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The Story of Wikipedia, Women Who Pioneered Programming and More #Mustreads

Plus, the challenges facing the New York Times and a new single from TV on the Radio.

viperagp via iStock

Good morning!

Here’s some freshly plucked content, brought to you by Re/code:

  1. Walter Isaacson, who wrote the big Steve Jobs biography that came out in 2011, has a new book out: “The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.” At the Daily Beast, you can read an excerpt from the book, focusing on the origins of Wikipedia. Particularly interesting about this bit are Jimmy Wales’s childhood obsession with encyclopedias and the early leadership struggles of the Wiki organization. Last week, Re/code Co-Executive Editor Kara Swisher sat down for an interview with Isaacson to talk about the book, which you can watch here.
  2. The first programmers in Silicon Valley were women. Single and married, young and old, these talented and largely forgotten women were the backbone of early computer programming work. The NPR show “Planet Money” made a roughly 20-minute segment all about these women, and how an ’80s pivot to marketing technology as a masculine interest pushed them out of the industry.
  3. Margaret Sullivan is the New York Times’ public editor, meaning her job is to solicit reader feedback and write about how good of a job the Times is doing. On Saturday, her second anniversary as public editor, she posted her roundup of the most pressing issues at the Times, a concise and useful way to get up to speed with some of the biggest challenges facing journalism as a whole today.
  4. After Glenn Greenwald, New York Times reporter James Risen is perhaps the biggest thorn in the side of America’s national security complex. And he might be going to jail sometime soon, for refusing to reveal a confidential source from his 2006 book about the war on terror. Risen talked to Salon about his latest book, the oddly similar legacies of our last two presidents and why he thinks the war on terror might never end.
  5. TV on the Radio is an indie rock band that has spent the last decade churning out four albums that are each brilliant and memorable in their own way. You could think of them as the American Radiohead. Their fifth album, “Seeds,” comes out on November 18. On YouTube, watch the mesmerizing video for the album’s already released single, “Happy Idiot.”

If you see any stories you’d like to send our way (or have any questions/comments about stories we’ve recommended), feel free to shoot an email to noah@recode.net.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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