Visually based storytelling takes time and, relatively, a massive effort. We need to change that … by changing the machinery of our newsrooms so that these story forms can be produced quickly by teams that include reporters, visuals experts and technical experts. With practice, we can slash the time it takes. And we can make the work we’re doing now seem old-fashioned.
The top one looks like KK from that video game…
If you are looking for a person, or want to update family and friends on your status if you live in the Boston area - Google has created the Boston Marathon Explosions Person Finder.
The source code for the Person Finder is open source. You can browse it here.
Open Heat Map lets you upload a spreadsheet and generates a heat map. Easy!
Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life?A: He could, if he used the debugger, but it’s tedious to step through all those variables.Q: Why does God allow evil to happen?A: God thought he eliminated evil in one of the earlier revs.Q: Does God know everything?A: He likes to think so, but he is often amazed to find out what goes on in the overnite job.Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?A: If an critical error occurs, the system pages him automatically and he logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until tomorrow.Q: Did God really create the world in seven days?A: He did it in six days and nights while living on cola and candy bars. On the seventh day he went home and found out his girlfriend had left him.Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended?A: That was the development phase of the project, now we are in the maintenance phase.Q: Will there be another Universe after the Big Bang?A: A lot of people are drawing things on the white board, but personally, God doubts that it will ever be implemented.Q: Who is Satan?A: Satan is an MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he actually possesses, so people who aren’t programmers are scared of him. God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant.Q: What is the role of sinners?A: Sinners are the people who find new an imaginative ways to mess up the system when God has made it idiot-proof.Q: Where will I go after I die?A: Onto a DAT tape.Q: Will I be reincarnated?A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And searching those .tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you, God will just say that the tape has been lost.Q: Am I unique and special in the universe?A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running exact duplicates of you in the present release version.Q: What is the purpose of the universe?A: God created it because he values elegance and simplicity, but then the users and managers demanded he tack all this senseless stuff onto it and now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever.Q: If I pray to God, will he listen?A: You can waste his time telling him what to do, or you can just get off his back and let him program.Q: What is the one true religion?A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just pick the one that best suits your needs and don’t let anyone put you down.Q: Is God angry that we crucified him?A: Let’s just say he’s not going to any more meetings if he can help it, because that last one with the twelve managers and the food turned out to be murder.Q: How can I protect myself from evil?A: Change your password every month and don’t make it a name, a common word, or a date like your birthday.Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true?A: They are much more likely to receive email.Q: Some people say God is Love.A: That is not a question. Please restate your query in the form of a question. Abort, Retry, Fail?
source
The super smart developers at ProPublica wrote a coding manifesto and some data guides this week.
These guides, which live on GitHub, are a fantastic resource for data journalists.
DAYUM!
Sisi is AWESOME and you should flip through this. Press the > button to advance the slides.
Many things go into making a webpage pop up in a browser when you type in an URL or click a bookmark. And many things comprise that page — metadata, styles, scripts and markup — to make it do all kinds of neat and interesting things.
But when it comes time to scrape content from a webpage, it’s…
Ever want to know how many times an article that you wrote or that’s been written about you has been shared on social media sites? After all, it might be the key to getting your editor to give you a raise or to making your client happy.
During Columbia Journalism School’s Social Media Weekend we announced Muck Rack’s newest tool called
AWWWWWW YEAH
Elizabeth Warren = Most awesome human being on the planet.
Wall Street doesn’t just dislike Warren, they FEAR her! I look forward to watching her over the coming years. I just hope the Democratic Party can grow a set and properly back her up! Sadly, there’s been no evidence of those balls for the past 12 years, and our President definitely doesn’t have them.
Oh, you don’t want me to lead your consumer protection panel? Cool, I’ll run for senate and wind up grilling Wall St. there.
I love her.
You’re welcome, America — Love, Massachusetts.