Turing and pride in Manchester

Here's the Alan Turing statue in Manchester, decorated with pride for the centenary, taken by Josh R with Jonnie B.

Happy birthday Alan Turing (via Nelson)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: computer science • History • lgbt • manchester • turing • uk

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Alan Turing: tragic homosexual martyr unfairly done to death by a hateful and repressive culture. (also dabbled in mathematics)
- Wallace
  
  Undeniably poorly treated, but some suggest not enough evidence to support suicide verdict http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092
  - http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli
    
    The police investigation was certainly botched (no toxicological tests done on the apple he supposedly ate) and the inquest into his death was rushed. If you add the fact that he was cremated before his mother even had a chance to return from Italy where she was on holiday (and you can thank Turing’s brother John for that bizarre decision), the true facts will likely never be known.
    
    http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2011/04/the-turing-problem.html
- Mitchell Glaser
  
  Turing, like Da Vinci, was an incredible genius in multiple fields and also homosexual. It was just that during Leonardo’s time they were more tolerant, to both genius and homosexuality.
  - toyg
    
    Probably not. The Catholic Church condemns homosexuality as ferociously as anyone… publicly. Privately, like with any other sin, it’s ok for you to do whatever you want, as long as you come to mass, confess regularly, and atone with the right amount of donations.
    
    Southern Italy has been Catholic for thousands of year and it’s historically been a haven for homosexuals, as long as they “stay in line”, don’t try to affirm their rights in public, and just engage in standard Catholic hypocrisy.
  - http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli
    
    Genius maybe. Leonardo was certainly tried for “sodomy” during his lifetime. What little we know about his sexuality is filtered by his need to stay as hidden as possible to save himself from the Church and its laws.
http://technicalfault.net technicalfault

Thanks for sharing my image :-)
NelsonMinar

Aw, thanks for the citation Cory!
planettom

I’m still interested in this bit of pseudo-Enigma code on the bench of this statue:
IEKYF RQMSI ADXUO KVKZC GUBJ
Ostensibly this decodes as FOUNDER OF COMPUTER SCIENCE.
Except it can’t. Letter 14 in both phrases is U, and Enigma didn’t work that way.

Could be a mistake on the sculptor…
but it also could be there’s a still undecoded message here.

Meanwhile, this adorable YouTube video of the statue passing the Turing Test for a dog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8DiOthAKek (45 second-video).
- renke
  
  http://benosteen.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/what-does-the-code-on-the-alan-turing-memorial-actually-say/
  
  an interesting blog post, trying to hunt down the cipher.