People's processor

This article talks about China's homegrown CPU, Loongson (dragon chip).

Using Stata with a make file

This blog describes how to run Stata via make files.

This one describes how to use make with LaTeX.

Interesting Chinese blog

This Chinese blog is really interesting.

RGedit

RGedit is A plugin for Gedit to run R script.

Something about cloud computing

Here are some helpful discussions on cloud computing, with special emphasis on statistical computing.

Adding margin note

To add a margin note to a LaTeX document, on can use:
-------------------------
...
usepackage(marginnote)
...
\marginnote{This is a margin note here.}
...
-------------------------

EpiData, now runs on Linux

EpiData is something I used long time ago for data entry. It was a Windows-only application at the time. Now it has evolved into a multi-platform application, which got my attention again.

MCMCglmm

This R packages estimates Generalised Linear Mixed Models via MCMC. It provides a number of random error distributions and can be used for multivariate multilevel models (simultaneous equation model).

I will do some tests and compare the results to other packages.

This package has the potential to become the ideal modeling tool for multilevel and multiprocess analysis for Bayesians, just as aML and Sabre for non-Bayesians. I have been hoping the new JAGS can have much improved performance with similar models, but I don't know when the new version (2.0) will be out. I will be interesting to conduct a benchmark test between aML, Sabre, GLLAMM, MCMCglmm, WinBUGS, and JAGS on some complicated multilevel multiprocess statistical models.

Unlike aML and Sabre, MCMCglmm seems to be under active development.

6 Different Ways To End Unresponsive Programs In Linux

This article explains how to deal with non-responding programs under Linux. As always, there is more than one way to do it.

A course worthing taking

This Bayesian statistics course seems worth taking.

Random effect logistic model using WinBUGS

Here is an example.

After the Software Wars

This is a really good book, and it is available as a free PDF download.

Monkey's uncle

This is an interesting blog with information on R, LaTeX, etc.

Demography package

This package seems useful for demographers.

A new demography journal

The Open Demography Journal.

JAGS

Looks like a minor bug fix release of JAGS is out. I wonder whether the planned new major release will have some facilities to handle skewed distributions.

OpenMx with mixture distribution support

A new version of OpenMx is out; this time it comes with mixture distribution, according to this announcement. I can't wait to test the new features out!

Chrome for Linux (beta) is out

I wonder why it took so long.

Sciviews

I was finally able to get Sciviews (most of it) work on my Linux machine. As before, I got some error message when opening the R terminal for the first time; by ignoring the error messages and manually install several "sv" packages locally (into my home directory), I was able to get Komodo Edit to communicate with R. But the unit test part of the package still does not work.

I mainly use Emacs (via ESS) with R, but sometimes it seems to be more convenient to have a dedicated window open for R instead of a buffer. It is less important on my new Workstation which with screen resolution of 1920*1200, but old habits die hard.

By the way, ESS has been updating like crazy in the past couple of days, from 5.6 to 5.7, then to 5.71.

By the way, I wish Sciviews can have syntax highlighting for BUGS programs.

Math in OpenOffice

OpenOffice Wiki has a section showing all the math commands.

Linux on flash drive

If I don't want to carry my Linux mobile workstation around, I can order one of those Linux flash drives.

The animation package

The "animation" package is a good teaching tool to demonstrate some key concepts in a introductory statistics course.

Two more R related web sites

1. R bloggers
2. Free statistics e-books
3. Planet R
   

Advances in Social Science Research Using R

This seems to be a book worth buying: http://www.springer.com/statistics/business/book/978-1-4419-1763-8

It will come out in May 2010.

Cool photo gallary: operating systems

http://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/_english/os-screenshots.htm

R information

http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr/index.php?

Initialize ubuntu packages

I did not know this before: http://www.linuxeden.com/html/newbie/20091204/69367.html

R2admb

I gave R2admb a test run and found it quite promising. The design is simple: to have a simple interface between R and ADMB so ADMB can get input from R and can send output back to R for further processing. This does not eliminate the trouble of writing a TPL file, but makes everything else much simpler. I hope this package gets polished and get into CRAN soon. I am sure it will help more people to get to know ADMB in the same way as R2WinBUGS help people use WinBUGS and R2jags help people use JAGS.

Get the right Linux driver for my Brother printer

I've been having trouble with my Brother HL-5370DW. It prints fine under windows but not under Linux. Eventually I figured out how to solve the problem:

1. Get the right driver from the Brother driver page: http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html#HL-5370DW
2. Download the PPD file instead of any binary files
3. Feed the PPD file into the system

And how it works flawlessly.

Another benchmark test: Ubuntu vs. FreeBSD vs. OpenSolaris

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=freebsd8_benchmarks&num=1

Parallel BUGS

http://metruminstitute.org/