Grace Hopper: The Queen of Code

The FiveThirtyEight Signals Series: 

You probably don’t know the name Grace Hopper, but you should.

As a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, Hopper worked on the first computer, the Harvard Mark 1. And she headed the team that created the first compiler, which led to the creation of COBOL, a programming language that by the year 2000 accounted for 70 percent of all actively used code. Passing away in 1992, she left behind an inimitable legacy as a brilliant programmer and pioneering woman in male-dominated fields. 

Hopper’s story is told in “The Queen of Code,” directed by Gillian Jacobs (of “Community” fame). It’s the latest film in FiveThirtyEight’s “Signals” series.

The School of Life: How to Find Fulfilling Work

The School of Life: The key to finding fulfilling work is to think a lot, analyse one's fears, understand the market, reflect on capitalism - and to watch this film.

A Museum in England Is Hiding a Forgery Among Its Masterpieces

Smithsonian.com shares a story of a South London gallery sparking a very valid art discussion:

What makes one piece of art more valuable than the next?

The curators at Dulwich Picture Gallery are bringing new life to the old question with a creative experiment. They will place a £120 replica of a highly prized painting into their collection, which includes work by Rembrandt, Poussin, Ruben and Veronese. But don’t expect any help from museum officials on determining which are authentic and which one is the fake. Instead, the Guardian reports, patrons will be challenged to make the identification themselves.

The Smithsonian Design Museum Tells the Story of User-Centered Design Through 120 Beautiful Products

"Beautiful Users," a new exhibition at the Smithsonian Design Museum, tells the story of user-centered design through 120 objects. From Dreyfuss' Honeywell thermostat—his archives are housed at the museum—to prosthetic limbs and app-enabled air conditioning units, the products chart this history of designing with respect to human anatomy and behavior, up through the open-source, maker culture we see today. "The phrase 'designing for people' is giving way to 'designing with people' as creative teams seek more egalitarian relationships with an increasingly well-informed public," writes [Ellen] Lupton [senior curator of conteporary design at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum], in the exhibition catalog.

Paola Antonelli: Walk the walk

MoMA curator Paola Antonelli takes on the "good girls" of design by complicating commonly accepted notions of what design is and does in the modern world. With exhibitions on video games, violence, and the beautiful lethality of everyday objects, Antonelli shows us the primary job of the curator is to provoke, not comfort.