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Ron French on Betsy DeVos interview

Recently Ron French curated a story for bridemi.com about the 60 minutes interview with Betsy DeVos over the state of Michigan schools, as well as gun control, and her bad reputation. The interview was… well… it wasn’t good, it was in fact pretty bad. DeVos stumbled through almost every question that was asked and really showed how much she didn’t know about Michigan schools.

What was good was the way Ron curated the story using links to previous Bridge articles to let readers get extra information on the story that they might not know. A good article he links to is Michigan’s K-12 performance, but many other links in the article are used.

Other than links directly in the article to relevant stories on Bridge there are also links in between the breaks to sources that were used to create the article. A good link for those who are looking to find out more about their school districts is Stanford University’s district comparison chart.

Aggregation for the computer nerd

As many people know by now, I enjoy the tech and video game world. Keeping up with all the new games is a tough task considering you not only have to keep up with the consoles but also the developers and publishers. The tech world is even harder because new advancements are made every day. One way I keep up is through the website Reddit.

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Reddit is a site where any topic you can think of has a dedicated page. If you’ve heard of it, so has Reddit. All you have to do to start getting posts about your favorite topics is subscribe to their subreddit. Local news? r/Michigan. Politics? r/politics. Videogames? r/gaming. That is the naming convention Reddit uses, r/ what ever you want. And the subreddit I visit most often, r/pcmasterrace.

pcmr

r/pcmasterrace, or pcmr for short, is the subreddit for all things computer. Originally started as a subreddit to provide information on how to build gaming computers and why they are inherently superior to gaming consoles, pcmr has grown into something quite a bit bigger. A place to show off new computers, new industry advancements, talk about the latest games, and still find advice on how to ‘ascend to the glorious master race’.

pcmr is not purely news, but it is set up like a news paper. Sunday comics, breaking news, ads for businesses and products, and even fluff pieces, you just have to look at the tags. Even better than a news paper though is the ability to discuss the posts with like minded individuals which is done in the comments section of each and every post.

Data verification

In my first data story I wrote about how different data collection agencies calculate the graduation rates of certain colleges. Specifically I focused on The National Student Clearinghouse and Third Way. Because the story was about the graduation rates I actually didn’t have to verify the graduation rates of schools or states.

The data I did have to verify were the numbers I used to calculate……. I had to verify numbers like the total student population of schools, the percent of students who were undergraduate, and other volumetrics relating to those colleges in the study. These numbers were used to gain a better understanding of the colleges and students in the data story.

The way that most of my data was verified was actually a fairly simple process. I visited the web pages of the colleges in question and searched for the relevant data. One of the easiest was U of M – Ann Arbor, which had many data points right in their admissions site.

Interesting FOIA request

FOIA, or the Freedom of Information Act, was introduced in 1967 and allowed the public of the United States the right to request access to records from any federal agency. Mind you that is only request, under certain circumstances the government is allowed to deny those requests to information.

One recent FOIA request interested me because of the way it was handled. A woman by the name of Emma Best requested information on Operation Mockingbird which according to the CIA was an effort to wire tap the telephones of certain reporters, however due to various leaks it is believed that Operation Mockingbird was actually an attempt to control certain news media for the purpose of propaganda.

What was interesting about this request is that because the Mockingbird files were under the holdings of the presidential library before the presidential records act (PRA) they are actually not subject to FOIA, but rather the mandatory declassification review (MDR). As it turns out the files had already been released to the public so a FOIA request was not necessary anyway, the files can be found at muckrock.com.

$99 malware

Once again The Know brings attention to a new story in the tech industry. Recently a content developer for Microsoft Flight Simulator X launched a new model of plane available for purchase at a price of $99. What is interesting is that when the new plane model is installed another program that searches the computer for user passwords is also installed. The developer claims that the program was only sniffing for players that had pirated the game so the developer could press charges.

The Know does a good job in their video explaining both sides of the story, the redditor that found the program and the content developer’s response to the accusation. The Know also weaves in some comedy to make the story entertaining. Finally The Know clearly explains the facts of the story so personal opinions can be formed.