Localeaks needs a bit of fine-tuning

Got an email from Localeaks the other day alerting me that someone had submitted an anonymous tip for editors in Bakersfield.

Right on.

Localeaks is described as "a service for concerned citizens of the U.S. to provide anonymous tips to their local and state news organizations." Kind of like a localized version of WikiLeaks.

I was directed to create a Localeaks account, then download an oddly named ZIP file. After a separate email exchange with Localeaks' Matt Terenzio confirming this wasn't a joke, I downloaded the file, and prepared to dive into some juicy tips.

Here it is in the single .txt file in its entirety:

This might be a good story for you, I found a website that seems to obsess about the effects of classic-style video game arcades disappearing from US cities on American culture.
http://www.arcadeperfect.net/

Got it. Throwing our best reporters on the case.

As I reread that "tip," I was looking over my shoulder in search of a crew from "Punk'd." As I write this I'm still looking over my shoulder in anticipation of a crew from "Punk'd."

Sigh.

This was among 50 tips Localeaks shared with 300 U.S. news organizations. For Localeaks' sake, let's hope the other 49 had a bit of meat to them. Once bitten, twice shy.

Making Census data sing

The Riverside page for California Census dataDallasnews.com reacted quickly to the release of fresh Census population data on Tuesday, launching a simple but powerful database app that allows people to enter a specific address and get population data in their neighborhood.

The data is sorted by Census tract but mapped to the block level, so it's easy to see changes and population mixes within your area of interest.

DallasNews, a Belo property, made the app available to its sister site at the Riverside Press-Enterprise, which dumped in California data, and from which I pulled these examples for Bakersfield.

Top-level Census data for BakersfieldThe maps and charts here show changes in Bakersfield metro and the area around The Bakersfield Californian offices in downtown Bakersfield. Because some variables are fielded, it's easy to quickly view data by county, city and congressional district. 

Daniel Lathrop created the app and Ryan McNeill added the data sorting and analysis, programming in Rails, Census data sorted by specific address, in this case The Bakersfield Californian's downtown officesand integrating PostGIS, SQL Server queries and Google Charts for the mapped interface. McNeill said in a post on a Knight Digital Media Center listserv that, knowing the Census data was coming, he wrote the SQL queries in advance to speed launch of the app.

"Essentially I loaded in Louisiana data in advance, wrote out all the queries to pull out race, ethnicity and housing data for blocks, block groups, tracts, places, counties and congressional districts," McNeill wrote. "Then when the Texas data was released, we just poured it in." 

Smart, smart, smart.

Database reporting is often considered intimidating and time intensive, but this is a great example of jumping on data and turning around a simple but elegant and easy-to-use solution that has legs. 

Should e-books cost more than printed books? Maybe

A co-worker recently lent me a fantastic business book called "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action."

I've been so impressed with the book -- and I'm only halfway through -- that I decided I needed my own copy to mark up. When you borrow a book it's not exactly kosher to start leaving your own graffiti, no matter how valuable you might think your observations are. 

Markup is where the Kindle excels. I love being able to digitally highlight important information, see "public notes"  other Kindle readers of the book have highlighted, and view the Kindle community's most popular highlights to make sure I didn't miss any major points.

That layer of digital curating and social sharing is what gives the Kindle and e-reading an edge over paper versions. 

Having said that, I was bummed when I checked Amazon and learned the hardcover version of "Start With Why" could be had for $14,68, a full $4.31 less than the Kindle version. Really? 

I had never seen a Kindle edition that cost more than the printed counterparts. And I don't know the reasons why the Kindle price for "Start With Why" was higher than the hardcover price. It could be politics (some publishers don't want to promote low-cost e-books because their margins are lower). But something tells me someone smart figured out that in some instances, an e-book can demand a higher price because there's true value in the intangibles. 

Maybe "they" took their own advice and asked themselves "why?"