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
In my last blog post, I introduced SAS Visual Analytics for UN Comtrade, which helps anyone glean answers from the most comprehensive collection of international trade data in the world. I’d like to share some of what we learned in the development process as it pertains to big data, high
Last week, Sara Jones shared a list of sample session agendas designed to help you build your personal SAS Global Forum 2015 schedule. But what if there are other areas of interest or topics you’d like to focus on? This is the first in a series of blog posts that
The topic of fracking has been in the news a lot lately - this blog post explores some of the finer points of plotting opinion data related to fracking ... I recently saw the following graph on dadaviz.com. It showed some interesting data, and presented the data in a way
A deep-rooted belly laugh can do so much for your body, mind and spirit. Just the other night, my 15 year old daughter was shredding some items for me so she could earn a little spending money. The shredder indicated six pages maximum, but it really should have said one
The Monty Hall Problem is one of the most famous problems in elementary probability. It is famous because the correct solution is counter-intuitive and because it caused an uproar when it appeared in the "Ask Marilyn" column in Parade magazine in 1990. Discussing the problem has been known to create
Just this morning, the course leader at our newly created SAS Space & Astronomy School told me that they picked up a broadcast signal from outer space. By analysing all the data they have been collecting, they were able to quickly spot a spike in the trend pattern, which helped
It's a common problem: Your organization collects vast amounts and types of data – but it's spread across different departments and locations in various formats and systems. It’s a massive challenge to make all that data available, connected and usable to everyone who needs it. That was the scene at
The other day, I was looking at an enterprise architecture diagram, and it actually showed a connection between the marketing database, the Hadoop server and the data warehouse. My response can be summed up in two ways. First, I was amazed! Second, I was very interested on how this customer uses
This blog post discusses the use of a black background in a graph. But before we get started, I invite you to have a listen to one of my favorite songs - "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones. Perhaps this song subliminally persuaded people to use black backgrounds in
In this edition of our “We Heard You” blog series, we present responses to the surveys you submitted last year with your suggestions and feedback about the scheduling and structural changes introduced in 2014. We sifted, synthesized, and prioritized changes based upon trends and your great ideas! Here are a
There has been a spate of recent high-profile airline crashes (Malaysia Airlines, TransAsia Airways, Germanwings,...) so I was surprised when I saw a time series plot of the number of airline crashes by year, which indicates that the annual number of airline crashes has been decreasing since 1993. The data
In February of this year, the Washington Business Journal reported the US Government appointed its first Chief Data Scientist, DJ Patil. With this, I think it’s now safe to say that Data Science is officially sanctioned as new mode in organizations. Those that can apply the necessary finesse along with
In the Cold War techno-thriller WarGames, a marine monitoring a nuclear missile silo deep under the Nevada desert sees a red warning light blink on his console. “Just flick it with your finger,” his colleague tells him. He does, and the bulb goes out. Problem solved. But what will their
In Microsoft Excel, a PivotTable can help you to create an interactive view of summarized data. Within a PivotTable, it’s easy to adjust the dimensions (columns and rows) and calculated measures to suit your ad-hoc reporting needs. You can also create a PivotChart – similar in concept to a PivotTable, but
Do you ever have stress dreams? You know, where you’re taking an exam for which you haven’t studied, or you’re forced to wait tables in a sea of angry restaurant customers? For many of us, the stress nightmare of the modern era involves trying to make sense of a never-ending
Having spent many years in graduate school, and living in the Research Triangle Park (RTP) in North Carolina, I have a lot of friends from other countries. Therefore when I recently saw some stories & graphs about EB-5 visas (where you invest a cool half-million US $ to bypass the
March is national Social Work Month and this year the National Association of Social Workers celebrates its 60th anniversary of facilitating positive social changes and improving the lives of individuals and families. Social work is a profession that considers the needs of others every day. Individuals who dedicate themselves to
It’s March and everyone is enjoying the madness, at least in the US. We are watching 68 college basketball teams compete for the title of NCAA Champion. Those of us watching get involved by selecting a bracket, that is, picking who will win each game. Some pick their alma mater.
Jim Harris says the question of who owns big data is no longer an esoteric concept – it's a frequently debated topic.
In a noisy distribution environment, hotels are in significant danger of becoming commoditized. Differentiating themselves not only from the competition, but from the third party distributors, will be crucial to maintaining a competitive edge, or even just maintaining profitability. In an effort to connect better with guests, most hotel companies
Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory - hopefully you'll enjoy mine about the number of US E1 visas! I was perusing some of the US government charts, and found one on US immigration visas that caught my attention. It was a 3D bar chart, and since I always mistrust 3D
Thank goodness, winter is behind us! Hopefully it took all the germs with it. I hope you were able to dodge the cold and flu bullets this winter. If not, now’s the time to give your body, immune system and eating plan a refreshing kick start. Starting today, build these
There's "big," and then there is "factorial big." If you have k items, the number of permutations is "k factorial," which is written as k!. The factorial function gets big fast. For example, the value of k! for several values of k is shown in the following table. You can
Increasingly, automotive executives want to talk about the "Art of the Possible" in analytics. So we took the opportunity to invite leaders around the industry to an Automotive Analytics Executive Roundtable to share their stories and spark new ideas. A myriad of diverse speakers covered a variety of topics on big data/Hadoop, the
We had a lot of books at the ENAR 2015 Spring Meeting in Miami last week, but these were the top three bestsellers. Analysis of Observational Healthcare Data using SAS by Douglas E. Faries, Robert L. Obenchain, Josep Maria Haro, and Andrew C. Leon Survival Analysis Using SAS®: A Practical
The best graphs are both beautiful and informative - a smooth blend of art and analytics. But more often than not, the two collide rather than blending smoothly... Here is a link to a artistic infographic I recently saw posted by Vendavo on twitter. Their message (80% of your profit is generated
Parents, In a recent essay in the NY Times, Frank Bruni, op-ed columnist and author, exploded the myth that getting into a highly selective school is the key to success later in life. In line with my recent blog, “Parenting and the Sinking of the Essex”, I would like to
I've been in many bands over the years- from rock to jazz to orchestra - and each brings with it a different maturity, skill level, attitude, and challenge. Rock is arguably the easiest (and the most fun!) to play, as it involves the least members, lowest skill level, a goodly amount of drama, and the
Adoption of Hadoop, a low-cost open source platform used for processing and storing massive amounts of data, has exploded by almost 60 percent in the last two years alone according to Gartner. One primary use case for Hadoop is as a data lake – a vast store of raw, minimally processed data. But, in many ways, because
