journalism.stanford.edu

compciv.org

General purpose command-line tools

http://www.compciv.org/unix-tools

Computational Methods in the Civic Sphere. General purpose command-line tools. All the Unix/OSX command-line tools we’ve used and a few of their most common usecases. I compiled this list specifically for my Stanford class, COMM 213: Computational Methods in the Civic Sphere. To serve as shortlist of commands needed to complete the homework. It is by no means a complete list of useful *nix commands and programs. And programs like awk. Deserve their own mini-site. Originally, I did not include wget. Forma...

danwin.com

MySQL (and SQLite) for Data Journalists - danwin.com

http://danwin.com/2014/11/mysql-and-sqlite-for-data-journalists

Words, photos, and code by Dan Nguyen. The 'g' is mostly silent. MySQL (and SQLite) for Data Journalists. My first task since joining Stanford was to create the Public Affairs Data Journalism I. A required course for all students in the graduate program. As public records and government workings deserve their own class, I didn’t know for sure if it’d be worth teaching SQL to my students, most of whom hadn’t gone beyond Excel. Because I’m dealing with a variety of operating systems, from Windows XP ...

danwin.com

Lonnie Johnson, the Millionaire Super-Soaker-Inventing Rocket Scientist Who is Trying to Save the World - danwin.com

http://danwin.com/2013/11/lonnie-johnson-the-millionaire-super-soaker-inventing-rocket-scientist

Words, photos, and code by Dan Nguyen. The 'g' is mostly silent. Lonnie Johnson, the Millionaire Super-Soaker-Inventing Rocket Scientist Who is Trying to Save the World. Lonnie Johnson, the inventor of the Super Soaker. This recent headline caught my eye (which reflexively winced from painful memories of point-blank encounters):. Super Soaker creator awarded $72.9M from Hasbro. Not just because it involved one of my favorite pre-video-game toys, or because of the money involved. But that there was a.

danwin.com

Peter Norvig on cleverness and having enough data - danwin.com

http://danwin.com/2013/12/peter-norvig-on-cleverness-and-having-enough-data

Words, photos, and code by Dan Nguyen. The 'g' is mostly silent. Peter Norvig on cleverness and having enough data. I’m reposting this entry, near verbatim, from The Blog of Justice. Which picks out a keen quote from Google/Stanford genius, Peter Norvig, from his Google Tech Talk on August 9, 2011. But I also think about it in the context of people who. The flaw here is, well, if you don’t have enough data (i.e. more than a few thousand data-points or observations), then no computer program...W3rules &#8...

danwin.com

Fran Allen and the social relevance of computer science - danwin.com

http://danwin.com/2014/01/fran-allen-and-the-social-relevance-of-computer-science

Words, photos, and code by Dan Nguyen. The 'g' is mostly silent. Fran Allen and the social relevance of computer science. Frances Allen's biography, as seen on computerhistory.org. If you haven’t read it yet, Peter Seibel’s Coders at Work (2009). The way they do. So in a book full of interviews worth reading, it’s not quite accurate to say that Fran Allen. It’s better to say that Allen is. Allen is also different in that she’s the only woman in Seibel’s book, and understandably, she has a few...I feel it...

sociologymills.blogspot.com

Sociology @ Mills: October 2013

http://sociologymills.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.html

Wednesday, October 30, 2013. Stanford Journalism Goes Digital. Stanford wants coding ninjas like you: Use tech chops to help journalists uncover hidden stories. Right now, work at Stanford University and in the broader Silicon Valley is changing the way stories are discovered, told, and transmitted. That’s why the Stanford Journalism Program. You don't need to be a journalist. You just need the hunger to code for the mission of keeping society informed and holding the powerful accountable. MTS) doctoral ...

padjo.org

Thanksgiving break | Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford University

http://www.padjo.org/2014-11-27

Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford. COMM 273D Fall 2014. Thursday, November 27. Holiday - no class. Tuesday, September 23. The singular of data is anecdote. An introduction to public affairs reporting and the core skills of using data to find and tell important stories. Make friends with math. The joy of text. How to do a data project. Thursday, September 25. Fighting bad data with bad data. Baltimore's declining rape statistics. The Uber effect on drunk driving. Tuesday, September 30. The first ...

padjo.org

Campaign Cash Check | Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford University

http://www.padjo.org/2014-10-28

Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford. COMM 273D Fall 2014. Tuesday, October 28. The American democratic process generates loads of interesting data and insights for us to examine, including who is financing political campaigns. Following the campaign finance money. Competitive U.S. Senate races. Analyze a Senate race's campaign spending. Due by next class. Jump to the full details on homework assignments. In class, we will focus on the six closest U.S. Senate races. Campaign Finance in 2014. Effect...

padjo.org

Tutorials | Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford University

http://www.padjo.org/tutorials

Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford. Tutorials for this class. A work in progress. Data Exploration with OpenRefine. OpenRefine is a power tool for cleaning data. In this tutorial, we learn basic operations for exploring the data in Refine. Clustering text facets in OpenRefine. OpenRefine gives point-and-click access to a variety of powerful text clustering algorithms. Getting Started with SQLite and Sequel Pro. An introduction to using SQL with a GUI client. The SELECT statement and FROM clause.

padjo.org

Bad big data | Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford University

http://www.padjo.org/2014-09-25

Public Affairs Data Journalism at Stanford. COMM 273D Fall 2014. Thursday, September 25. Just because it's data doesn't make it right. But even when all the available data is flawed, we can get closer to the truth with mathematical reasoning and the ability to make comparisons, small and wide. Fighting bad data with bad data. Baltimore's declining rape statistics. The Uber effect on drunk driving. Investigate Uber's purported impact on SF's DUI reports. Due by next class. Due by next class. But he did it...