Some favorite projects
This is how Washington tries to keep election hackers at bay
November 8, 2016
Culmination of over a month of reporting on election security in Washington state.
Piling up the green in the race for Washington's public lands commissioner
November 3, 2016
Analysis of donors to an obscure statewide race in Washington.
Sound Transit 3: The money rolls in, on both sides
October 13, 2016
Update on a major local initiative, and a silly quiz.
Not how it usually works: When campaigns give money back to their donors
September 20, 2016
Short essay about how to account for refunds, and other issues with campaign finance data.
$14M fuels initiatives on the November ballot. Who's behind the money?
July 13, 2016
Analysis of donors to 2016 initiatives.
Some of WA's biggest Republican donors aren't from around here
June 30, 2016
Geographic analysis of Washington state GOP donors.
How do you feel about this, Seattle? Sound Transit donors often get big contracts
June 21, 2016
Deep dive into spending in a major local initiative.
Lead testing not in problem areas
February 26, 2016
Mapped locations of water main replacements in Chicago from 2010-2016.
Every Obama State of the Union
January 12, 2016
Charting all the applause during each of President Obama's eight State of the Union speeches.
Garry McCarthy crime stats retrospective
December 2, 2015
After the firing of Garry McCarthy as Superintendent of Chicago Police, put together a neighborhood-level look at violent crime statistics before and during his tenure.
Speed cameras investigation
June - November 2015
Along with reporter David Kidwell, spent six months investigating the largest automated speed camera system in America. Found millions of dollars in questionable tickets issued to drivers, and potentially over a hundred thousand tickets issued in error.<br><br>Helped build searchable database for readers of over 2 million tickets, flagging those that raised questions, along with overviews of every camera in the system.
Bears win probability
September 2015 - present
Live (near-real-time) win probability calculator. Implemented the probability algorithm based on publicly available methods and data sources, generating play-by-play estimates of the Bears' likelihood of winning a game as the game progresses.
Looking across the lake
September 15, 2015
Personal reflection on the vastness of Lake Michigan, having grown up alongside such an impressive and anonymous natural body. The piece, about just how far you can see, was originally intended to be an interactive exploration of the lake's size, but it wound up in print as well.
Rahm Emanuel's donors
March 30, 2015
Visualization built in collaboration with the Tribune's political reporters and editors. The piece depicts the largest donors to Rahm Emanuel's campaign fund, and combines their donations with lists of meetings, board members and other outside sources to compare what companies and individuals gave to the mayor, and what the mayor gave them.
School budget changes
August 12, 2015
Searchable database of the 2015 budget's impact on every public school in Chicago.
Officer-involved shootings
July 29, 2015
Analysis and visualization of 244 investigations into officer-involved shootings in Chicago by IPRA, the Independent Police Review Authority. IPRA sustained allegations against officers in 5 of the 244 cases.
Greece or Illinois: a basket-case quiz
July 9, 2015
Wrote most of the questions, answers and code for a quick little quiz on two economic catastrophes in the news at the time. I'm sure by the time you're reading this, they'll both have figured it all out though.
Grateful Dead in Illinois
July 1, 2015
Map and setlist history of every show the Grateful Dead ever played in Illinois.
Blackhawks shot tracker
April - June, 2015
Live (near-real-time) locations of all shots taken during every game of the Blackhawks' 2015 Stanley Cup-winning playoff run.
Lead poisoning
May 1, 2015
Collaboration with reporter Michael Hawthorne to depict how Chicago's rates of household lead poisoning have changed over time and by neighborhood.
Runoff precinct map
April 8, 2015
Precinct-level map of results in the April 7, 2015 mayoral runoff between Rahm Emanuel and Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.
2014 elections
November 4, 2014
Election-night results websites tracking national, state, local and regional elections. Under the hood, we were integrating results information from Reuters, a variety of county websites, and spreadsheets entered by hand on election night. We simultaneously rolled out versions for partner papers in Orlando, South Florida, Baltimore and Hartford in addition to Chicago.
Keep your data safe from a supernova
February 13, 2014
Column for Blue Sky, a tech-friendly business section online and in the paper, about the math behind - and importance of - strong passwords in a post-Snowden era.
@ILCampaignCash
November 2013 - present
Automated account that tweets any large ($1,000+) campaign contribution made in Illinois. Followed by reporters and staffers affiliated with most major news organizations and political campaigns in the state. Responsible for alerting, within seconds of their disclosure, several of the largest contributions in Illinois history.
Prep sports
Spreadsheet-based system for prep sports scoreboard. Only administration interface is the spreadsheet; sports desk enters scores and cron jobs update the scoreboard accordingly. My colleague Andy Boyle wrote up the project <a href="http://blog.apps.chicagotribune.com/2014/05/27/displaying-high-school-sports-data-with-no-databases/">here</a>.
NewsroomDB
Mongodb-based interface for Breaking News desk to update data on shooting and homicide victims in Chicago. Feeds regularly-updated apps tracking <a href="http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/shootings">shootings</a> and <a href="http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/homicides">homicides</a> in Chicago.
My commute
GoPro video of my commute to work one summer morning, attached to live-updating Leaflet map and a (small) bit of textual narration at some interesting moments.
Campaign finance maps
A first take at doing maps of significant donors and campaigns by ward in Chicago, just for fun (i.e., not for work or official publication).