February 2012
8 posts
3 tags
How a beginner used Python to interact with the...
Updated with some corrections/clarifications from Paul Tagliamonte, who hacked on the newly-released python-sunlight library and blogs here.
Updated with new code snippet to use terminal input to search for campaign contributions to legislators and write to a csv.
A little less than a year ago I tried to play with the Open States legislator API, and with a bunch of help came away with a simple...
Link via Nieman Journalism Lab: The newsonomics of...
Publishers, distributors, aggregators, and networks all want more money, and they’ve seen — courtesy of tablets and All-Access — that consumers are now more ready to pay for digital content than ever before.
via niemanlab.org
Reading this post from Ken Doctor — which focused a lot on digital television content providers like Hulu, Netflix and the like — makes me to wonder...
2 tags
From John Keefe - Making GOP primary maps the...
Election geeks, you are in luck. For the second time, Google plans to offer free, real-time election results, allowing anyone to tinker and play with hard-to-get voting numbers.
It’s for the Nevada Republican caucuses this Saturday, February 4, and even if you have no connection to Nevada, it’s a chance to experiment with live results like the Big Guys. Make a map. Mash up some...
2 tags
freeDive from the Knight Digital Media Center...
The Knight Digital Media Center is offering a tool called freeDive, which is a wizard to “create user-searchable databases in minutes” based on a Google spreadseet.
Best of all it’s opensource and free.
The wizard uses the Google Visualization API, Google Query Language, JavaScript and jQuery, and outputs an embed code. It was built by Len De Groot and Scot Hacker.
The wizard...
January 2012
13 posts
3 tags
Google Group user John M. posts script that brings...
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I’m not aware of a straight-up-set-it-and-forget-it sync between a Google Spreadsheet and a Fusion Table. But using the script and setting a trigger to run the script will get you close though.
John’s script will allow you to update a Fusion Table from a spreadsheet.
Then you can trigger the script in time increments by setting up a trigger, but there are still...
3 tags
ScribbleLive adds moderated writer role,...
The difference between a writer and a moderated writer: the latter is not allowed to publish directly to the blog. Instead, each post they produce is placed into a moderation queue.
via blog.scribblelive.com
Live blog and chat platform has rolled out a couple solid features for users.
The new permission level — moderated writer — fills a solid need. You don’t want to think too...
3 tags
Been waiting for a way to use a form to submit...
Updated: A Fusion Tables Google Group user posted a script that eliminates the need for a form. I wrote about it here. It allows you to update a Fusion Table from the Google spreadsheet. You still need to trigger it, but it works well.
Among the many feature requests/issue tickets for Google’s Fusion Tables and the API has been the ability to submit information to Fusion Tables via a form,...
3 tags
Link: 10 Lessons for Newsrooms: On Accuracy and...
It’s easy to point a finger at a student news site that published inaccurate information. It’s humbling to see the managing editor there take responsibility and resign. It’s harder for the pros who run established newsrooms to look in the mirror and acknowledge where we’ve made mistakes. Harder still to share those lessons with our staffs and our community.
via Carl Lavin: The Business of News
...
Wisco's real-time recall underway...?
Thanks to the Government Accountability Board’s Beta Webcam, I can watch — but not hear — folks processing recall petitions in real time… If only we could program some kind of counter that displayed when a signature was approved and when one was rejected.
We’ll save that for the next time around.
1 tag
Link: A completely arbitrary list of takeaways...
Problems I would love to have to talk about: What is the career path for a developer in a newsroom? There isn’t one right now. Who will be the first to hire a developer as an assistant managing editor or above? I ache for the day we have to discuss this instead of the scarcity of talent. I long for the day when we have to debate turning over editorial strategy to someone who came into the...
Say what you will about text messaging, but can't...
A text message I received last night while asleep… I’m left with so many questions…
Is it something I did?
Is there someone else?
Is that you don’t know how to spell irritated, but know it when you feel it?
Oh, and here’s one… who are you?
1 tag
It's always interesting to see what happens when...
No time for cheaters
by Chris Keller
In the April/May issue, Thomas Kunkel asks in Above the Fold if the pressure of a non-stop news cycle or the pressure to produce more news with fewer resources has anything to do with the increasing instances of fraud, fabrication and plagiarism in the industry.
As the editor of a weekly newspaper who covers the school board, police and six high...
5 tags
Beginners walkthrough of Google Fusion Tables...
Thursday — at Hacks/Hackers Chicago — I’m lucky enough to be able to help lead a beginners’ walkthrough of using Google’s Fusion Tables to create wicked-fast maps of data points and merge data points with geographic shapes for mashup maps.
I say lucky, because a year ago this time, I didn’t know how to do any of this. But thanks to some detailed tutorials — which I’ve tried to link to...
1 tag
Ghosts of playoffs past linger in potential Green...
As a Packers fan looking over the NFC playoff field, there isn’t a single team that I look forward to seeing as an opponent. There are too many potential interlopers into this quest for back-to-back Super Bowl titles … too many chances for other teams to come at the king.
The Saints are an obvious team to want to avoid. They are hot, they are playoff tested, they can score and they have the...
3 tags
Paul Bradshaw walks us through importing RSS into...
During some training in open data I was doing recently, I ended up explaining (it’s a long story) how to pull a feed from Delicious into a Google Docs spreadsheet. I promised I would put it down online, so: here it is.
In a Google Docs spreadsheet the formula =importfeed will pull information from an RSS feed and put it into that spreadsheet. Titles, links, datestamps and other parts of...
2 tags
Tracks of Life: Was it the end of an era or...
Note: It’s interesting to look back at this now, some six years since I wrote it. First, I was finally able to see — and boo Favre — in person the second time he came back to Lambeau Field as a member of the Minnesota Vikings.
But more importantly, to me at least, is knowing that today — Jan. 2, 2012 — the Badgers are appearing in their second straight Rose Bowl game and fifth since the 1993...
Saving up for a rainy day?
So our little cat — Little Brother — really like to play fetch with the fuzzy pom-pon type balls that you’d put on a child’s winter hat.
When I went to the shelter to find the cat that came to be known as Little Brother, I brought one of the balls with me, and he loved playing with it.
Now, we’ll lay in bed, toss the ball of the door and down the hall, and he’ll dive from the...
December 2011
8 posts
2 tags
I got 99 reps to scrape so I learned me some...
Updated: I’ve added some excellent information and knowledge from Ryan Pitts, who took the time to walk me through a couple things on a Saturday morning. Much thanks.
In getting ready for the 2012 elections, and politics in general, it makes sense to grab data and information about Wisconsin’s state senators and state representatives.
With last summers senate recall elections, I had...
1 tag
I don't doubt this thought for one second...
Journalism still hasn’t found it’s Steve Jobs. He likely got laid off as a middle manager for being different. #wjchat
— Yuri Victor (@yurivictor) December 29, 2011
Especially given the number of middle managers and journalists given their walking papers since 2008.
2 tags
Looking back at 2011 and wondering how I got to...
For the first time in my nine years with Lee Enterprises my annual review falls inside the tidy boudaries of the calendar year. This means I finally stand a decent chance of escaping the Pavlovian responses to August and September, and find my sense of a “new beginning” coming when the calendar flips to January.
So, as I look back at my first year with madison.com (ok, 11 months) it’s difficult...
