The Daily Emerald’s Ivar Vong breaks down a homepage takeover experiment.

New year and lots of event planning underway. Plus, we’re entering awards entry season: the IRE deadline is this Friday.

Reporters, designers, developers, and editors who worked on the NYT’s Snow Fall explain how they pulled it off.

Dan Sinker, head of Knight-Mozilla OpenNews, gets a year-in-review post in under the wire.

Our own Ryan Pitts on the tools that helped him do better work and the projects and sites that inspired him in 2012.

The Chicago Tribune’s Heather Billings talks about the methods, tools, and changes that made her year.

The AP’s Shazna Nessa breaks down five breakthrough design developments and news features from 2012.

ProPublica’s Al Shaw breaks down five outstanding news apps and interactive design choices from 2012, and one game-changer from 2011.

Knight Lab executive director Miranda Mulligan talks about five awesome things from the tech-in-news world from 2012.

Interactive features, new code, and blog posts dealing with the problems of working with data and code in and around newsrooms.

The last event roundup of the year. Why not spend break applying for some fellowships or awards competitions?

Last month, ProPublica launched the Living Apart series with an investigation into the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and an interactive map showing the migration of African Americans from 1890-2010.

The year’s winding down, but there’s at least one more hackathon.

Ryan Pitts breaks down the recipe for a holiday lights map app, with special nods to artisanal admin interfaces and full-screen BoyerMaps.

Immigration hackathon this weekend in Los Angeles and an intro programming training tonight.

Jacob Harris breaks down the data, the code choices, and the rationales behind the NYT’s results loader for the US 2012 elections.

Knight Lab and local Hacks/Hackers meetups this week. Two multi-city, international hackathons this weekend as well as a Hurricane Sandy hackathon in New York.

Alyson Hurt explains how the NPR apps team created, tested, and built its Swing State Scorecard and covered results on Election Night.

Last week, ProPublica released an explainer on fires, chemical spills, explosions, and other incidents related to US oil and gas pipelines, along with an interactive map and a series of charts and tables. Reporter-designer-developer Lena Groeger explains how the project came about, what challenges she encountered, and how she assembled the final presentation.

More hacking in London this weekend, and looking ahead: multi-city international hackathons next weekend and a hackathon focused on immigration in early December. Plus, trainings, meetups, and a fellowship deadline.