41:49 +0000

So I used both JGR and Tinn-R for approximately 2 months (1 month JGR, 1 month Tinn-R). JGR seemed perfect at first UNTIL it started crashing on me just at the WRONG time. Luckily I save my work often, so I didn’t lose any serious amount of work, but had I not…I would have died. Needless to say that although I found it easy to use and valuable, the constant fear that I’d lose my work was too much on the anxiety front.

Tinn-R….forgetaboutit! Waaaayyyyy too much going on. It’s a great text editor if you have the time to sit there an learn every nook and cranny…I just didn’t have the time. I imagine it’s excellent once you figure out what all the buttons are for.

Oh, and I’ve used Eclipse as well…and it’s a nightmare to download/update, etc.

So I’m back to the regular ol’ text editor that R provides. It got me through grad school, so it’ll have to do until I come across another text editor worth trying.

Please feel free to let me know if there’s another one out there to try.

Free On-line Math Courses at MIT

Admin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:19:21 +0000

If anyone is looking to brush up on their Calculus, Linear Algebra, or Differential Equations you can now do so for FREE! Complete video lectures direct from MIT. I went through the Linear Algebra lecture last year, and am currently doing the Calc ones (I had forgotten how much fun Calculus is). For those old timers (and newbies) who want to brush up on their math skills, there really isn’t a better (i.e. free) way.

MIT Math Lectures