“Sibling surprise” (Technology Review, the MIT alumni magazine) is fun for people who believe in the religion of genetics. Siblings reared apart were brought together as adults by DNA testing. It turned out that they had both gone to MIT:
[the brother] I had always believed that all of my potential came from my genetic blueprint. The newfound knowledge of Freedom’s and my biological roots has reinforced this. Many of my traits and interests seemed to come out of the blue, unrelated to the farm where I grew up. All of these attributes map to Freedom or my biological family. Every question I’ve ever had about my origin story has been answered.
Also in the MIT-specific portion of the same issue….
A celebration of Margaret Hamilton for (a) inventing “software engineering,” and (b) inventing the term “software engineer.” (The earliest references that I could find in the IEEE literature to “software engineering” were from the late 1960s, but the term is used as though it had already been in widespread use and would be well-understood. In the ACM literature, an early reference is from Alan Perlis in 1969, but again he uses the term without introduction, explanation, or credit. A “NATO and Software Engineering” article from 1969 talks about a 1967 study group recommending “a working conference on Software Engineering,” but no individual is credited with coining the term.)
A two-page obituary of Patrick Winston, an AI pioneer and one of the greatest teachers ever in MIT EECS.
A book by Susan Hockfield, former president of MIT, is reviewed: “Several of her examples are projects led by female scientists.”
A sad litany of death notices beginning with the class of 1970 and going backward. Apparently, none of us should count on living past age 70.
Without women there would not be any software engineering, or any software, for that matter!
From the Bible, Psalm 90, verse 10: “The days of our years are three score and ten.”
Father Time is undefeated.
Racism is the heretical belief that children are like their parents.