Author: Ajay Ohri

https://linkedin.com/in/ajayohri

Free Software is Dying Out

When nearly everyone offers products for free (besides Microsoft) or just as downloads, for ad revenue.Linked In has been a pioneer not just in professional social networking , but in its pricing strategy. This has enable it to keep it a very loyal base, beat off lots of challengers , and command a 1 Billion valuation.

I find that sometimes people who charge you a transparent fixed fee , are better than people who sell your identity to lots of advertising companies but charge nothing. Both free pricing (with zero privacy) and expensive monopolistic /early bird premium pricing are bad pricing strategies for retaining customers . Here is much more renowned blog that argues that google analytics is much more expensive despite being free (http://www.mymotech.com/google-analytics-can-be-more-expensive-than-webtrends/)

Legal Copyrights- Some history

Here is an interesting blog post on why software giants like google ,microsoft will be rich foroever. And ironically Microsoft has given away the maximum number of free programs, dlls, extensions,patches. When I mean free I mean really free, they did not sell your identity to advertisers .

”

Back in 1998, representatives of the Walt Disney Company came to Washington looking for help. Disney’s copyright on Mickey Mouse, who made his screen debut in the 1928 cartoon short “Steamboat Willie,” was due to expire in 2003, and Disney’s rights to Pluto, Goofy and Donald Duck were to expire a few years later.

Rather than allow Mickey and friends to enter the public domain, Disney and its friends – a group of Hollywood studios, music labels, and PACs representing content owners – told Congress that they wanted an extension bill passed.

Prompted perhaps by the Disney group’s lavish donations of campaign cash – more than $6.3 million in 1997-98, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics – Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

The CTEA extended the term of protection by 20 years for works copyrighted after January 1, 1923. Works copyrighted by individuals since 1978 got “life plus 70” rather than the existing “life plus 50”. Works made by or for corporations (referred to as “works made for hire”) got 95 years. Works copyrighted before 1978 were shielded for 95 years, regardless of how they were produced.“

How to do Logistic Regression

Logistic regression is a widely used technique in database marketing for creating scoring models and in risk classification . It helps develop propensity to buy, and propensity to default scores (and even propensity to fraud ) .

This is more of a practical approach to make the model than a theory based approach.(I was never good at the theory 😉 )

If you need to do Logistic Regression using SPSS, a very good tutorial ia available here

http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/logistic.htm

(Note -Copyright 1998, 2008 by G. David Garson.
Last update 5/21/08.)

For SAS a very good tutorial is here –

SAS Annotated Output
Ordered Logistic Regression. UCLA: Academic Technology Services, Statistical Consulting Group.

from http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/sas/output/sas_ologit_output.htm (accessed July 23, 2007).

For R the documentation (note :Still searching for R ‘s Logistic Regression ) is here
http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/S/Harrell/help/Design/html/lrm.html
–

lrm(formula, data, subset, na.action=na.delete, method=”lrm.fit”, model=FALSE, x=FALSE, y=FALSE, linear.predictors=TRUE, se.fit=FALSE, penalty=0, penalty.matrix, tol=1e-7, strata.penalty=0, var.penalty=c(‘simple’,’sandwich’), weights, normwt, …)

For linear models in R –
http://datamining.togaware.com/survivor/Linear_Model0.html

An extremely good book if you want to work with R , and do not have time to learn it is to use the GUI
rattle and look at this book

http://datamining.togaware.com/survivor/Contents.html

SAS Fun: Sudoko

Here is a SAS program to help you beat others at Sudoko, and impress people. It was written by a chap named Ryan Howard in 2006, and I am thankful for him in allowing me in sharing this.You can let us know if you find a puzzle it could not solve , or if you tweak the program a bit. The code is pasted below.

Have fun !

And the SAS paper on this was at SAS Global Forum 2007- the resulting
paper, “SAS and Sudoku”, was written by Richard DeVenezia, John Gerlach,
Larry Hoyle, Talbot Katz and Rick Langston, and can be viewed at
http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2007/011-2007.pdf.

(p.s. I haven’t tested this on WPS , they still dont have the SAS Macro language ,but let me know if you have any equivalent in SPSS or R 🙂   )

*=============================================================================;
* sudoku.sas                                                                  ;
* Written by: Ryan Howard                                                     ;
* Date: Sept. 2006                                                            ;
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------;
* Summary: This program solves sudoku puzzles consisting of a 9X9 matrix.     ;
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------;
* Upgrade Ideas:  1. Add a GUI to collect the input numbers and display output;
*                 2. Expand logic to work for 16X16 matrices                  ;
*=============================================================================;

title;
options nodate nonumber;

data _null_;

    *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------;
    * input  inital values for each cell from puzzle                              ;
    *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------;

    _1111=9; _1112=.; _1113=.;   _1211=.; _1212=.; _1213=.;   _1311=1; _1312=.; _1313=.;
    _1121=5; _1122=.; _1123=.;   _1221=.; _1222=6; _1223=.;   _1321=.; _1322=4; _1323=2;
    _1131=.; _1132=.; _1133=.;   _1231=7; _1232=1; _1233=.;   _1331=5; _1332=.; _1333=.;

    _2111=.; _2112=.; _2113=2;   _2211=.; _2212=.; _2213=.;   _2311=.; _2312=1; _2313=.;
    _2121=.; _2122=3; _2123=.;   _2221=.; _2222=.; _2223=.;   _2321=2; _2322=9; _2323=.;
    _2131=.; _2132=7; _2133=.;   _2231=.; _2232=.; _2233=6;   _2331=.; _2332=.; _2333=3;

    _3111=.; _3112=2; _3113=.;   _3211=.; _3212=.; _3213=8;   _3311=.; _3312=.; _3313=.;
    _3121=.; _3122=.; _3123=4;   _3221=5; _3222=.; _3223=.;   _3321=.; _3322=.; _3323=.;
    _3131=.; _3132=.; _3133=.;   _3231=.; _3232=3; _3233=.;   _3331=8; _3332=.; _3333=9;

    %macro printmatrix;
    *----------------------------------------------------------------;
    * print the result matrix                                        ;
    *----------------------------------------------------------------;
       *---------------------------------------------------;
       * Assign column positions for printing matrix       ;
       *---------------------------------------------------;
       c1=1;
       c2=10;
       c3=20;
 Continue reading "SAS Fun: Sudoko"

Review-The Dark knight

The much anticipated sequel to Batman begins- and Heath Ledger’s last movie is evrything you waited for and more. Ledger makes his Joker so very own, you forget Jack ever did that at as funny man. A gaunt looking Batman battles media, politicians ,hype, mafia and Joker to the point you almost feel worried for the caped fellow.

Some references to Telecom companies used for spying, some ground zero like shots of buildings collapsed, some Chinese thugs who steal money, and you wish Hollywood escaped reality and politics. But enter the Joker and he captures the screen space to the point of overshadowing anyone else. Many a critic has predicted Oscars for best actors. Thats for you to judge as you say hello to the Dark Knight and goodbye to Heath Ledger in this most splendid action hero movie of the year. There is no Katie holmes to distract you while the otherwise perfect cast returns with Bale,Caine,Oldman and Freeman to push the franchise forward.

 

The action is breathtaking and unrelenting, the suspense builds up till it echoes the lovely soundtrack and Batman returns as the Dark Knight of Gotham.

Review – HanCock(y)

When Will Smith releases a movie, we all sit up and notice. Apart from the Wild Wild West, the fresh prince of Hollywood has been havings hits after enjoyable hits . Hes got a bit of Denzel looks (and a smaller bit of  the acting), some of Chris Tucker motor mouth (but not too much) and some Wesley Snipes action appeal. He is the perfect leading man as of Today – with no conroversies too. And this time he comes back with an unconventional script ( I ,Robot, -I am Legend…) on a super hero who drinks too much, fumbles his timing,hits on women (!) and generally acts like a ….(Dont call him that !!!) but you need to see the movie at this point.

Charlize Theron is great as the sceptical wife of the Public Relations executive who tries to clean up the man.The move is both a spoof on action heroes and an action hero movie at the same time.Memorable scenes include a drunk and flying John Hancock (well Superman never drank !!) chasing bad guys, a super villian (!) and prison scenes. Enough said.The movie strikes you for the realistic special effects (yes it looks like he is actually flying not swinging by a rope )…and great lovely Will Smith cocky humour.

Watch the movie– its gonna be a cool cool summer and the action heroes are coming back. Bring Em On.