Links and some stuff I find interesting

Finance Related Sites

NCSU Finance Group Website

Obligatory Finance Links

My Finance Blog is here

STATA links and tips

I am a big fan of STATA. Here are a few sites that I find useful.

If you are working with really big data sets, or you are running very memory hungry routines, and having stata memory problems, this page may help.

STATA website The FAQ page is pretty useful

Mitchell A. Petersen at Northwestern has a great site on programming in stata with particular focus on standard error estimation and clustered standard errors. http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/petersen/htm/papers/se/se_programming.htm

University of Wisconsin-Madisonhttp://www.ssc.wisc.edu/sscc/pubs/stat.htm

UCLAhttp://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/default.htm

Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/statalist/(doesn't get much use)

Linux Resources

Linux has come a long way in recent years. I run linux most of the time. You can run pretty much all of your favorite apps either natively (using a linux version or equivalent) or with the help of "wine" a program that lets you run windows apps in linux. The most significant things that you won't be able to do in linux is use Itunes or play some games.
A great linux distribution is Ubuntu You don't even have to repartition your hard disk - you can install from windows and then boot directly to it using WUBI. You won't be running linux from inside windows, instead the installation will reside in a windows folder. The great thing about WUBI is that you won't make any permanent changes to your hard drive. If you don't like it, you just uninstall like any other windows app.
There is tons of help available for Linux. The Ubuntu Forums are a great place to get help. You can also use this free guide to ubuntu
Why would you want to use linux? 1. No viruses, or bad stuff. Not because people don't write them, but because the architecture of linux makes it very hard for bad things to get installed on your hard disk without your permission. 2. Its free! 3. Support is fantastic. You can get an answer to virtually any linux question within minutes. 4. It is super stable. Apps may crash, but the operating system is very solid. 5. You can run a 64 bit O/S and access more memory (see my comments on this regarding running Stata here)

Amusing Stuff

Can't understand what I say in class?
Read this: http://english2american.com/

Personal Stuff

Gig & music reviews..see my blog
Currently getting heavy rotation on my ipod
Bloc Party - A weekend in the city
Cracker - Greenland
Arctic Monkeys - Your favourite worst nightmare
British Sea Power - The Rise of British Sea Power
The Libertines - no website as they pretty much broke up
Franz Ferdinand
Muse - Absolution
Camper Van Beethoven - New Roman Times
Pixies - Anything by them - although I the live recordings of their recent shows (including Raleigh) are amazing.

All time favorites:
Cracker
Radiohead
White Stripes
The Clash
The Damned

Other notable mention:
Sleater Kinney
Jeff Beck
QOTSA
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
Sigur Ros

Guitar Stuff

Guitars:
 

Dean EVO Special

Fender Strat

Ovation

Taylor

Line6 Flextone Plus

Vox 

Free recording software: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Cool software specifically for guitar (not free): http://www.sonomawireworks.com/

Good music websites
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/ http://www.catscradle.com http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/C1074

http://www.archive.org The internet archive - contains a large data set of live music recordings - search for your fave band.