Fake Stata tattoo

We use the statistical software package known as Stata for our calculations.  I'm a big fan.

A few weeks ago I sent an e-mail to Stata's marketing folks that they should get "Stata" temporary tattoos and toss them in with purchases -- just to spread the word.

They wrote me a lovely (handwritten!) letter, thanking me for the idea -- and included a few prototypes.

Here's one:

I wouldn't really get a Stata tattoo.  Probably.  ;)


--GG

Blue Stata t-shirt

Today was "Casual Friday" at work -- so I got to wear my new Stata t-shirt!!!

The photos aren't terribly high resolution -- I have a cheap phone -- but they're good enough.

Regular

Bold

 

The back

Stata is, of course, the statistical software that we use at work.

"Thanks", of course, to Natalie down at Survey Design and Analysis Services (the Australian distributor of Stata), down in the Australian Capital Territory.   :)


--GG

Plus five GeekPoints

The statistical software (Stata) that I use at work runs primarily off the command line and/or scripts -- although you can also work with it through the GUI (the drop-down menus).


One of the cool things that I like about Stata is that if you type "exit" into the command-line window, the software shuts down:  delightfully old-school. I figured that Linux must have something like that, so I Googled it.

And thus, last night I successfully used the command "sudo shutdown -P now" to turn off my PC (running Mint Linux 17).

Woo!!! :)


--GG

Stats bilingual

In grad school, I started off with SPSS. Then for my Ph.D., I used Stata. I used Stata for all my research work since then.

But then at my current job (which I've now been at for more than a year!), I've been using SPSS -- because that's what was available.

And then, **now I have Stata again!!!


Although -- even though in previous posts I've clearly preferred Stata, it's not perfect: there are some advantages to SPSS. Stata maxes out at 1GB file sizes (for non- 64 bit computers), and (unlike with SPSS) you can't display the value **and** the value label at the same time (e.g. if 1=male and 0= female, you can have the percentage tables show "1" and "0" **or** "male" and "female" -- but not both at the same time).

But, I prefer how Stata handles missing values: you can toggle on or off whether you want missings to be displayed -- and you actually have the **choice** to include them in your percentage tables (whereas in SPSS it's not possible to display them.) On Stata, the default is to break on error -- and you can defeat that if you like -- whereas SPSS just plows through the whole script, and there's no way to get it to stop when it hits an error (I confirmed this with SPSS tech support).


And, I think the scripting language is cleaner in Stata. Below is a script in Stata, and then a functionally equivalent script in SPSS.



*IN STATA .

generate isolated_location_YES = Off_Loc_Isol_Recode
label value isolated_location_YES yesoth

replace isolated_location_YES=1 if Off_Loc_Isol_Recode==2
replace isolated_location_YES=0 if Off_Loc_Isol_Recode==1


*Verifying .

tab2 isolated_location_YES Off_Loc_Isol_Recode



*IN SPSS .

compute isolated_location_YES = Off_Loc_Isol_Recode .
value labels isolated_location_YES 1 "Yes" 0 "No, other situation" .
execute .

if(Off_Loc_Isol_Recode=2) isolated_location_YES=1 .
if(Off_Loc_Isol_Recode=1) isolated_location_YES=0 .
execute .


*Verifying .

crosstabs /tables= isolated_location_YES by Off_Loc_Isol_Recode .


Same number of lines; but less typing with Stata.


Anyhow, it's interesting because now that I have both programs at work, I switch back and forth between them. It's like trying to switch between French and Spanish: similar, but with important differences -- such as in SPSS you must end each line with a period; but in Stata, that's an error. Or using ''double equals'' for conditional equivalencies (e.g. if gender equals 'male') in Stata, but single equals in SPSS.


But -- **extra** geeky. So it's all OK. :)


--GG