Michael Morisy's long-running (with many long rests) blog on media and technology. http://morisy.com/ Zappa library (https://github.com/zappa/Zappa) which lets you run a django app on AWS Lambda. but it requires stringing a few aws services together (lambda, api gateway, s3, maybe RDS for your database) and I am not sure how the costs all shake out. fly.io DigitalOcean pythonanywhere.com Opalstack https://render.com/docs/deploy-django Fri, 06 Jun 2025 02:00:00 -0700 http://morisy.com/2025-06-06-django-hosting/ http://morisy.com/2025-06-06-django-hosting/ Dave Guarino has an interesting post where he writes about software helpers: I spent much of this summer lucky to take part in a residency with a number of incredibly interesting folks pursuing ideas that are, I would say, non-obvious in the how. One of the topics I thought about... Sun, 05 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0700 http://morisy.com/2023-11-05-software-helpers/ http://morisy.com/2023-11-05-software-helpers/ Just need a place to store these. Will hopefully add over time. First, some helpful resources: Chua Hock-Chuan’s guide to Regex’s Regex Extracter by Zhangbohun for Chrome, which easily lets you run a regex right against a webpage your viewing. Extracting Datetime Was trying to extract the datetime from some... Sun, 06 Feb 2022 10:44:00 -0800 http://morisy.com/2022-02-06-random-regex-snippets/ http://morisy.com/2022-02-06-random-regex-snippets/ Just checking to see if this thing is still on. Tue, 22 Sep 2020 20:00:00 -0700 http://morisy.com/2020-09-22-mic-check/ http://morisy.com/2020-09-22-mic-check/ via Fri, 07 Jun 2019 08:35:45 -0700 http://morisy.com/2019-06-07-accidental-koan/ http://morisy.com/2019-06-07-accidental-koan/ Running a script to pull data for a story I’m working on, my terminal produced the following which I liked a lot: Increment the occurrences for Poison to a total of 1 starting on next keyword, Journalists Set a blank slate of years starting on next keyword, blackmail Set a... Thu, 21 Sep 2017 06:00:45 -0700 http://morisy.com/2017-09-21-accidental-poetry/ http://morisy.com/2017-09-21-accidental-poetry/ I can't remember a piece of media thinking I've enjoyed as much as Mel's Sandbox by Melody Joy Kramer. The above is just a line she used her her latest epistle, and I think it captures what I've always wanted in my media: To make me think in new ways.... Thu, 21 May 2015 02:32:45 -0700 http://morisy.com/2015-05-21-it-made-me-think-in-new-ways/ http://morisy.com/2015-05-21-it-made-me-think-in-new-ways/ Besides the anecdotes you got related to nail-salon culture, what's the most shocking thing you found? It took me over nine months to get the Labor Department to give me information from their database, which they are legally required to do based on the Freedom of Information laws. And the... Thu, 07 May 2015 12:41:14 -0700 http://morisy.com/2015-05-07-the-real-cost-of-broken-foia/ http://morisy.com/2015-05-07-the-real-cost-of-broken-foia/ Above, a few years of MuckRock usage visualized, showing how we've moved from mostly free accounts (yellow) to community (green) and professional (blue) accounts. I find it utterly unhelpful and delightful. Tue, 05 May 2015 18:01:12 -0700 http://morisy.com/2015-05-05-muckrocks-evolution/ http://morisy.com/2015-05-05-muckrocks-evolution/ Via MuckRock's spam folder, some wonderful literature: handed the kitchen as soon. Kind smile before they had meant. 3Si Good aftern̎oon swe֭ęt love! Thͭis is John called out of course. Having sex but if izzy sat down Neysa)) ÷ìNNot feeling well as soon for something. Maddie looked about your career... Mon, 30 Mar 2015 14:37:27 -0700 http://morisy.com/2015-03-30-markov-modernism/ http://morisy.com/2015-03-30-markov-modernism/ I'm on at 10:38. Tue, 24 Feb 2015 04:37:50 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-02-24-my-talk-at-stanfords-data-driven-conference/ http://morisy.com/2015-02-24-my-talk-at-stanfords-data-driven-conference/ [caption id="attachment_108" align="alignnone" width="660"] Image licensed under Creative Commons by Flickr user Johnson Cameraface.[/caption] Image licensed under Creative Commons by Flickr user Johnson Cameraface. It used to be pretty easy to grow an online audience, month-over-month, year-over-year. When I worked managing dozens of bloggers, I even had it down to... Tue, 17 Feb 2015 05:12:15 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-02-17-the-walled-garden-reapers-come-to-collect-their-due/ http://morisy.com/2015-02-17-the-walled-garden-reapers-come-to-collect-their-due/ Fri, 30 Jan 2015 19:55:28 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-01-30-obituary-request/ http://morisy.com/2015-01-30-obituary-request/ Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:17:42 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-01-27-the-view-from-brooklyn/ http://morisy.com/2015-01-27-the-view-from-brooklyn/ Because California. That's why. Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:51:06 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-01-23-why-is-this-statue-in-the-public-transit-station/ http://morisy.com/2015-01-23-why-is-this-statue-in-the-public-transit-station/ John Herrman is one of my favorite media writers, generally because it can so precisely diagnose vague maladies I feel in the media landscape. His 2015 predictions are no exception, though maybe it's ironic that this was one of my favorite bits: No human, for the entirety of 2015, will... Tue, 06 Jan 2015 05:10:07 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-01-06-a-2015-prediction/ http://morisy.com/2015-01-06-a-2015-prediction/ Mon, 05 Jan 2015 19:02:06 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-01-05-certified-space-technology/ http://morisy.com/2015-01-05-certified-space-technology/ Via the New York Times: “It is your position that, regardless of any threat of sanctions, you would not testify as to the identity of the source or sources who provided information for Chapter 9?” Mr. Trump asked. “Yes,” Mr. Risen said. Mon, 05 Jan 2015 16:02:40 -0800 http://morisy.com/2015-01-05-james-risen-in-tense-testimony-refuses-to-offer-clues-on-sources/ http://morisy.com/2015-01-05-james-risen-in-tense-testimony-refuses-to-offer-clues-on-sources/ Via Business Insider: If the deal goes through, it could open up a whole new revenue channel for The Post. Traditional print newspapers and magazines, like The Post, saw their businesses decline in recent years as they've struggled to keep up with digital. But with a new CMS-licensing business, The... Tue, 30 Dec 2014 13:29:05 -0800 http://morisy.com/2014-12-30-the-first-rule-of-content-management-systems/ http://morisy.com/2014-12-30-the-first-rule-of-content-management-systems/ The original and perhaps best known instance of Homicide Watch, Homicide Watch DC, is shutting down. I have a whole lot of thoughts, feelings, and opinions here, but founder Laura Amico has a wonderful summary I can't beat: The question I’m most often asked about Homicide Watch DC is what... Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:12:09 -0800 http://morisy.com/2014-12-29-homicide-watch-dc-shutting-down/ http://morisy.com/2014-12-29-homicide-watch-dc-shutting-down/