06.26.09
Google Chart test
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06.28.07
Welcome to the Payroll Parade
We start the parade with university payrolls. There are three major universities in Arizona: Arizona State, University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University.
We have payrolls for all three:
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/articles/salaries_asu.html
UA Salaries
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/articles/salaries_ua.html
NAU Salaries
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/articles/salaries_nau.html
We also have a link to a page where people can comment on the salaries. It’s not the easiest thing to find. There’s some hiccup with our commenting system and the database being on the same page.
Here’s the link for it though, in case anyone wanted to use it and found it here:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0627salariescomments-ON.html
06.13.07
New stuff we’ve added
Check out some of the new databases we’ve added since the Data Central page has launched:
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/articles/fbi_crimestats.html
Search crime statistics for 2005 and 2006 for U.S. cities with a population of more than 100,000. This information collected by the FBI is broken up by violent and property crimes.
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/articles/assisted_living.html
Search this database of Arizona Department of Health Services enforcement actions against more than 300 assisted living facilities from April 14, 2004, through March 28, 2007.
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/articles/executive_pay.html
Arizona Executive Pay
Find out how much chairmen and chief executive officers of Arizona-based public companies made. This information from proxy statements also includes other executives who earned at least $1 million in 2006.
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/articles/longterm_care.html
Arizona Long Term Care
Search this database of Arizona Department of Health Services enforcement actions involving long-term care facilities from April 2004 through March 2007.
We’ve got a lot more coming too. Nevermind the fact this is all of our fast launch Caspio built stuff.
05.18.07
Phoenix Area data
Check it out. It’s our new database index page for AZcentral. We have full control of the page now and we will be adding things on a fairly regular basis. Tell me what you think and what we might add/change:
http://www.azcentral.com/datacenter/datacenter_index.html
02.27.07
Public Records Clearinghouse
While I was engaging in a good ‘ol public records request, I thought of an idea that’s been rattling around in my head for a few years.
Wouldn’t it be cool to make a web site that was essentially a free distribution network for public records? It would require a ton of work. I’d have to create a non-profit, raise a bunch of money for attorney fees, records acquisition and hosting costs. But the end result: a web site where public records could be downloaded for free by anybody, would be amazing.
The site could accept records from media outlets that have already acquired it or used it. The organization could actively seek information itself too. There’s a lot of sites that offer specific records for a fee. But the fee is a barrier to entry. It forces decisions to be made for budget reasons instead of public interest reasons.
Someone tell me why this idea wouldn’t work. Other than the obvious reason like money.
02.14.07
Goofy CAR story of the day
So I got tired of hearing how every holiday was the most dangerous day ever to be on the road. New Year’s! Christmas! Thanksgiving! Says who?!
I asked for and received crash stats from the state trans. dept. and did a very simple analysis. Over the five years of data I had, what day of the year had the most crashes on average, most crash-related injuries on average and the most crash-related fatalities on average?
The result shocked me.
#1 for crashes. #1 for injuries. Near the top for fatalities. Weird huh?
01.17.07
My First Useful Python Script
Adapting a python script by Derek Willis, I built a script that pulls down county by county results for the 04 U.S. Presidential election.
You can see the script here
Thanks to Derek and Ryan for getting me through some rough spots.
I’m working on another new script based off of the Willis base that will do another cool task for one of our reporters. More wrinkles though which means more to learn. I’ll post it when I have it done.
01.10.07
Rise of the Data Monkeys
Hey everybody. This is Ryan and I’s contribution to the world of CAR reporter blogs. At first, it will just be a place to show what we’ve been working on. We’re also going to use the site to work on web development skills so we can help out with the whole Information Center initiative here at Gannett.
Stay tuned.