Robert has worked at SAS for over a quarter century, and his specialty is customizing graphs and maps - adding those little extra touches that help them answer your questions at a glance. His educational background is in Computer Science, and he holds a BS, MS, and PhD from NC State University.
A lot of tourists flock to North Carolina. We have beaches, wreck diving, and lighthouses. We have the Great Smoky Mountains with whitewater kayaking, colorful fall leaves, and snow skiing. We have hot air balloon festivals & Scottish highland games. Oh, and some of the best barbecue you've ever tasted! But
I recently saw an interesting PEW study showing the percent of each state's revenue that came from federal funds. They had some pretty nice graphs ... but just like jell-o, there's always room for more graphs, eh! Let's start with the map. Their map had an informative title, a reasonable gradient
When it comes to economic activity, a handful of the largest metropolitan areas in the US account for lion's share. In 2013, the top 23 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) accounted for 50% of the total US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). I recently came across a map created by Alexandr Trubetskoy
Employment - that's been a hot topic here in the US lately. Many of the manufacturing jobs we had in past decades are gone now, and it would be great if there was a crystal ball to predict which jobs might be at risk of disappearing in the future. The
A lot of my friends seem to be getting married these days. Which got me thinking about wedding parties. Which then got me wondering what songs DJs do/don't play at weddings these days. And what was the outcome of my meandering thoughts ... a fun & interesting graph, of course! It
My previous blog post focused on a graph, showing the % of women earning STEM degrees in various fields. While that graph was was designed to answer a very specific question, let's now look at the data from a broader perspective. Let's look at the total number of STEM degrees
For the past several years, efforts have been under way to recruit more women into the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. I recently saw an interesting graph showing the percentage of bachelor's degrees conferred to women in the US, and I wondered if I could tweak that graph
Carbon Dioxide ... CO2. Humans breathe out 2.3 pounds of it per day. It's also produced when we burn organic materials & fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas). Plants use it for photosynthesis, which in turn produces oxygen. It is also a greenhouse gas, which many claim
Choosing great colors for a graph is sometimes the most difficult part. And here is yet another thing you need to worry about ... sometimes colors represent different things in different cultures! In this blog post, I improve a graphic to help you get a grasp on those color-to-culture relationships.
Here in the US, we typically use top level domains such as .com, .gov, and .org. I guess we were one of the first countries to start using web domains in a big way, and therefore we kind of got squatter's rights. As other countries started using the web, they
There have been several polarizing topics throughout history, such as religion & political affiliation. And for software developers there's one more biggie ... tabs -vs- spaces! Which group is right? Perhaps the opinion of the better programmers should have more weight(?) Is there a metric we can use to determine whether
If countries have a similar median age, does that mean they are also similar in other ways? My best guess at an answer is - probably. Perhaps if we plot the data on a map, we'll be able to see the answer more clearly. I first started thinking about this
When I was in college, I lived in the Alexander dorm, where each room had an American student and an International student. I learned a lot about the rest of the world, and I also heard a lot of different languages being spoken. I'm really impressed when I hear people
If you were a fan of the original Star Trek television series, you probably remember lots of little details about the show. And you might even feel sorry for the people who don't get the clever references you make to things from the show. If you're that person, then you'll
This past weekend, I was a volunteer helping with an Ironman 70.3 race. I was really impressed & inspired by the athletes ... I was also excited about the quantity and variety of data generated by this type of race (compared to a regular marathon). And as a 'graph guy' I
As a kid who grew up in the 60s & 70s, I was a big fan of the original Star Trek TV series. And in the years since, I have seen lots of the Star Trek “technology” become a reality: cellphones, portable tablet computers, talking computers (Alexa/Siri), etc. But I
To stack the deck means to cheat or to fix something so a desired outcome is achieved. This term originated in card games, but can also be applied to other things. And here, I apply it (both metaphorically and literally) to creating a better graph! I recently saw the following
North Carolina is a very diverse state - especially when it comes to outdoor recreation opportunities. This weekend you could go hiking or kayaking in the mountains, watch a hot air balloon festival near Raleigh, and go wind surfing or fishing at the coast. And if you've got your SCUBA
These days, more and more people move to where the work is. And for many people in Europe, that 'where' is Germany. I recently saw a map of Germany, that showed which country had the most foreigners living in each area. It was an interesting map, but I thought I might
In recent years, solar panels have become much more economical, and therefore more popular. But because of the curvature of the Earth, the angle at which you need to install the panels varies, depending on where you live. In this example, I demonstrate how to visualize this kind of data
The US unemployment rate was down to 4.4% in April, which is the lowest we've seen since before the big recession (about 10 years ago). But a single number seldom tells the whole story, so let's look at unemployment data in several different ways, to get a more complete picture...
I guess a coding dinosaur is someone who uses an old/legacy computer language, or at least a language that isn't en vogue these days. Coding dinosaurs are still around (and probably will be for a while), whereas the real dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago are extinct. What caused
An idiom is a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. For example, "don't cry over spilled milk," or "the cat is out of the bag." Idioms are fun to use, and fun to hear - don't you agree? And
Water is in the news more & more lately - people seem to either have too much, or too little, at any given time. Therefore being able to plot rivers and lakes on a map could be a very useful skill to add to your graphical bag of tricks. A few
While attending SAS Global Forum, a user asked me about creating a map with a zoomed inset map. This is a topic many users might be interested in, so I decided to create an example and share it. But first, I had to decide which map to use. I thought
I recently saw an interesting data visualization on the flowingdata website, which analyzed & compared the causes of fatal crashes in the US, by month and time-of-day. At first I thought it was a really cool visualization, but after I studied it a while, I realized that I had misinterpreted
In the aftermath of a natural disaster, most people want to help by donating supplies, money, etc. And then it becomes a matter of logistics - getting all those donations to the people who need them. We recently had several days of rain and flooding in North Carolina, and I
If you're a SAS programmer, you have likely used loops in your SAS code to make life easier from time to time. In this blog post, I demonstrate a few ways you can use loops to do clever things in your graph code. Perhaps even the old dogs can learn
Building cars is towards the top of the manufacturing hierarchy - some countries are even known for the cars they build. If you want a good quality car, you probably think of Japan. If you want a stylish sports car, you probably think of Italy. If you want a diesel
You've got a database containing the addresses of all your customers ... but how can you plot them on a map or analyze them spatially? First, you'll need to convert the address into a numeric coordinate (latitude & longitude). SAS can do that ... with Proc Geocode! But before we
