SAS Nerd: Guest Blog by Kirk Lafler

One of my favorite presentations at the recent Western Users of SAS Software conference was presented by Kirk Lafler of Software Intelligence Corporation.  He has graciously agreed to allow me to share his paper “You Could Be a SAS Nerd If…” on this site.  Here are a few of my favorite parts from his paper:

You Could Be a SAS Nerd If . . .
The following scenarios offer you a way to determine whether you could be a SAS nerd. They are real scenarios based on actual events or experiences by the author and/or comments shared by other SAS users. Could you be a SAS nerd? Let’s see.

1. You own every SAS manual ever written dating back to SAS 76.
6. You celebrate January 1st, 1960 with family and friends.
10. Your home page is support.sas.com, sasCommunity.org, SAS-L, or LexJansen.com.
12. You get excited when you find a new match-merge technique that performs better than the one you developed the week before.
18. Your screen name, nickname, or avatar is “Macro Maven”, “SASMan”, “SASGuru” or some other alias containing or referencing SAS software.
21. You have more than one version of SAS on your machine or network so you can compare and contrast program, processing and output differences.
36. With all the different reality shows on television, you wonder why there isn’t one showing the exciting life of a SAS user.

To download the complete paper click here.

Copyrights and Apple Pie

Like all writers (and artists, musicians, software developers, and other creators of content) I am concerned about the problem of copyright infringement. (Here is my previous post about this.)  So I was interested to find out that while I was at the Western Users of SAS Software conference, there was a veritable brouhaha about this issue.

In case you missed it, here is what happened:  A blogger named Monica Gaudio discovered that a post she had written about the history of apple pie had been published by a for-profit magazine named Cooks Source.  (Here is the original blog.)  Cooks Source gave Gaudio credit but didn’t pay her a cent or even inform her that they had used her work.  Gaudio asked Cooks Source to apologize and make a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism.  Cooks Source refused to apologize or make the donation, and even suggested that Gaudio should pay them for editing her work.  When people heard about this, they began to wonder about the source of Cooks Source’s other content.  Using the Web, they quickly found that Cooks Source had lifted articles from Martha Stewart, the Food Network, Weight Watchers, and even NPR.  (Here is the story on NPR.)

Cooks Source claimed that anything on the Web is public domain and therefore free for them to use without compensating (or even crediting) the creators of that work.  This is simply not true.  Virtually nothing written in the last 20 years is public domain.  (Here is an interview with a legal expert on NPR.)

Cook’s Source has now apologized. (Here is their web site.)  However, they have also changed their story and now claim that publishing Gaudio’s article was an “oversight.”   Illogically, they also claim that they are the real victims here.

I, for one, am just happy to see the attention this issue has generated.

Note: The image in this blog was used by permission of the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

WUSS and My 7 Minutes and 39 Seconds of Fame

I have just returned from another great Western Users of SAS Software conference.  Normally at this point I would write a summary of the conference, but this year I don’t have to.   Instead, you can hear my summary in this interview by Sy Truong of Meta-Xceed, Inc.

To hear all of Sy’s interviews at the conference, click here.

See You in San Diego

Tomorrow I will head off to San Diego for the annual Western Users of SAS Software conference.  If you are going, please look for me.  At the conference, I will present a class and a hands-on workshop.

Half-day Class:
Introduction to SAS Enterprise Guide
Wednesday November 3, 8:30-11:30 AM
There is a charge for this class so you must be signed up to attend.

Hands-On Workshop
Introduction to Summary Tables in SAS Enterprise Guide
Thursday November 4, 5:00-6:30 PM
This presentation is part of the regular conference so there is no extra charge.  You can download the paper and data set.