Girls Who Code

marvydarling:

Only .3% of female high school graduates enter college intending to major in computer science. This amazing 8 week summer program gives sophomore and junior girls the chance to get a head start and learn coding skills… For free.

newshour:

Almost one million veterans are waiting for their benefit claims to be processed, according to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting. One regional office in North Carolina was so overrun with claims folders that the sheer weight of their content exceeded the load-bearing capacity of the building itself.

These photos were included in a 2012 report from the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General. To see more photos and learn more about the backlog, go here.

thedailywhat:

Nice App of the Day: God.js

Over the past weekend, 60 artists and hackers gathered in Brooklyn for Art Hack Day, from which cameGod.js, a programming language that acts like scripture as users browse the web. Developed by Will Brand, Ramsey Nasser and Ivan Safrin, a user can enter in scripts, er, scriptures, that the program will obey. If a doctrine is violated too much, your higher power will scold you, resulting in a range of punishments including two dozen tabs full of animated GIF hellfire.

Hat tip goes to The Verge.

She ++ Documentary Trailer

polidigitalaffairs:

She++ is an organization founded by two female CS undergraduates at Stanford University which aims to increase the number of women in CS and provide mentorship for those already in the field. Next month, they are releasing a short documentary about women in tech. This trailer features Facebook’s Director of Engineering, Jocelyn Goldfein, who offers persuasive reasons why we need more women in STEM fields. If you need more reasons, check out this infographic.   

Organizations with similar or related goals: Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, and Girl Develop It 

Happy International Women’s Day, people!

#8BITMOOC: I'm a humanist, am I?

8bitmooc:

In my #duke21c class, our instructor @cathyndavidson remarked that after hearing about why I was so deeply passionate about #8bitmooc, that I was a bonafide humanist. This, of course, took me by surprise, since I just felt like I was simply addressing problems in the field of Computer Science…

This person has a super-interesting project.  Check ‘em out!

kthread:

killscreen:

Female coder’s inspirational letter to 8-year-old niece warms the heart

So here’s the link to the actual letter. There is this thing about arguments - you can always win them in the future tense. This is a solid list of hopes for the girls who are right now thinking about what they want to be when they grow up. More female programmers is a win for everyone.

Learn to code with free courses from Harvard

umassamherstjournalism:

Congratulations to Journalism’s own B.J. Roche, who was just awarded the SBS Outstanding Teacher Award!

BJ!!!!!

danielrt:

code available here.

Love.

sunfoundation:

ViziCities development diary #1: One month in

Just over a month ago I announced ViziCities, the latest project from Pete Smart and myself. We’re not quite ready to release it yet but make sure you sign up for the beta to be the first to use it. In the meantime, let me fill you in on what we’ve been up to this past month.

reporterly:

cnet:

ALERT: You can now use Google Image Search to find animated GIFs

Productivity just took a beating

Kevin Schaul, AP-Google Scholar and Data/Web Dev Intern at the Star Tribune, discusses the importance of data and data journalism in his latest blog for ONA. 

Read more: Overcome your fear of numbers, uncover great stories like these - Online News Association

(via onaissues)

Someday the best j-schools will have washout courses: and the washout courses will be math. 

Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present By Anderson, Bell & Shirky. Brutally reduced to 21 quotes by Brett Macfarlane

onaissues:

Haven’s had time to read the Tow Center report on Post-Industrial Journalism, which explores the transformation of American journalism? Brett Macfarlane has created a useful PDF with 21 key takeaways from the report. 

Via Poynter. 

onaissues:

foiashaming:

“I withheld public records to protect the rights of a dead guy who killed three people.”

The back story. 

Happy @sunshineweek! Share your FOIA horror stories on foiashaming.tumblr.com. #opengov

March 12, 2013

Our friends at the Student Press Law Center have revived a Tumblr for sharing conflicts in getting records from university administrations. 

onaissues:

propublica:

Good morning, and welcome to Get Involved, ProPublica’s second Tumblr home! In addition to keeping track of the crazy/silly/head-scratching things Officials Say, we’ll now be tumbling some of the great work happening within the ProPublica community and beyond. You can read more about our new Get Involved initiative here.

We’re looking forward to tracking great accountability journalism with you, and encourage you to give us a shout if you see something we should be paying attention to.  

A cool new project from ProPublica.