Remembering Alan Turing On His 99th Birthday

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Remembering Alan Turing On His 99th Birthday

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday June 23, 2011 @01:23AM from the your-machines-confound-me dept.

Blacklaw writes "Today marks the 99th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, a noted polymath and cryptanalyst who is regarded by many as being the grandfather of modern computing."

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Thank you by Haedrian · 2011-06-23 01:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

Thank you mister Turing. Sorry about the whole anti-gay thing.
Sent from my physical implementation of Turing Machine.
1. Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-23 01:40 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Hey, in the US we did the same thing with our World War II scientist-hero, only we started calling Oppenheimer a "communist" instead.
  Oppenheimer and Turing won that fucking war, and this is what they got for it.
2. Re:Thank you by Mr.+Slippery · 2011-06-23 01:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It was therefore right (in the sense of the community he was working in/for) to get rid of him.
  
  You are either ignorant of what happened to Turing, or a total asshole.
  Turing was not just let go from an intelligence related job, which would be bad enough. He was convicted of "indecency" and made to undergo chemical castration via estrogen injections. There is nothing "right" about what happened to him.
  
  --
  Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
  You cannot wash away blood with blood
3. Re:Thank you by Haedrian · 2011-06-23 02:05 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  English public schools are and always have been full of faggotry.
  Not sure whether you chose that word by accident - but "Fagging" (same root) was common in english public schools and it had nothing to do with homosexuality.
  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fagging
And shamefully treated too. by Gandalf_the_Beardy · 2011-06-23 01:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

I always wonder what more he would have gone on to if he hadn't been branded a pervert - one of the UK Govt's more shameful episodes.
As it was, the Turing machine remains an excellent means of terrorising computing undergraduates. I've never seen such confusion when we saw the concept for the first time in class.
1. Re:And shamefully treated too. by betterunixthanunix · 2011-06-23 04:54 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Andy Wiles was over 30 when he proved Fermat's Last Theorem...
  
  --
  Palm trees and 8
Re:Polymath? by Hazel+Bergeron · 2011-06-23 01:40 · Score: 4, Funny

Cockney rhyming slang for a bath. The man was a large iron/enamel basin. And basins give a ringing sound when you strike them. Two strikes, turings. Whence the Turing machine.
Re:Polymath? by Gandalf_the_Beardy · 2011-06-23 01:43 · Score: 3, Informative

Someone who is skilled in multiple different disciplines like Leonardo da Vinci, (Painting, sculpture, engineer, physicist, astronomer, anatomist, geologist, architect) or perhaps Jefferson, (author, lawyer, musician, botanist, diplomat)
Re:And Google forgot this... by Hazel+Bergeron · 2011-06-23 01:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

However.
Turing, victim of hypocrisis by Opportunist · 2011-06-23 01:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

While we're in dire need of your skills, we'll look past your "oddities", but as soon as the fag did his part he can as well go to hell.
How many good people do we have to lose due to hypocrites and stupid laws influenced by religion before we notice that the Gallileos and Turings did more to our progress as humans than all the bible thumpers together?

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Why 99 by agentgonzo · 2011-06-23 01:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

Slashdot is trying to atone for its past history of posting news stories months after they happen by being a whole year early for this particular one. Also, expect three threads on the subject next year.