Michelle Minkoff

The database is a key part of data journalism.  We spend a good amount of time making structured of the unstructured, and then we need to shove it somewhere so a web app can serve up relevant pieces, perform calculations to help us understand nuance.  Straight text files just have their limits. But does that mean you can't build a data app that dynamically updates if you don't know the difference between MySQL and PostgreSQL and the newest Harry Potter movie? -- Oh wait, that last one's a sequel, not SQL! *Wow, that was a bad pun Read More...

NOTE: This entry was modified on the evening of 11/9/10 to deal with typos and missing words, resulting from posting this too late the previous night.  Sleep deprivation isn't always a good thing -- although it allows one to do things more fun than sleep.  Like play with data. Note to self: Be more careful in the future Read More...

Building data-driven websites has many different applications, and to say that I'm close to mastering all the needed techniques would be a lie.  But if there's one thing I learned from my "summer" internship at the LA Times, it's that with some persistence, curiosity and masterful Googling, you can find what you need to know Read More...