Re: st: Re: A new package.

[Rose Medeiros <rosem@cisunix.unh.edu>]

Ronnie,
Thanks for the suggestion, do you have a recommendation for a publisher?
Also, thank you for your more serious comments on the command. I will 
implement your first suggestion, the second is a little more 
interesting. After getting a couple of emails about this issue, I opened 
a new session of Stata and tried it myself (when I was writing the ado 
file, I reran it enough times that this behavior wasn't apparent). What 
I find is that for the first 9 or so times I use the command I get the 
same two quotes, after that I start to get other quotes. In the first 9 
runs, I always get quotes 1 and 6. There are actually 7 quotes in the 
current file, to randomly select one of them I use the following :
local r = round(uniform()*10,1)
(Note: I realize that multiplying by 10 is unnecessary, but it was 
easier for me to keep track of whole numbers mentally while writing the 
file.)
Out of curiosity, I reopened Stata and looked at the first 10 numbers 
generated by -uniform()- (I have done this in both Stata 7 and 9). I get 
the following, which is consistent with the way -njc- is acting:
.13698408
.64322067
.5578017
.60479494
.68417598
.10866794
.61845813
.06106378
.55523883
.87144908
All but the last round to either 1 or 6. So this is why this happens. I 
will update the package with some changes that will make this behavior 
less obvious sometime soon.
Best,
Rose


Ronnie Babigumira wrote:


> Rose, nice going (and please keep it updated). May I suggest a 
> worthwhile "next project". A book
>
> Nickisms : The Slate Book of The Wit and Wisdom of Dr. Nicholas J. Cox.
>
> More seriously, i tried out your command and here are some comments
> 1. You should add a line in the help file indicating that typing njc 
> will give one randomly selected quote
> 2 I have only been able to get two quotes after trying 10 times, any 
> ideas why this is happening
>
> If you ever take up the book idea, I will be more than glad to contribute
>
> Ronnie
>
> Rose Medeiros wrote:
>
>
> > It was intended as a bit of a surprise, but the package randomly 
> > displays one of a small collection quotes from Nick Cox. The pkg file 
> > has been updated with information that is also in the help file.
> >
> > And per Kit Baum's correction, the correct command is - net describe 
> > http://pubpages.unh.edu/~rosem/stata/njc  -
> >
> > To access via a web browser, use: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~rosem/stata/
> >
> >
> > Michael Blasnik wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Would you care to tell anyone what this package does?  Strangely 
> > > enough, you don't even describe what the package is if one actually 
> > > uses -net describe-
> > >
> > > Michael Blasnik
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rose Medeiros" 
> > > <rosem@cisunix.unh.edu>
> > > To: "statalist" <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
> > > Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2006 9:56 AM
> > > Subject: st: A new package.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > For the benefit of the statalist community I have put up an new 
> > > > program my website:
> > > > -net describe http://pubpages.unh.edu/~rosem/stata/njc-
> > > > Enjoy,
> > > > Rose
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Rose Anne Medeiros
> > >
> > >
> > > *
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--
Rose Anne Medeiros
Department of Sociology / Family Research Laboratory
University of New Hampshire
126 Horton Social Science Center
20 College Road
Durham, NH 03824
U.S.A.

*
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