SAS Analytics :Google Earth and Lex Jansen’s Site

Google earth stores values into KML files . These are almost like XMl file formats. The zipped versions of the KML file is the KMZ file .(It beats me why Google Wanted to create a zipped file format for KML ,since most KML files are extremely small).

To do any geo-coding analysis with Google Earth, here are two SAS papers from Lex Jansen’s terrific site.

1) 

Put Your Customers on the Map: Integrating SAS/GRAPH and Google Earth
(http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2008/252-2008.pdf)

Daniel Kuiper, Koen Vyverman (SAS Global Forum, 2008-03)

 

and

2) Using SAS and Google Earth to Access and Display Air Pollution Data

(http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2008/253-2008.pdf)
Joshua Drukenbrod, David Mintz (SAS Global Forum, 2008-03)

 

These two papers are great in the way they use Google Earth for geo coding analysis and visual representation. They however require SAS to be licensed with you.

Lex Jansen ‘s site is generally considered the de facto site to search for analytics especially related to SAS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Book

The great Bob Muenchen, is coming with the very good updated version of the R for SAS and SPSS users book— in September 2008 to help people learn R , if they have used only SAS or SPSS before.We first covered the earlier edition of the book here.The book adds sections on R Commander, Rattle and JGR as well as two chapters on graphics ; one on basic stats. The author runs the examples and walks though them explaining each step, especially where the results differ from SAS & SPSS. Check the new book here-

http://www.amazon.com/SAS-SPSS-Users-Statistics-Computing/dp/0387094172/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217456813&sr=8-1

LinkedIn Groups

Linked In groups has a new policy- maximum number of groups you can join is 50. .As a relief they created a leave group button which enables many LI groupies (like myself with 184 groups) to pare down the list. This closed down a loophole by which many open networkers used to send bulk requests.

In addition to that group moderators can message individual members with more ease due to changes in the user interface. You can message people who have requested to apply for membership and you now have a block member button as well. All very convenient for moderators. There is however one feature that Continue reading “LinkedIn Groups”

NYT thinks India is rattled after the blasts

Sent to The NYT Editor- After a headline that said ” India rattled after blasts” to describe a series of blasts that killed 60 people in two days of consecutive blasts.

Subject: Unsolicited Submission From an Unknown, Unrattled Indian

Dear NY Times.com  Editor,

I am glad you used the word rattled to describe India, a nation of 1
billion people. The size of the headline was (placed in More News)
just above
“At Baseball Hall of Fame, Links Are Cherished” and one fourth the
size of the 15 people killed in Istanbul. Still we are grateful we
managed to catch your attention, as the saying goes.

Perhaps you would be more interested if it came to your attention that
the 14 page email that came minutes before the second blasts in the
second city in India, was written from the home of an American
citizen’s family. The male was and is a member of “an IT firm ” but
claims his computer was compromised. He had family and two daughters.
Maybe he is a private contractor paid by some one. Maybe the
terrorists have grown better at email tracking than India (Sabeer
Bhatia who created the world’s first well known email site, hotmail.com is
also an Indian. I dont know if he is rattled reading this.) Maybe we
deserve this after we turned helping President Bush for more troops in
2004 for the Iraq invasion, disagreeing with some of the projections
on costs involved. Please do search your online archives (vinod Dham
who led the Pentium project was a Indian. Still is. If not blown away
emigrated or rattled) But that would get a better headline I suppose.
Blasts were aimed at Indian market places and nearly 50 terrorists
were involved. Desperate acts of desperate men. We refuse to
fingerprint Muslims as we have the world’s third largest Muslim
population.I am sure you meant they were equally rattled.We prefer to
eat at McDonald’s , watch “The Dark Knight “, write code and help you
pay your bills and customer support queries.Bombing is not our forte .
Being bombed is . Your Jaipur Blasts headline read “India Bombed” . I
am sure you had good intentions. We are an older civilzation than
Judaism, have perhaps the only mainstream pagan religion (Hinduism)
and founded three religions (Buddhism,Sikhism,Hinduism). We created
the decimal system two thousand years ago. If only Christopher
Columbus had taken a right turn rather than a left turn to India, your
world would be different.
Yes we deserve this silent , impotent , and confused rage (not to
forget rattled). we stand silent as your President sanctions 230
million in new F 16’s to Pakistan for fighting terrorists and suicide
bombers, one day we pass a critical legislation enabling us to be
strategic US allies and place our civilian nuclear facillities under
IAEA. Maybe we should blow a cooling tower instead. Still we will
reach our offices today, slip on our headphones and ask you how we can
help you today. Lou Dobbs gets a bigger headline when he mocks us
rather than when we get rattled.Someday however the world’s freest
democracy will be a more emphathy and fair weather friend to the
World’s largest ,occasionally rattled democracy.Maybe we will win the
outsourcing contract for the war on terror. Maybe we will unite as
allies ,as America once used to fight evil enemies.

As an honary American ,Winston Churchill said “You can always count
on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried
everything else”.

Sincerely Yours,
An Unknown Indian who read Nytimes.com since the past thirteen years.
Written on an operating Sytem Software worked by few thousands of
Indians from an American email provider with hundreds of Indian
employees.
In better ,unrattled times.

To retrieve this email from your inbox ,please contact customer
support. Listen closely to the accent.Was there a rattling noise when
customer support said,”Hi , My Name is John. How may I help you”

iwannacrib.com- All the news thats not fit to print,click,spin.