May 3rd, 2010 | by Derek | published in IRE
It’s dangerous to blog late at night, so take what follows with a grain of salt. It’s more stream of (semi-)consciousness than anything else, but I’m curious what other folks think. Note: I wrote this before Aron’s thread about conferences on Hacks/Hackers, but some of it relates to that question, too. Give IRE a lot [...]
March 7th, 2010 | by Derek | published in IRE
The 2010 CAR Conference begins on Thursday, and here are some of the sessions I’m trying not to miss: Thursday, March 11 Big Data: Analyzing legislation with machine learning. Always good to hear what Chase Davis has been up to. Open Source GIS. Now that mapping is more and more accessible, it pays to stay [...]
February 18th, 2010 | by Derek | published in IRE
This year’s computer-assisted reporting conference in Phoenix has a couple of new sessions on the schedule. One of them is an idea a couple of us have been pushing for a few years: lightning talks. A staple of technical conferences, lightning talks are based on the notion that while 45-50 minutes presentations are good, sometimes [...]
November 29th, 2009 | by Derek | published in IRE
Anyone in journalism who knows me knows how much of a debt I owe to an organization called Investigative Reporters and Editors. Sure, I liked playing with data before I found out about IRE, but the knowledge and support that I’ve received from IRE training, conferences and members has been the single most positive influence [...]
July 15th, 2009 | by Derek | published in Data, IRE
The folks at Sunlight today announced an effort to build a catalog for national and state datasets, going beyond what Data.gov is doing at the federal level. It’s a worthy effort, and as Clay Johnson notes in the blog post, they’re inviting participation because they are definitely going to need the help. I say that [...]