Look, we* made an interactive election map!

If you’ve ever heard me try to explain What I Want To Do in journalism, aside from writing, I almost definitely mentioned the interactive NYT election graphics from the ‘08 race. As a reader I thought they did an outstanding job blending aesthetics and usability with an enormous amount of data, and then I became even more fascinated as a journalist after I heard some of the graphics guys talk about it last spring.

So I am very pleased to point out this interactive election map from The Uptowner, which Shane and I made yesterday to show voting trends in the past three elections for NYC mayor.

*And by “we” I mean the way Victor and I used to collaborate: I tried to articulate an ambitious vision, Shane confirmed my hopeful suspicions that it was in fact possible, and then I watched over his shoulder with sometimes-helpful design suggestions while he did magical things in Flash.

Running with camera

Every day on my run in Central Park I see things that would be nice to share via photographs, so today I took the opportunity while I was carrying my camera for the marathon. This is the south side of the reservoir looking toward the Upper West Side. It’s a much better view shortly after sunrise, because the light from the east makes the buildings glow orange and pink while the sky behind is still pre-dawn violet.

Mile 22 to Mile 24

It was a perfect day for the New York City Marathon: just chilly enough, just overcast enough.

I slept in as long as I liked, then took a look at a course map, tied my shoes and jogged over a few blocks east to check out the race. I thought I’d be too late to see the elite runners, but it turned out my timing was perfect. I’d just arrived at the southwest corner of Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, Mile 22, when the trucks drove by heralding the first women. I hadn’t thought about the unique race tactics of NYC streets, like edging your competitor into the disgusting curb puddles when you’re going around corners.

Things too long to Twitter

Additional things that happened yesterday, below:

Cecile’s first ice cream cake

Did you know children grow up in France without ever enjoying ice cream cake or baking chocolate chip cookies? Ridiculous. I have never been happier to be born American.

But if you can’t have a childhood with ice cream cake, you might as well have it as soon as possible. So Cecile had ice cream cake, and the whole class helped out. In true newsroom style we had to cut it with plastic knives, and drank wine from plastic glasses.

Reporting at City Hall

This is the committee room off to the side of the New York City Council chamber. I was there reporting today on a hearing about delayed GI Bill benefits this fall for student veterans, held jointly with the higher education and veterans committees.

It’s been a while since I was in a fancy government building, so that was kind of fun.

Back in the stacks, back in time

I found the old magazines section of the Butler Library stacks. Oh boy. If you suspected that after taking this photo I got absorbed in old 1945 issues of Ladies’ Home Journal for an embarrassingly long time, you would be right.

Just one click to support the news you read

This is the demo for News Tip Jar, a fake business my group presented in class today. We were assigned to come up with a plan for a new media-related business or innovation to an existing business, including the financial estimates and that sort of thing.

(There is no sound for the video, so don’t worry if you can’t hear it. I was going to add sound, then decided it wasn’t worth the time since it might not work during the class projection anyway.)

Our idea addresses the issue that sophisticated readers know quality journalism doesn’t come free, but don’t have a good way to support the variety of sites they read casually every day. News organizations, especially smaller ones, don’t have the infrastructure to establish a secure micro-donation system for their sites. We provide that connection in a simple and trustworthy way.

Or so the pitch goes. After working on the demo for a while I sort of forgot it wasn’t real.

There is actually something like this in the works, sort of. They should use our snazzy colors.

By the way, this was our final session of my business class, which is a new course added to the Columbia J-School curriculum this fall. It was a good class, though inherently depressing.

A great lunch

I packed the best lunch ever today (and actually had time to enjoy it): peanut butter sandwich, carrot sticks, sweet potato bisque, chocolate soy milk.

I almost always bring lunch from home, but usually it sucks.

Photos on my mind

Today I learned photography again, and I think this time I finally understand all of it. My teacher is so great. Earlier this year he explained light as water, and controlling the flow of light into the camera the same as you control a faucet. Then today he said learning to use a camera is a lot like learning to use an instrument – you have to understand the theory behind it and also practice, practice, practice for the muscle memory.

But later I was thinking about photography in a different way, the sentimental personal way. I was thinking about shared photographs, and the record of our lives now online on Facebook and other places. For someone who takes a lot of photos, I keep my online record pretty sparse. I had some Facebook albums at one time, maybe two of them, but I don’t do that anymore. Maybe I should, I don’t know.