Nerd Alert Issue 35: So easy a snake person could use it!

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"We cannot always build the future for our websites,
but we can build our websites for the future."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

HOT LINKS

What we're reading this week

  Adam: A lot of good ideas in this post by Olivia Cheng, a designer at the Sunlight Foundation, about how they’re working to make their design process more open.

  Ben: Here’s how a recent WordPress vulnerability was found. Don’t worry! The patch has already been released.

  Dani: Uber’s model to predict where we are actually going. Warning: fun statistics math ahead.

  David: A handsome, open source, DIY Netflix app to run on your server. BYO on the binge viewers.

  Kaeti: Research often means admitting what you don’t know and interrogating your assumptions. Scary stuff. Erika Hall breaks down why it’s so essential and how to make it happen.

  Ryan: Making self-driving cars, it turns out, is hard. Consider the split-second decisions the machine might need to make in an emergency situation and you'll understand why they're not (yet) in widespread use.

  Bert: This is why we can't have nice things.

This week's guest contributor: Retha Hill, Director of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab, Professor of Practice at The Cronkite School.

Look around your non-profit newsroom. Is there anything missing? Say, a brown or black face? If the answer is yes, you are more like mainstream media in one important regard -- diversity, or lack thereof. A new Nieman Reports has eye-opening looks at Race and Reporting and makes the case for more inclusion. But what is a better read is Alex T. Williams’ look behind the numbers into why we have a diversity problem today despite the availability of young journalists of color.

Check it out, then look around your newsroom one more time, then look in the mirror and ask yourself what you might need to change to do better.


Each week we ask someone from outside our team to contribute a link, tool or idea. Are you our next guest star? We think you might be. Send us a note at nerds@inn.org.

SHOUT OUT

Work we admire by our journalism peers

One year in Ferguson

An immersive multimedia project from St. Louis Public Radio.

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LISTEN: Sick beats.

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WATCH: Squad goals to be this cool and fearless.

GIF: Summer is for getting outdoors! Seize the weekend.

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