Looking for a winter break project? Here are two:
One: Duplicate this Krugman story and add Connecticut to the mix. Use the FRED Data. Now try making the chart in HighCharts.
Two: Use census data about county-level populations and incomes to help people figure out whether or not they’re rich. Play around with defining your terms: are you rich if you earn more than $250,000? What if you earn twice the local median household income?
Not sure where to start? Try some pseudocode. What’s the math? What would you need to look up? From there you can try to write your first django app (or, try it in Rails, but I’m no good with Rails). If that’s all already over your head, take a step back. Note that Zed Shaw recommends that you type everything yourself instead of cutting and pasting. Heed that recommendation. Your goal here is to learn a new skill, not to get to the end of the tutorial.