AP and NICAR — they’re both my home
Returned yesterday from my third time at the Computer-Assisted Reporting conference — this time in St. Louis. Like clockwork, I talked myself out of a voice, as I do every year. But this year — it was...
View ArticleTeaching Materials from NICAR 2012
I had the sincere honor of presenting at NICAR 2012 in St. Louis for the second year in a row. I provide the takeaway materials here, if you find them useful. Bring Your Mapping Dreams to Fruition —...
View ArticleOn launching BIG projects — and gaining confidence
Wow, another post where I point out that I haven’t written for months. A lot has been accomplished. I wanted a job where I learned. DONE. I’ve been at The Associated Press for almost nine months now —...
View ArticleLearning to love…grep (let the computer search text for you)
I’ve gotten into the habit of posting daily learnings on Twitter, but some things require a more in-depth reminder. I also haven’t done as much paying as forward as I’d like (but I’m having a TON of...
View ArticleLearning about teaching at Code With Me
“How do I get started doing the kind of work you do? It just seems so…hard.” I hear this comment more than I’d like, and I always find my answers dissatisfactory. “Look things up on the Internet. Find...
View ArticleLearning to love…namespacing (advancing code organization)
Before I can settle down to work, I feel the need to clean my apartment. All the dirty dishes go in the dishdrain. The blanket goes behind the couch. Miscellaneous dust is vacuumed. The physical space...
View Article“Is there a Strunk & White for code?”
In my last post, Lisa Williams asks in the comments: “So is there a Strunk and White for code? I’m teaching myself, and I know things like my indentation and the like must be all screwed up, but I...
View ArticlePassing another milestone…
Today is August 22, 2012. On August 22, 2011, I stepped into an AP building as an employee for the first time. This day marks one year with The Associated Press, all the more important because I’ve...
View ArticleElection 2012: What I learned making an auto-updating results map
“I had a dream, in time gone by…” of playing with the “big kids” on Election Night. I thought it’d be fun to pass that time in Washington, DC itself. I thought making an auto-updating results map would...
View ArticleMy newest side project: I’m doing it “For Journalism”
The pipeline problem The Mission. Why I wake up every day. To do good work. I live in the intersection of data, journalism, technology and policy. Earlier this week, when deciding what to attack next,...
View ArticleEYEO Festival: Solidifying what I am, and what I seek to become
I have five languishing drafts in this blog’s admin interface. One is an unfinished euphoria about the EYEO Festival from last August, when I discovered some amazing videos online, opening my eyes to a...
View ArticleLearning about… algorithms and machine learning with ONADC
Algorithms. It’s a fancy word for something I do every day, and you should, too — Getting the computer to do your bidding. Okay, it can get a little more complex than that. But not much. I’ll back up....
View ArticleSPJ JournCamp presentation wrapup: “Drilling into Data”
Hello, everyone. Greetings from a quick stopover in a busy day in the AP DC bureau, which I’m using for its nice air conditioning, plus a quick update. I just gave a session at the Society for...
View ArticleLearning about…pushing the envelope when paying it forward
Me: “I think I talked too much on my panel yesterday.” Colleague: “Maybe that’s WHY you keep getting invited to panels.” Me: “Oh.” I talk about The Mission (of data journalism) and paying it forward...
View ArticleWrapping up ONA13: Learning to own who I am
Last week, I didn’t sleep much. I mean, that’s every week, but I slept *less* then. After several near all-nighters preparing for epic workshops for the Online News Association’s annual conference in...
View ArticleA letter to my 15-year-old self, celebrating life’s lessons
“What would you write if you would write a letter to your fifteen-year-old self?” asks the latest prompt from j-carn, a blog carnival I like to participate in occasionally here. When I was fifteen, I...
View ArticleSharing knowledge with knowledge-lovers
Hello again, dear reader! It’s been a long time again. Where does the time go? I’ve been trying an experiment for well, months now. If I engage with the community a bit less, and care for my own...
View ArticleEmbarking on a study of refactoring — what I’m learning and why
I finally no longer feel strange when someone calls me a programmer — I have learned to own it. It’s taken me the better part of five years to feel that way, but here we are. At the end of 2011, I...
View ArticleTeaching at Medill!
I’ve been in very much a learning space at work, even moreso than usual (writing my first test-driven and object-oriented Ruby code these days), and I am thankful to be in a place where I can learn and...
View ArticleThoughts on “Refactoring”– Chapters 1-3
I wanted to remember to blog about what I’m learning by reading Martin Fowler’s “Refactoring”, but I fell behind. No apologies, just moving forward from here. I’ll conflate what I’ve covered so far...
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