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.

Is the secret to a good algorithm human input?

Tim Wu in The New Yorker, posits that Netflix's secret algorithm is a human:

Perhaps what we are seeing here is better explained by the rise of a different kind of talent. It is a form of curation ... whose aim is guessing not simply what will attract viewers but what will attract fans—people who will get excited enough to spread the word. Data may help, but what may matter more is a sense of what appeals to the hearts of obsessive people, and who can deliver that. And what that suggests is that competition will remain possible for companies that aren’t Amazon or Netflix, without massive piles of data on hand. It might be enough to know just which cults to bet on.

Inside a Camera at 10,000fps

The Slo Mo Guys show how insanely quick the inside of a DSLR camera moves when it takes a picture, by filming it at 10,000 fps.

Benjamin Millepied: Haut Vol

The Paris Opera Ballet takes flight above the French capital.

Sesame Street: What is Dance?