Principal Component

Wow... it is 12:22 AM Monday, December 10th. Finals start next Monday, which means that this is the final week of class! Fortunately, Thursday is the last official day of class, making Friday a "reading day." Hooray for reading days. My Stat 336 (6.0 credit hour class-of-death) class is held MWF from 9:00-11:00 AM, which means that Wednesday will be my very last time in that class! Hallelujah! I've spent many hours today (Sunday, actually) trying to do an analysis of a huge set of data. We were given 11 pieces of information on 196 subjects, but we were never told what any of those measurements actually represented. Just a bunch of numbers put under the categories, "x1", "x2"... "x10", and "y." We were supposed to be able to create an optimal model for predicting "y" given new measurements "x1" through "x10." Well, there are about a million different things one can do to analysis data and create a model, but we haven't learned quite enough to successfully (and confidently) overcome problems such as multicollinearity, influential observations and outliers. Sure, we've learned how to DIAGNOSE the problems, but our knowledge of remedial measures are slim.

Why do I bring any of this up? Well, I just finished my own 13 page "analysis" ten minutes ago and Suzanna is asleep in the other room. My mind would never let me relax enough to go to sleep without at least getting some closure with this project. I think I'll be able to relax better now that I've kind of talked over the things that have been occupying my attention for the last who-knows-how-many hours. Too bad I didn't have a blog this summer when I finished reading Harry Potter #7 at 3:00 AM. I took a LONG time falling asleep that night (morning?) after finishing. The ending was riveting and oh-so appropriate. I felt sad, thinking that my adventures with Ron and Hermione and Harry had come to an end.

Anyway, I wish there was a way to post attachments. If I could figure it out (if possible), then I would post a copy of my nasty analysis so anybody interested could look to see all the fun code I had to do. Maybe as a teaser, I'll include a little here...

\begin{comment}
<>=
plot(2:9,rs$cp,xlab="No. of Parameters",ylab="Cp Statistic",main="Cp Statistic Plot")
abline(0,1)
@
\end{comment}

The Cp statistic graph in Figure 3 shows that the optimal number of parameters in the model is 7. Thus, we \emph{will} use a model without those three variables above mentioned.
\begin{figure}[tbh]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=3in]{cpstat}
\caption{Graph of the Cp statistic.}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

It doesn't look as cool as plain text. I have to type all the stuff in a wordpad document and then run it through a program called "R" (a statistical software program) using a function called, "Sweave." Then I use LaTeX (a typesetting program) to turn my .tex document into a fancy PDF file. In the end it looks great and professional. Having to figure it all out at the beggining of the semester was a headache. I feel like I've learned a ton this semester, and not all of it being pure statistics! Hah!

Thanksgiving

Silly... I don't get this blogging thing. I had just finished my first post when I tried to change the font and the whole thing disappeared! Apparently there is no such thing as ctrl-z in the blogging world. I'll try to recreate what I already wrote, but it will probably be shorter...

So Suzanna and I had to talk in church today. Brother Slater (counselor in the bishopric) called on Wednesday night as I had just finished playing basketball and was driving home. Had we played just a few minutes longer, I would have missed the call and perhaps we wouldn't have had to speak. After talking it over with Suzanna, we decided that we would, indeed, speak on Thanksgiving and gratitude (though I was not particularly grateful for the opportunity as so many people claim to be when they stand to give a talk). The Sanford's (who spoke last week) had four weeks to prepare, and we had less than four days, but I didn't mind, since I didn't want to stress about it too much. Unfortunately Suzanna and I have very different ways of preparing and giving talks (maybe it's a good thing). She likes to write everything out ahead of time so when she gives it she can just focus on doing the delivery. I don't write everything out, so I find that I always back myself into a corner with my words and I can't find my way out. That happened today once.

Adam and Amber (D'Agostini) came and sat next to Mom. Jeff and Shauna came as well, but they arrived just as Suzanna finished her talk. They have a bigger ward and were expecting the Sacrament to go until about 25 after the hour, but Suzanna was already speaking at about 20 after (or so). They had to run out early to make it to meetings by 10:00 as well, so we never actually got to talk to them. I feel like it went well. Suzanna did exceptionally well. She is amazing!

For my talk I decided to get a little history involved. I searched "Thanksgiving" on Wikipedia and found an interesting article. I was expecting more about indians and corn and muskets like I was taught in elementary school, but what I found was also interesting. Go look it up if you're interested. It turns out that at a place called "Berkeley Plantation" is a historical site where George W. Bush spoke last Monday. I liked his words. Here they are:

"In the four centuries since the founders of Berkeley first knelt on these grounds, our nation has changed in many ways. Our people have prospered, our nation has grown, our Thanksgiving traditions have evolved -- after all, they didn't have football back then. Yet the source of all our blessings remains the same: We give thanks to the Author of Life who granted our forefathers safe passage to this land, who gives every man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth the gift of freedom, and who watched over our nation every day." -President George W. Bush.

Amen, President Bush. I thought it to be rather inspiring that our nation's President expressed his faith in and gratitude for God. I like that characteristic in a political leader. Obviously the founding fathers had great faith in the Almighty as well, and aren't belief in Him and desire to worship as we choose some of the main reasons for the movement to America and the fight for freedom?