Beautiful Soup
Electoral Explorer
NYC Parking Tickets
Atlas
Google Spreadsheet to Map Wizard

Python: Using IDLE (so you can save the running output to a file), do the following:

1. Assign your last name to a variable and have it print it.
2. Using a for loop, print out the letters in your last name from that variable.
3. Build a list (they use []) of five items, saving it to a variable. Then access the fourth element. Remember, list counting starts at 0.
4. Import the urllib library, connect to this GW press release using the urlopen() function and read the contents of the page, saving them into a variable called html. Print out the contents of html.
5. Save the IDLE session as a file and email it to me.

Readings: USA Today on college athlete’s majors, Check out Oakland Crimespotting and EveryBlock.

UN Votes
Python
Python Regex
GW Faculty

Data Cleaning: Using whatever methods you can but at least search/replace (not hand-editing), take this page of faculty members and put it into Excel/CSV format. You should have fields for name, title, and degrees. Relax, you’ve done this before. Send me the finished file and your specific search and replace commands.

Critique: At least 500 words on this Washington Post story on agricultural subsidies.

Reading: Follow this tutorial on Python. It presumes using Windows, but if you’re using a Mac, it should have Python and IDLE installed as well. If not, you can download it from python.org. Be sure you’re using a version that’s less than 3.0 (ie., 2.4, 2.5 or 2.6 are fine).

Nixon’s Trips
Faculty Listings
Crime Log
Magic/Replace
Tampa Bay Mug Shots

Readings: Houston Chronicle on lobbying at the state level, Baltimore Sun on unpaid residential bills.

Census: Using the Census Bureau site, find the total sales of car washes in Allegheny County, Pa., according to the 2002 economic census. To do this, you’ll need to find the 2002 economic census and start your search for data there. Yes, this is a legitimate assignment.

Final Projects: Come prepared to discuss your progress over the past week.

Readings: This ESPN story on charter bus safety. Also, this guide to using Census data.

Campaign Finance Data: Using the record layout
, import the data inside this file into Excel, and then save it as a CSV file. Import that file into SQLite. Send me both the CSV file and the SQLite file by email. You will need to look at both the record layout and the data to help you with your import.

Final Projects: Have at least one possible idea for your project’s focus.

FEC Data
Nulls!
Recovery.gov

SQLite: Download the following CSV files: members, positions and votes, then import them into a new sqlite database using the SQLite Manager for Firefox.

Then, using what we’ve learned about SQL Joins, write queries to answer the following:

1. Show me how the members from California voted on the Captive Primate Safety Act.
2. Which Democrat has voted the most often against the majority position of the party?
3. How many times have at least 10 Republicans voted “Yes” on Approving the Journal

All three of these require joining at least two tables together; two require joining three tables. Remember the join syntax:

SELECT some_field, some_other_field FROM table1 JOIN table 2 ON (table1.field = table2.field) JOIN table3 on (table2.field = table3.field)

You can also join via the WHERE clause:

SELECT some_field, some_other_field FROM table1, table2, table3 WHERE table1.field=table2.field and table2.field = table3.field

Reading: Wichita Eagle on potholes.

SQLZoo: Joins
House Members
House Positions
NYT Visualizations