now in the stata bookstore

On a separate matter, a friend and regular weblog reader from Bloomington, IN e-mails to say: "Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata has become my bible!" I wish she had sent this quote in time to be a blurb, as the revised edition of the Long and Freese RMCDVUS has just been released, my five complimentary copies were waiting for me when I got back from ASA. The book is updated for Stata 8, meaning among other things that all the graphs were redrawn. Nothing really new in terms of substance has been added, which is why it isn't called "second edition".

I notice, however, they also changed the font on the cover and the cover art. If you squint you can see the difference between the two below:




(Original edition of RMDCVUS, top, and revised edition. Note: actual dimensions of the book are the same. If the book on the bottom appears larger, it is an optical illusion caused by the different art on the cover.)

I liked the old cover better, to be honest. The book is still $52, which is pricey, but printing books with a lot of math and graphs is pricey. If you put together all of the money that I have made on royalties for the book and divide by the number of hours I spent working on it, it still doesn't add up to the current federal minimum wage for me.

BTW, on the side of the book, the Stata Press logo is now in white instead of black. The Stata Press logo is a stylized picture of a soldier getting kicked in the head with a horse.



This is a cute little reference to the early work on the Poisson distribution which involved a study of casualties from Prussian soldiers dying from headwounds caused by horses. If memory serves, the conclusion of the study was that helmets did indeed appear to help.

Ugh, I'm tired and will be going home soon. I feel a little bit like I've been kicked in the head by a Prussian horse myself.