[omaha] Open source projects/Hack Omaha

[James Drake]

Matt,

I'd be interested in putting my meager talents to work on project, maybe
sooner rather than later. Are there any left-over that weren't attempted?
The timing for volunteering may just work and learning something new may
just work better for me. I'm more comfortable with Perl now but would be
happy to work at a slower pace in Python too.

Jim


On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Matt Wynn <matt.wynn at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jeff Hinrichs and I had lunch last week and wanted to have this discussion
> on list. So pardon the royal Wes and other whatnot.
>
> The basic gist of our conversation was finding ways Omaha Python and Hack
> Omaha could play together. For those that don't know, Hack Omaha is an
> annual event/competition, sponsored by the World-Herald, to make cool civic
> projects. Generally, the projects start with civic information, and aim to
> make that information more useful, more fun, or just more accessible.
> (We're tentatively scheduled for Oct 18-20 this year, if it sounds
> intriguing).
>
> If I recall correctly, there were two ways we thought the groups could fit
> together:
>
> - First, of course, folks from the group could compete in Hack Omaha. I
> hope you do, but I understand giving up a weekend to code isn't always a
> great attraction. (Though this one will be better than the previous two...
> and I thought those were pretty fun).
> - Second, members could adopt projects after the competition, and either
> move them forward or convert them to Python. Case in point, the winner from
> the last event: https://github.com/mattdsteele/hackomaha-council-agendas.
> It pulls down nasty city council agenda PDFs from the city's website, then
> indexes them and makes them text-searchable. It's awesome. It's also in
> Perl.
>
> If a project is Pythonized, The World-Herald can host it on dataomaha.com,
> where we'd be super happy to credit anyone who had their hands in the app
> itself. So now we're working with the trifecta:
> - Fun open source projects that build community
> - And make local government data more useful
> - And make killer entries on a resume
>
> Am I missing anything, Jeff? And non-Jeffs, all of this might be bullshit.
> We also might be missing something key.
>
> Does any of this sound good? Is there anything you think we're missing?
> Tell us what sucks!
>
> -Matt
> _______________________________________________
> Omaha Python Users Group mailing list
> Omaha at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/omaha
> http://www.OmahaPython.org
>