What is it that people like so much about motorcycles? The thrill/excitement/freedom of riding them, the 'biker image' portrayed in movies, or great songs such as Little Honda by the Hondells? I'm not a biker per say, but I do have a couple of motorcycles, and am a known associate
Discovery Channel's Shark Week starts July 5, 2015 - and I've created a special SAS map & graph of shark attacks in North Carolina to get you in the mood for their week of shark education! But first, to get you in the mood for my blog, here's a picture
One of my earlier blogs on handling percent (%) values in SAS was very popular (it's been viewed over 34,000 times!), so I thought I'd write a similar blog on handling time (mm:ss.ss) values in SAS ... This past weekend I was in a dragonboat race (that's me in the
Every year rowers get faster, records are broken, medals are won, but can this trajectory continue? Rowing as a sport lends itself well to data analysis and at the British Rowing Sports Science and Medicine Conference earlier this year I shared some insights the rowing community has gleaned from the
I saw an interesting graph on dadaviz.com that claimed Italians had gone from drinking twice as much as Americans in 1970, to less than Americans in recent years. The data analyst in me just had to "independently verify" this factoid ... But before I get into the technical part of this
Would you rather see a list of the world's 50 best roller coasters, or an interactive map? (... how about both!) Before we get started on this ride, here's a picture of my friend Jennifer's daughter, getting an early/young start on riding roller coasters (she's in the back, with her
You may be intrigued to know how the average person compares to a gold medal winning Olympic athlete when it comes to things like height, body mass, resting heart rate, arm span, body fat etc. Or, perhaps more frightening, how you measure up? I know this will resonate with my
You might be surprised at how many movies and TV shows are made in North Carolina - especially within the last few years. This blog provides a SAS graph that will make the list of films even easier to read! A recent story by the Tar Heel Traveler, and an exhibit
Katherine Grainger paid a heart-felt tribute to the support staff who have been a pivotal part of her success in her opening speech ahead of last month’s World Sport Science and Medicine conference. The event was hosted in the UK jointly by British Rowing and FISA, the international rowing federation. “My career
North Carolina is one of those lucky states that has a huge variety of scenic destinations, such as mountains, piedmont, coastal plains, beaches, and 'outer banks' islands. We have state parks in all of these areas, but can you guess which state park has been trending the most during the past
I recently read an article that listed the 100 best restaurants in the US - but the article didn't have a map. I decided to use my SAS skills to change that! When it comes to restaurants, I eat out a lot (and by 'a lot' I mean I never
In sports these days, there's a lot more data to keep track of than just the score! How can you make sense of it all? Being the Graph Guy, of course I recommend graphing it! Here's an example that's up close and personal for me - dragon boat racing... Below
In a city built on hedging your bets, it is fitting that the Analytics 2014 conference kicked off Monday in Las Vegas with a look at all the unscientific ways people try to predict the future. John Elder, Founder and President of Elder Research, Inc., entertained the audience with examples of how
What age women do men prefer on dating websites? - Let's have a look at the data... When I first started using computers in the early 80s, I thought it would be great to have everyone take a survey, and then let computers show you who your best matches were.
It’s a great time to be a sports fan – and an even better time to be a sports and data fan as these two worlds continue to meld together. For the last couple of years nearly every conversation about sports, analytics or both had to have at least one
If you're a SAS user, chances are you're a bit of a science/technology/engineering/math nerd -- and also a fan of The Big Bang Theory. Therefore this SAS analysis on The Big Bang Theory should be right up your alley! Yesterday (September 22) was the start of the 8th season for the TV series,
After the 2014 FIFA World Cup, one thing’s clear: here at SAS, we love football (soccer in the US!). To wrap up the popular 2014 World Cup data visualization series on the SAS Visual Analytics Community, we created a presentation that’s chocked-full of interesting insights. From the trillions of pieces
When I started working at business analytics leader SAS, I had no idea I’d be helping the Great Britain Rowing Team plot their way to Olympic glory. While I haven’t, yet, got in a boat and started rowing, I have started working with them on how they can make better
In this blog post, I put some classic rock song data under the SAS Analytics microscope, to see if I could get a better picture of exactly what is considered 'classic rock' these days... Michael Raithel recently pointed me to an interesting article/study about 'classic rock' music, and invited (or is
Michele Ensor recently posted a wonderful blog with a graph of the 2014 Winter Olympics medal count. I'm going to further refine that graph, making it an Olympic graph ... on steroids! :) Here is Michele's graph: First, let's give it a few simple cosmetic changes. I always like to have
Over the last few years, the main qualifications for a general manager of a sports team have changed dramatically. Gut feel and experience have been replaced by analytical insight and predictive modeling. If Billy Beane started the trend with his Moneyball approach to team building, GMs like Daryl Morey (Houston
Every day of the year is an official 'national day' for something - here's a SAS chart to help you find which bizarre 'national day' falls on your birthday! I recently read an article that lists weird and unconventional national days. It was very interesting, but I found the data
Are you an NFL fan, or curious about analyzing social media data? -- Well, in either case, this blog's for you! I recently read a fascinating Facebook article that included a U.S. county map showing which NFL (U.S. football) team had the most 'likes' in each county (based on ~35 million
A big part of "winning" these days (be it sports or a business) is performing analytics better than your competition. This is demonstrated in awe-inspiring fashion in the book (and movie) "Moneyball." And on that topic, I'd like to show you a few ways SAS can be used to analyze sports data
Everyone in the world has their attention turned towards the Olympics this week, so what better topic to tie in to a SAS/GRAPH blog than that?!?! I had seen a graph on the guardian website that I thought was interesting, so I decided to try to create my own (slightly different)
